093LZ

quick question; I have about a half bottle left, as long as it is sealed tight with the cap, the remaining ceramic should be fine for next year right? Meaning, does it have a shelf live?

1 hour ago, falcaineer said:

Man that looks NICE!! 

1 hour ago, Ls1transam said:

Whoa nice work.

thank you!

8 minutes ago, imcrazy said:

Looks good! Why don't you drive in the rain though? I've never understood that.. I can see no snow/winter time when salt is on the road but, what does rain do to harm a vehicle? 

Its the car dude, it dyno'd 613 with my build, its extremely difficult on these tires to keep it straight even driving easy, add some slick spots and it isnt worth it. If I get caught in a rain storm, no biggie. I dont worry too much about my driving abilities, I worry about everyone else; anytime you add moisture to the equation of the general population not being able to drive to begin with, no bueno! I have a take home work car, so if its raining or whatever, I use that. And purposely driving in the rain I go from a two hour full blown wash from a 30 minute rinse less wash. And with a black car, let me tell you, ive lost so many years off my life as it is with keeping this car perfect!

car is done, only had like two high spots that I have to use BG to get rid of it. Im pretty blown away with the ceramic, I really didnt think I could get any more depth to the paint with all the other adams products I use.

I washed my MF pads last night by hand, scrubbing the crap out of them. Just hit a panel and it came out pretty good. Im thinking the last time I washed them, it wasnt good enough and something was caught in the pad. Looks like the damage was self inflicted, I caused a ton of micro scratches and thats what I was seeing. 

8 minutes ago, shane@detailedreflections said:

Damage is inevitable. Cars are driven. People touch them. Dust settles. All the little things that can damage a finish. It’s why paint correction exists...so we can sometimes fix it. 

 

Your clear coat is roughly the thickness of a post-it note. It’s literally that thin. When we polish, we are taking mils or microns off (your choice of measurement). Start compounding with an aggressive pad and you can take some serious material off. 

 

If you’re worried about what’s left of your clear coat, take your vehicle to a detailer and ask if they can measure your paint for you.  Not all detailers will have the capability, but someone serious about their work will have a gauge. You can buy an inexpensive one on eBay or amazon. The DT-156 comes to mind. That was our first one but it stopped working suddenly...so we have a DeFelsko unit now. 

 

I don’t know how aggressive you’ve been polishing over the years. Is it all fine polish?  Or are you compounding every time?  We measure the paint and we measure inside the door jams where the clear isn’t heavy. Subtract that from the paint measurement and that’s roughly your clear coat. 

 

If you strike through the clear coat, it’ll look dull. And you’ll have a visible line around it most of the time. Clear coat protects UV. Don’t remove all of the UV protection it offers. 

Light polishing, except when I had some baked in water spots. Never rotary, always a PC or flex with microfiber or foam pads. Here's a pic and it's tough to see, but I did this and i dont know how. 

15 minutes ago, shane@detailedreflections said:

If it’s what we call “eye clean,” meaning it looks perfect in the sun, it’s good enough. You can ruin paint chasing perfection. Also, once you pull the top 1/3 of the clear coat off you lose the UV protective properties of the clear.

 

This is exactly why we measure every car we take a polisher to. That way we know how aggressive we can be chasing the defects. 

 

In the the real world, nobody is going to look at your car under harsh LED lighting. We use them because we want to see the defects. When we want to see how it’ll look outside, we soften the light with umbrellas. 

 

One of my concerns is...why are you polishing a car not subjected to the elements so much?  Correction/polishing should be an occasional thing. Not every time you detail. Food for thought. 

Guess its not the LED's, I moved on to a panel that wasn't polished today, but was last year, and its perfect. I cannot figure out what happened to my detailing tools from November (when I used them last) until now. They are all in a sealed container sitting right behind my z06 in a heated garage. So its definitely something I did, not the lighting. 

To answer your question about correcting/polishing, I was just OCD before applying the ceramic coating. I believe that no matter how careful you are cleaning a car, you will damage the clear one way or another. Maybe way off since you do it for a living. In your experience, if someone has run the clear coat too thin, and begins light paint correction, what physically do you see? Have I knocked the clear down so low that any type of polishing results in a hazy scratched appearance? 

About to ceramic coat my black C6Z06 which never sees rain,garage queen, etc. Ive been an Adams customer forever and consider myself a good detailer. So im hitting the car with a once over of FMP which it probably didnt even need. Car looks flawless in the sun, flawless under halogen and then I hit it with LED. What in Gods name am I seeing? I see super fine micro scratches! Couple of things concern me, ive polished this car so many times, Im worried the clear coat could be wearing thin. If its perfect in the sun, shouldn't that be good enough? I would take pictures, but the flash on my camera will show nothing. I have to use LED at the perfect angle to see the imperfections. At what point is enough, enough?

My Z06 was worked on by a performance shop two summers ago and unfortunately the car was parked outside during the daytime for 2 months  . During this time, of course it was rained on and the sun baked in some nice nasty water spots. When I got the car back I planned on a full detail anyway, but when I detailed in my traditional fashion of under halogen lamps in a dark garage, I noticed the damage. So after a few passes with a MF pad and FMP it took care of it, at least I thought. It took a good few months for the Americana to wear off and I noticed the spots were back. So the following summer (last year) I went at it again and ASSumed again, that the MF pad on the flex was surely enough to level the clear coat around the spots and eliminate them. Fast forward to today and the sun hit the decklid at the perfect angle, guess what I saw? These gremlins were back. Now I think, I realized my mistake; the residual polish was filling in any imperfections and making them impossible to see. Since I didnt wipe down my work with IPA afterwords, I couldn't see them. 

Today I did a small test section with the flex and orange MF pad and then wiped it with straight IPA to make absolutely certain it worked and I didnt see any spots. But I thought I was certain the last two times and continued on. Am I missing something???? Ill try to take pics, but in order to see the spots, it has to be in perfect lighting. My Dad says im nuts because 99% of the population wouldnt be able to see them, but yes, I do lose sleep over it!

For what it's worth I have the Rupes 21 and 15 and the Flex. All great tools but on really trashed paint IMHO the Flex is king followed by the 21 with the smaller backing plate. I've had used the Flex longer so maybe I'm more used to it but it just knocks out defects better. Benefits to the Rupes is its smoother,easier to master and will finish down on the polishing step better also runs a lot cooler than the Flex. The Rupes can knock out trashed paint but just takes slightly longer. Upgrading from the PC either one is a huge upgrade and my Flex is 3 years old with many,many uses and the Rupes I've had for a year and a half and both have been rock solid. Also the Rupes may stall on tight curves but if your new to a more powerful machine it will prevent damage where as with the Flex it won't stall and if your careless or paint is already thin there's a small chance you could damage the paint.

Thank you for your insight!!!!

The Flex is the only tool in our line that has forced rotation of any kind.

Late post I know, tons of searching; aside from forced rotation enabling you to worked harder to reach contours, how is it better than the rupes???? I have a few more 50 threads to read through to figure out what my next move is from the PC. Needless to say, my poor baby Z06 that only has 8k miles on it, was outside the performance shop all summer. The water spot etching is......painful. A few passes on my PC with the orange MF pad knocked a lot out, but not all. I want to buy the next step up, money is not an issue to help my sleep better at night and fix my car. 

Well, in my OCD nature, I was cleaning around the 427 emblems on my Z06 with a q-tip. Well the q-tip was contaminated somehow and I created some annoying surface scratches. Its impossible to get the PC in there to correct it. Anyone have any ideas how to remove scratches in an area that a PC wont reach? Other than removing the emblems, which Im seriously considering. 

this is what i figured, but just wanted to make sure............like I said, I know physically I can do it, but not that I should...........thanks guys

I was going to a car show and applied a two coats of americana because my pc pads were not dry for me to apply MSW. I know physically I can apply MSW over americana, but would there be an ill effects visually? Should I wait a couple of months or washes for the americana to wear off before MSW?