Lighting **Update with finished pics!**

[093LZ]

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?

Edited May 2, 2018 by 093LZ
update

[shane@detailedreflections]

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. 

[093LZ]

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? 

[shane@detailedreflections]

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. 

[093LZ]

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. 

[shane@detailedreflections]

Unfortunately that photo makes it difficult for me to see exactly what it is. If it’s hazy, it could be too much product build up?

[LSX Maestro]

I would try a light Finishing Polish, since we're on Adam's forums, just try their Finishing Polish if you have it.  That will give you a nice level, shine, and deep clean and just do an IPA/Coating Prep wipe-down and apply the Ceramic Coating.  Call it a day.  Now if the car looks like it has spider webs on it in the sun then that's a different story.  

[093LZ]

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. 

[pirahnah3]

Well, hopefully it was that simple of a solution, live and learn is the best advice from this. Not to sound cruel about it but at least you know its something easy to fix going forward. 

[093LZ]

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.

[falcaineer]

Man that looks NICE!! 

[Ls1transam]

Whoa nice work.

[imcrazy]

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? 

[093LZ]

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!

[Rich]

Great job!  

[Black Bowtie]

9 hours 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? 

 

Dirty rain water gets into every nook and cranny of a vehicle, and can take a lot of time to clean. If its not an everyday driver, no sense taking it out into the rain.

[zeps7784]

Cant ever have enough shine!

 

[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?

[Laid GP]

For what it’s worth I did my former truck about 18 months ago and kept all the coating, prep and boost in a cool dry place and I just used some of the leftover coating to do my Jeep yesterday and it worked just fine.