I am no pro detailer - not by a long chalk. I'm not far past realising that a sponge is bad!! Over the last few months I've bought a few products here and there - more specifically, two job lots of stuff from CleanYourCar.co.uk. Spent about £100 first time round on Black Hole, sealant, some wax and a couple of wheel brushes. Next job lot was starting to get more serious - the DAS 6 Pro dual action (DA) polisher, a stack of pads and a few more products to go with it - including a clay bar. This does not inclde the odd trip to Halfrauds to buy a couple of mitts, a microfibre (MF) mitt and a couple of other oddities - I should say that I have bought quite a few MF towels from wherever I see 'em - pound shops (not great quality but OK for using on stuff other than the bonnet and bodywork basically). So I guess what I've really wanted to do is to really get stuck in to a proper clean cycle and also to see whether I can emulate some of the stuff I've seen online and be any good at detailing - bitten by the bug and all that. The car is awesome and probably deserves the treatment!. 
My ladyfriend just will not let me spend the amount of time I'd like getting the car into shape - so I've been putting the "big job" further and further backwards in time. So last weekend I reserved the bank holiday Monday, told her to go do something nice and got on with it. I'd had a few the night before so didn't get started until about 10am and didn't get done until about 11pm. I missed out - to my mind - about three stages which I'd have liked to have done if I'd had more time and more facilities. Some of the phtoos below will put a bit of meat on the bones of this tale but, in summary, I don't have a useable garage, only a small-ish drive, a hedge pretty close to that and I've never machine polished anything in my life before! Anxious to say the least. It also took absolutely ages because I had to build the gazebo after I'd done the washing part - it all adds up - a one man build took me about an hour in itself.
Anyway, the cleaning involved:
- rinse
- wheel clean using the wheel arch brush, pokey-through-the-spokes long brush and mini lugnut brush
- 2 bucket wash using two mitts
- dry with large MF towel, pat down
- clay bar all over the vehicle exterior, water as lube (Bilt Hamber clay - only requires water) - I have no idea when my car was last clayed (I certainly haven't done it on this car or any other - ever) - this stage aone took 3 hours and the paint was beautifully smooth afterwards
- Wipe all over with spray wax as Imoved from panel to panel with the clay - just a cheapo Turtlewax spray, more used as an impurity remover/lubricator rather than as a wax
- DA polish with Meguiars Ultimate Compound, wiping down panel by panel - just one pass - probably would have liked to have done 2 passes as there are still some swirls left - I think a slightly harder pad would work next time and I probably should have applied more pressure as well. I also have some AG Super Resin Polish (SRP) from a few years back (probably the old stuff rather than the apparently new improved stuff) which I would ideally have liked to use after the Ultimate Compound
- Black hole applied with DA - just one pass and a pretty wuick one at that, would have preferred two but by this time it was getting late... I think it may have been wise to keep this one for 20 mins or so but time was ticking away
- sealant wiped all over the car by hand, left for 30 mins and then wiped off. I do have a pad for sealant application but, having wiped it on by hand, I'm not sure I'll use the pad next time either. Just one coat - again, two is preferred I believe.
Products used:
Wheel brushes, Chemical Guys blue wheel cleaner, MF mitt
AG car wash shampoo conditioner, two lambswool mitts
Bilt Hamber clay bar and water
TurtleWax spray wax + MF towels
DAS 6 Pro with green Hexlogic pads (5.5 inch and 4 inch)
Meguiar's Ultimate Compound
PoorBoys Black Hole - blue hexlogic pad
Poorboys EX-P sealant - MF applicator
That's it. As you can see from the above, ideally I might have done:
- another Ultimate compound coat
- a SRP coat
- possibly another Black hole coat
- another sealant coat
- at least one WAX CCOAT - which I just ran out of time for!!
Realistically, it's a two day job unless you are litterally all set to go from the first minute of the day with a large garage and all your kit set up and know exactly what you are doing. Oh, and if you're stuck like me and use a gazebo or similar, whilst it did do a very good job at keeping most airborne impurities (pollen and the like) away from the car, do try and get one that is waterproof!!
Anyway, a few shots to show how I got along.
I should've taken a load of shots beforehand but didn't - although I did get this one of the bonnet (power bulge is towards the top):
This shot shows (badly) some of the marring pre=treatment:
Once the wash was completed, I needed to get on with the clay so had to start to build the gazebo around the car!:
This is mid-clay:
And post-clay:
Then I taped up the car - again, a first for me!:
Looks like a few shots of the new i8 (in black ofc):
Next was the actual polish stage. I didn't do any 50/50 shots because i was getting worried about the time so skip-to-the-good-bit:
iPhone shot first:
Then with the proper camera after the Black Hole had been applied:
Finally, couple of shots of the sealant:
I used PoorBoys EX-P sealant - very easy to apply with a MF applicator pad, goes on very easily but is slightly dusty if you leave it as the bottle says you should. It certainly did a good job, however, as the next shots of the water beading a few days later show:
Here's a shot of the overlight in reflection once the work was done. It looks a bit strange, as if there are watermarks everywhere but it is really the metallic flakes (greens, purples, reds blues in the main) which are not in focus:
By that time, I had to stop. Had to be up early the next day for a golf game (which I lost - bad back I reckon) and knew I'd have to dismantle the bloody tent before I could go!
Anyway, end of post. Phew!
Stevo
My ladyfriend just will not let me spend the amount of time I'd like getting the car into shape - so I've been putting the "big job" further and further backwards in time. So last weekend I reserved the bank holiday Monday, told her to go do something nice and got on with it. I'd had a few the night before so didn't get started until about 10am and didn't get done until about 11pm. I missed out - to my mind - about three stages which I'd have liked to have done if I'd had more time and more facilities. Some of the phtoos below will put a bit of meat on the bones of this tale but, in summary, I don't have a useable garage, only a small-ish drive, a hedge pretty close to that and I've never machine polished anything in my life before! Anxious to say the least. It also took absolutely ages because I had to build the gazebo after I'd done the washing part - it all adds up - a one man build took me about an hour in itself.
Anyway, the cleaning involved:
- rinse
- wheel clean using the wheel arch brush, pokey-through-the-spokes long brush and mini lugnut brush
- 2 bucket wash using two mitts
- dry with large MF towel, pat down
- clay bar all over the vehicle exterior, water as lube (Bilt Hamber clay - only requires water) - I have no idea when my car was last clayed (I certainly haven't done it on this car or any other - ever) - this stage aone took 3 hours and the paint was beautifully smooth afterwards
- Wipe all over with spray wax as Imoved from panel to panel with the clay - just a cheapo Turtlewax spray, more used as an impurity remover/lubricator rather than as a wax
- DA polish with Meguiars Ultimate Compound, wiping down panel by panel - just one pass - probably would have liked to have done 2 passes as there are still some swirls left - I think a slightly harder pad would work next time and I probably should have applied more pressure as well. I also have some AG Super Resin Polish (SRP) from a few years back (probably the old stuff rather than the apparently new improved stuff) which I would ideally have liked to use after the Ultimate Compound
- Black hole applied with DA - just one pass and a pretty wuick one at that, would have preferred two but by this time it was getting late... I think it may have been wise to keep this one for 20 mins or so but time was ticking away
- sealant wiped all over the car by hand, left for 30 mins and then wiped off. I do have a pad for sealant application but, having wiped it on by hand, I'm not sure I'll use the pad next time either. Just one coat - again, two is preferred I believe.
Products used:
Wheel brushes, Chemical Guys blue wheel cleaner, MF mitt
AG car wash shampoo conditioner, two lambswool mitts
Bilt Hamber clay bar and water
TurtleWax spray wax + MF towels
DAS 6 Pro with green Hexlogic pads (5.5 inch and 4 inch)
Meguiar's Ultimate Compound
PoorBoys Black Hole - blue hexlogic pad
Poorboys EX-P sealant - MF applicator
That's it. As you can see from the above, ideally I might have done:
- another Ultimate compound coat
- a SRP coat
- possibly another Black hole coat
- another sealant coat
- at least one WAX CCOAT - which I just ran out of time for!!
Realistically, it's a two day job unless you are litterally all set to go from the first minute of the day with a large garage and all your kit set up and know exactly what you are doing. Oh, and if you're stuck like me and use a gazebo or similar, whilst it did do a very good job at keeping most airborne impurities (pollen and the like) away from the car, do try and get one that is waterproof!!
Anyway, a few shots to show how I got along.
I should've taken a load of shots beforehand but didn't - although I did get this one of the bonnet (power bulge is towards the top):
This shot shows (badly) some of the marring pre=treatment:
Once the wash was completed, I needed to get on with the clay so had to start to build the gazebo around the car!:
This is mid-clay:
And post-clay:
Then I taped up the car - again, a first for me!:
Looks like a few shots of the new i8 (in black ofc):
Next was the actual polish stage. I didn't do any 50/50 shots because i was getting worried about the time so skip-to-the-good-bit:
iPhone shot first:
Then with the proper camera after the Black Hole had been applied:
Finally, couple of shots of the sealant:
I used PoorBoys EX-P sealant - very easy to apply with a MF applicator pad, goes on very easily but is slightly dusty if you leave it as the bottle says you should. It certainly did a good job, however, as the next shots of the water beading a few days later show:
Here's a shot of the overlight in reflection once the work was done. It looks a bit strange, as if there are watermarks everywhere but it is really the metallic flakes (greens, purples, reds blues in the main) which are not in focus:
By that time, I had to stop. Had to be up early the next day for a golf game (which I lost - bad back I reckon) and knew I'd have to dismantle the bloody tent before I could go!
Anyway, end of post. Phew!
Stevo
