Update: August 21, 2011
Won Best Muscle Car at Las Juntas show in Martines, Ca.

The folllowing photoblog is from 2009. None of the processes I used then are in my repetoire now.
With the incredible advancements in compounding and polishing products, everything but Menzerna has been changed. The polishers, pads, polishes and compounds are all new and incredible.
Even the sealants and waxes are completely new.

I completely reworked this Mustang the week before in 2 days, fully re-polished the body and glass and applied 2 coats of sealant and also wax, detailed the interior and the underside chrome, taking the 1980's wheels off to clean the interior of the rims as well as completely cleaning the tires and conditioning them. We then cleaned up the discs, painting where necessary and detailed the engine compartment too.

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Car is completed:11/24/2009
Extremely difficult, very soft clearcoat.
All processes caused surface marring until using Menzerna PO 85RD (finest polish available)

Any microfibre towel, except Meguiars new towel, would micromar the clearcoat,
even $20 "top of the line" microfibre towels.
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Start. Under cover for several years...

That isn't dust on the fender. It is the condition of the clearcoat after several
"attempts" by earlier detailers to correct the issues.

All paint, no matter how bad the condition will reflect light. What's very obvious about this
is that the passenger side is completely devoid of clarity. The sun is on that side.

We think the painter added Gold Metalflake to the first clear layer, or on top of the Black
before laying down the first coat of clear.

Crossbrace and strutbrace + shocktowers have been removed.

Preliminary photos. It is difficult to gauge the level of scratches in an afternoon indirect sun.
There is so much clear on this black paint that it very reflective. The difference between the
last photos and these are astounding.

Seems to look great in these pre-detail photos. The above photos are pre-detail but looking over direct sunlight shots shows the truth. Compare this shot to the last pictures below.

Taped off, ready for compounding. While shiny, there is a very low level of reflection.
The surface is completely hazed by poor polishing in the past.

Compounding spatter. Lower front fender is being worked on.
Compound was used to remove orangepeel.

Removing scratches and multi- level swirls.
5 different prior detailer attempts to correct had left quite a lot of issues.

Superfine polishing, but still shows micromarring.

Example of paint defect. Probably birddoo having attacked the clearcoat..

Outside for it's washdown after compounding.

Washing it down again.

Applying new polishing technique.

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Finish Process:

The camera is showing 1 scratch on the right end of the bolt cabinet. The other dots are just airborne dust. From this point another 10 hours was used to finish each panel in sequence.

White areas in the following photos are 2500 or 3000 grit wet/dry sandingpaper. Superficial scratches littered the clearcoat. These were caused by previous compounding or the old microfibre towels we used to use.

One direction wet/dry sanding (color sanding).

Removed, but very superficial micromarring has occured. Dust on the pad?
Clear this soft is a serious obstacle.

Getting close to final. Note that the reflections have improved drastically.
No wax/sealant has been used at this stage. (Raw clearcoat)

Ultra-fine paper sanding scratches (removed in the following image)

Flashlight was used to identify minute marring, completely invisible to the naked eye without the light.

Cyclo polishing tracks.

Microfiber towel scratching, as well as foam pad issues. This is obscene. (before the final Cyclo polishing)
After 2 days of cutting and polishing, it appears that some dust got onto a pad (after being inside a plastic bag after washing and drying) Each time, before usage, the pad was blown off and/or washed in a sink and spin dried. Each panel, each time. The long horizontal line is distinctly from the old microfibre towels we thought were the finest in the business.(used to use)
This photo is a Macro Zoom.

This is the first time we have used a glaze process. The car looks absolutely insane here, but look for the final carnuaba removal a few photos below. These few shots are after the glaze curing and removal.

The second application of the Chemical Guys 5050 carnauba wax. (and removal)
WOW.

Outdoor shots. The sun is reflecting massively off the rear bumper onto the rear panel.

Reinstalling the strut brace & shock towers + the cross brace.

Any specks visible are tree pollen.
There is a tiny reflective towel scratch just above the door handle. Invisible to the naked eye, but the camera seems to see it just fine. Gives you an idea of just how difficult this detail was.

Any speck of lint or dust on the polishing pad destroys the clearcoat. We would wipe down the area to be worked on and bring a (perfectly) clean pad and cause scratches with the finest polish available.
Basically this required a clean room attitude.
Please understand that this is the most difficult restoration I have encountered in 23 years.
I included a photo of a defect caused by an improper but highly expensive microfibre towel to show that even in the best of circumstances absolute perfection is an illusive beast.

It isn't all that difficult to use a fine polish and then apply a wax to any paint surface.
What's difficult is to take an abused deep black/clear and bring it to a near microscopic level of smoothness.
About 36 hours was used in this process. Anything and everything caused dramatic damage to the clear, especially our (old) excellent microfiber towels.
The first towels used to remove the compound or polish caused outrageous micromarring to the clearcoat.
Meguiars new towel completely stopped this issue, and were used in the final stages.
Who knew a $5 towel would perform better than a $20 custom towel.?

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Was the clear mixed or applied incorrectly? Apparently so.
It was simple to remove the swirl/scratches. but to finely polish this was next to impossible.

A superfine polishing system was developed that dictates 1 panel at a time, everything wiped down and waxed, washing the pad(s) then moving on to the next panel.

The good news? We now have a superfine system that guarantees a swirlfree, scratchfree process.
In 23 years of detailing no vehicle we have encountered has as soft a paint as this.

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