Defining Details: Detailed
 

What's up TCC!

I am going to keep this thread updated with photos of our work, and provide everyone a 'home' thread where you can come to ask questions about products, techniques, weird detailing tips your crazy neighbor gave you, etc...

My name is Chris; consider me your pro detailer buddy that you can ask anything :thumb:

On with the show... First up: 2008 Mercedes Benz C350

Products Used:

Meguiars M105
Meguiars M205
Obsessive Details Wet Wax
OD Acrylic Glaze
Optimum No Rinse
Chemical Guys VRP Dressing
Optimum Power Clean All Purpose Cleaner diluted 3:1 for wheels and arches
Obsessive Details APC Diluted 8:1 for general cleaning
Obsessive Detail Silk Shine interior dressing
Lexol Leather Cleaner / Lexol Leather Confitioner
Stoners glass cleaner
Mothers sealant for wheels
Eurow Microfiber shag rags
Microfiber waffle weave drying towels + general purpose towels
Porter Cable 7424 Dual Action Polisher
Lake Country Orange 4" pads, white 4" pads, white 6.5" pads
Little Green Machine
Woolite upholstery solution
1000w Halogen lighting
LED 'Crime Light'
Mothers metal polish

Time spent: 12 Hours

Another auto car wash special. Beautiful car, abused like clockwork every Friday at the local Autospa drive-through car wash in Burlington. For a car less than a year old, it was in pretty rough shape:

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Test spot on hood using Optimum Polish II / white pad. Not sufficient cut. Optimum Polish II /orange cutting pad - no enough cut. Stepped up to M105 on white and after 2 passes we were good to go. After the first couple panels, I went to M105 / orange and managed to cut my working time in half and finished the compounding with that combo. Here are a couple pics after compounding:

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Once compounding was complete, I refined the paint with M205 / white pad. This combo left almost a flawless finish. I had a VERY tight schedule to get this car done, so I ended up doing a lot of the finishing out over night with no sun to inspect for light hologramming (micromarring that is visible only in the suns spectrum of light). Everything looked great in LED and Halogens and I was praying to the detailing gods that the sun would treat me well in the AM! As you will see, all turned out well!

LSP (Last Step Product) was a layer of Obsessive Details acrylic glaze, followed by Obsessive Details wet wax. Tire shine was VRP dressing (along with all the black exterior trim) and the chrome brightwork was polished by hand with Mothers metal polish. All said and done, I would say we achieved a 90-95% correction with this C350. Enjoy!

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Next up - 2000 Lexus LS400

Prior to customers purchase of the car, the paint was destroyed with a high-speed polisher by either a hack detailer or a useless car dealer. More than likely the hack detailer scenario... Ever heard of buffer burn? See before pics...

Products Used:

Meguiars M105
Meguiars M205
Obsessive Details Wet Wax
OD Acrylic Glaze
Optimum No Rinse
Chemical Guys VRP Dressing
Stoners glass cleaner
Mothers sealant for wheels
Eurow Microfiber shag rags
Microfiber waffle weave drying towels + general purpose towels
Porter Cable 7424 Dual Action Polisher
Lake Country Orange 4" pads, white 4" pads, white 6.5" pads
1000w Halogen lighting
LED 'Crime Light'
Mothers metal polish

Here is the car when it was dropped off; note the fantastic job done by the previous detailer, as per their wonderful designs burned into the paint:

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Notice the haziness and overall lack of depth and color to the door:
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I did a couple of test spots, and was quite surprised with what I found - single stage paint. Single Stage paint means that there is NO clearcoat on this car - just raw paint. A little research on my part yielded some new knowledge - Toyota and Lexus used single stage paint all the way up to 2002 and most of their models. For comparison, Ford starting using clear on the mustang in 93... anyways, here is my polishing pad with the car's paint all over it hehe:

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After reviewing my test spots, I decided on M105/orange with medium pressure, followed up with M205 on a black finessing pad. Here are a whole bunch of photos of the correction process. All pics are after compound only:

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For anyone who has ever wanted to see the difference between compounding and refining, M105 + orange pad on left, M205 + black pad on right:

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Here are a few sweet reflections I caught in the garage, after finishing out with 205:

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Here she is right before customer picked it up :2thumbs: This was a very fun car to work on and the results, while maybe only achieving 80-85% correction due to how deep many of the the etchings and RIDS (Random deep isolated scratches) were, were pretty sweet!

Remember the reflection from before photo?:

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Trunk:
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wow thats amazing!!

Thanks man! I work hard, what can I say lol...

it really shows, some quality work seen in those pictures

so amazing!

Amazing work.

Great work and local for me too.
Prices?

Nevermind. I just saw the other thread with the prices.

holy **** thats amazing

Good work.
where do you buy your products ? eshine.ca ?

Hey Robb - Yes, I get a lot of my gear at Eshine, as they stock gallon sizes of almost everything. A lot of products I actually have accounts setup with the manufacturer and buy direct. Eshine is good people though, never ever had a bad experience, or heard of one for that matter.

This '07 Accord was brought to me by the owner, after having it recently 'detailed' by a hack, who has no business laying a finger on someones car with the intent to 'detail' it. Check out the buffer burn - you can follow along with where the last guy took a high-speed polisher to it...

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Ended up compounding with 105 / white pad in some places and 105/orange pad in other areas. With the soft NHBP Honda paint, the 105 was marring up the surface and leaving it's own buffer trails. M205 /white as a finishing step took care of that no problem, and the car finished out beautifully. The Last Step Products used were Chemical guys creme glaze, followed my Chemical guys butter wax. The reflections off the NHBP were insane.

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amazing work! where are the prices???

Prices are listed in the Defining Details vendor forum, at the bottom of the forum's main page.

You can go with a pre-determined package, or build your own at $40/hr. Hope there is something we can help you out with!

Chris.

Can I bring my car down to you one day so you can take a look at it and tell me what you think is the best package for it?

Absolutely - I am in Mississauga almost every day as well, depending on where you are I can just pop by and we can chat. Shoot me a PM or email me at info@definingdetails.ca and we'll sort it out!

1993 Nustang GT - Built, Blown and all around badassery... and leave it up to me to forget to take pics of the motor :doh: This car belongs to the TCC Admin / Owner, so maybe if he see's this, he'll post up an engine pic or two :)

First off, being a Mustang guy... this car was AWESOME. 16 years old and only 72k kilometers on it; a true garage queen.

When the owner first saw this car years ago when he was considering purchasing it (stock at the time), it was covered by a plastic tarp with a cinder block sitting on the hood, holding the tarp down. LOL some people know all the secrets to car storage! The car had a TON of oxidation on the paint, and was swirls galore.

On with the show...

Before shots:

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During correction - check out the color difference on the hood! The car literally changed colors after polishing, removing 16 years of oxidation...

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All finished up! Last step products were Chemical Guys Creme Glaze followed up with Chemical guys Butter Wax. Enjoy!

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And an advertisement :D

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Your work speaks for itself.. I would love to see what you could do to my car but I think I want it repainted first.

I would recommend you send me a few photos before committing to a repaint! As you can see by the photos, you'd be surprised with what can be done with 'written off' paint :thumbup: