The Mega Wax Test - The Preparation Story

Dave KG · #1 (**permalink**) 07-26-2008, 03:17 PM

A test of different waxes is taking place in Slough, nr. London tomorrow - can a wax costing ££££ outshine a tin of Collinite? Tomorrow will tell when folk come to look at the cars. But for now, I thought I'd create this thread outlining in pictures to work and effort put into preparing the 7 Corsas over the past three days to make this test happen - huge thanks must go to the guys who helped me here, Neil, Gareth, Brian and Bryan as without their help, I'd still be machining the fourth car!! LOL

On with the story:

Day 1

Pictures from day 1 of the preparation, and these are the seven lucky Corsas parked up and waiting...

Not the cleanest, these are just out of storage so we do have our work cut out!!

So, we picked the dirtiest of the lot to get started with:

Bird bomb anyone?

Dust?

Nothing a good wash wont sort out...

Or will it - some serious etching here:

Well - it'll polish out

The car cleaned and clayed, ready for machining:

Doesn't look too bad, maybe a little dull... under the lights, you can see a dullness to the reflections:

And the etching:

While Harry cracked on with washing Corsa No. 2, I decided to see what we were going to need - and this is where the shock came: to get that finish back to sharp needed 3M Fast Cut Plus (two hits to get rid of the bird etching!! :doublesho)!! Got a sharpness back, left some light hologramming:

Cleaned up very nicely with 85RD Final Finish though, ready for wax - panel after IPA wipe:

Out in the sunlight you can see the difference the polishing has made... this car is the one Harely has just washed, no machining:

And this is the one that has been machined - you can see a sharpness returned to the paint, and a lovely gloss restored:

Indoors, we can see the difference too:

Unpolished:

Polished:

And now, the two cars sitting ready for tomorrow:

But still 5 left...

It'll be all hands on deck tomorrow!!

Day 2

After testing the water yesterday with the polishing and realising that we were going to need Fast Cut Plus to get rid of a peely haze on the paint, we knew we had out work cut out today!! The target was three cars machined to a finish...

So best crack on - some work in progress shots:

Some befores from around the cars...

And some after compounding...

After finishing:

And we did make out target... 3 cars complete:

Tucked away...

Day 3

This will be the final thread of pics until after the event

Day 3 of the prep, and it started painfully for me... the gearbox on the Makita I was using yesterday got rather hot, and slowly burned my hand without realising it!...

So while I did a little first aid...

Neil sorted the Makita with a little modification:

Meanwhile, Gaz was killing his backing plate:

And ensuring I didn't steal his Last Touch

:

Work in progress pics:

Bryan from Drive & Shine came along to help today too, and did some Fast Cutting for us: many thanks!!

They are armed and dangerous - rotaries, cutting pads, and Fast Cut!

Neil did some wet sanding on etching...

Polish out...

Bryan kept on washing...

Despite Gaz attacking him...

A before and after shot by Gaz

I ran away for a little while... to a bodyshop...

to play with a Sealey...

The back to work...

Oh heck, we killed Neil :doublesho

Blood, sweat and tears... but we're there!!

Day 4

Well, we made it!!

7 Corsas, machined with Fast Cut Plus and then finished to perfection with Menz 85RD. Then on with a set of LSPs, each one getting three layers, they will of course be revealed tomorrow... but for the time being, some teaser pics of the cars all complete and waiting for tomorrow's entertainment