When i got the call for this one it was a pretty much a straight forward job with the added benefit of a scratch repair to the wing....
I will also add....
NOTHING IS EVER STRAIGHT FORWARD....
On arrival the car was in pretty clean condition but had the obvious dealership destruction wash marring but the rear bumper however was a real state...a right proper piece of work....
fair size bug squish....
Scratch to front wing....
Scratches will almost always be raised to a point where the surface needs levelling prior to any paint being applied so this was the order of the day to remove any excess and unwanted paint debris around the edges of the scratch....
That done the black was mixed with Clearcoat as per the guide here....it was then wiped into the scratch with a lint free bamboo cloth....
Now as this was a base layer you can clearly see the depth of the scratch....this enabled me to pinpoint the exact points where the scratch needed touching in....
Leaving the wing edge looking like this....
It was then polished back with great care as the edge of the wing was extremely thin and although not perfect it was either sacrifice a few more percentage of perfection or strike through....I aired on the side of caution for this although thinking about it this could be so much better than it is....
This technique has been criticised by certain individuals as being all smoke and mirrors as well as camera trickery....I beg to differ and my clients are of the same opinion....I say if you cant do it dont criticise....carry on with your own business and dont interfere with any one elses business knowledge or techniques....
Anyway small rant over....
On with the cleaning....now i was given a foaming trigger head from a local chemical company and this is what it did with Rim 7....
Looked kinda funky...did nothing to improve the cleaning ability though apart from extra dwell but not really needed in the case of these wheels as they were pretty clean to start with....
After the wheels were clean i gave it a quick wash with Permanon Yaht Cleanser, clayed with BH Clay and then went defect diggin'....
The rear bumper....by far the worst area of the car....
That was pretty much the game that was being set....not 3 bad paintwork roof, bonnet wise...bit dodgy body panels but quite rough bumpers wise....
THEN THE FUN BEGAN....
Never have i been so unprepared for work than i was with this....an Audi hard paint you say....not a chance....this was the worst paint i have dealt with to date....soft....intermediate and hard all in one....easy to correct....easy to pad mar and even easy the cloth mar....hit it with rotary and S17+ on orange and the correction on the roof was bang on....as was the bonnet....hit the tailgate upper....spot on....quarter panel....:doublesho:doublesho:doublesho it was kicking me where it hurts...a pure nightmare...new pads, primed pads, s17+, s30+, nanotech sst super gloss were all tried on orange and failed miserably...they were then introduced to the Farecla black finishing foam and DA....to no avail....I eventually broke out what little I had left of S20Blue on the farecla pad and seemed to be getting somewhere....but this was on a DA....
Now i am going to be brutally honest with you there are no during shots of correction as i just didnt have time to faff about....anywhoo I decided on a pre clean of Swissvax Cleaner Fluid and then topped off with Raceglaze 55....:doublesho:doublesho:doublesho as soon as i put pad to paint...the SV ones did it mar the paint ...the only thing i could think was to rip the face off a brand new Farecla Black foam pad to use as an applicator....it worked a treat....then came RG55....:doublesho:doublesho:doublesho same again but time was running out and the light was dimming and the air had started vaporising and settling on the bonnet and roof....it was decided that I would do what i can and return when it was convenient for both myself and the client to spend a full day hand polishing and hand applying both SV Cleaner Fluid and RG55....
So there you have it....an A1 that bit back....it ended up looking like this....
All in all a real sweet looking car but with some serious munch on it....an eye opener for me regarding the A1 and its paint type but a job that got there in the end....hope this helps clarify that not all paint is as expected...even from a full time pro's point of view....
Thanks for checking in on Reflectology....
http://www.cardetailingsheffield.co.uk
