A GUIDE TO RESTORING CAR PAINT- (paint decontamination, paint correction & paint protection)

hey guys it's Sandra here with an instructional video today that takes you through the methods products and techniques used to transform heavily soiled weathered and damaged car paint there's something that looks amazing and pretty much as good as new now certainly have quite a few videos on this channel that demonstrate the three areas of detailing that will be covered here in this video which are painted contamination paint correction and paint protection but I haven't combined all those steps in a single instructional video so I hope this video helps some of you out I tried to find the dirtiest heavily scratched and weathered car panel that was still intact from a car wreckers for this video so if it works here it should really work on any paint and I'll be covering one side of the panel and leaving it untouched so you can really see what a dramatic difference this process will achieve it's virtually impossible to cover every aspect involved in restoring automotive paint in a single video but I'll do my best to not only show you and talk you through what I'm doing and each process but also try to explain how and why [Music] the first stage is the contamination to put it simply the goal here is to remove everything possible that is still sitting above the paint so that in the next pan correction stage I'm working on nothing but clean bare paint now just as important has been effective in achieving this goal is also being as safe as possible although this paint is in a bad state if you take for example the deeper scratches on this panel and start inflicting lighter scratches into them by employing unsafe wash and decontamination methods those existing scratches get deeper what this leads to is more work during the paint correction stage and the need to permanently remove more clear coat than is necessary it's best to start with a pre soaked foam using a decontamination Car Wash detergent which is more effective at stripping paint than a general maintenance car wash soap give it a few minutes to start softening the surface and grime and then pressure rinse the paint down the more of the looser dirt and grime you can remove in a touchless method such as this the far safer the hand wash stage will be the next stage is to give the paint a hand wash once again using the same decontamination Car Wash detergent I also want to know that there's lots of great products out there that do similar things to the products I'm using in this video so then fuel you have to use exactly what I'm using here just do a little research and find what's available in your area and meets your budget but as far as the hand wash stage goes avoid using any pressure or circular motions and let the wash mint do the work there's also a lot of safe car washing techniques today such as a 2 bucket method the multi mint method and the metrans method more important than which method you use is the fact that you do use a safe car washing method as I've tried them all and they all minimize damage to the paint [Music] [Music] [Music] after another pressure rinse of the paint and just a quick air or tail dry to remove the majority of the water it's time for chemical decontamination chemicals such as iron removers are great at removing or reducing iron fallout particles in a safe non aggressive manner just give the paint a light coat allow it to sit for a couple of minutes then gently spread it in with a microfiber towel for even coverage give it another mineral to and rinse it off you'll see a purple color reaction which indicates that the metal particles are breaking down and being removed or reduced in size you can also use chemicals such as tar removers for the lower panels of the car where tar deposits tend to be in much the same manner but just use these chemicals on core panels away from the wreck sunlight and rinse them off before they dry or within 5 minutes [Music] the next stage is mechanical decontamination or claying if the paint isn't that bad sometimes chemical decontamination will be enough but in many cases clang is needed to remove the more stubborn bonded particles however the fact that I've already chemically stripped the paint and a percentage of those contaminants means that this next mechanical decontamination stage will be both quicker and safer you don't need to use any pressure just let the clay and the clay lubricant do the work work in small sections at a time and folding your clay after every sectional - to ensure you are being but safe and effective in your process the best indicator to let you know that you have removed the bonded contamination is your hand the paint should feel far smoother but still a little tacky [Music] [Music] once all the paint has been clayed and feels free from contaminants you're almost done with your first stage and you can finish off by drying the paint with a microfiber towel and all compressed air the last vital stage is to perform an IPA or isopropyl alcohol wipe down this is really important as it removes the remaining residue from all the detergents and chemicals that were used but unlike those other chemicals an IPA based cleaner is mostly self evaporating and leaves no residue of its own behind [Music] [Music] as I mentioned before this whole decontamination stage is all about getting the paint as clean and bare as possible because if it's not it will negatively affect the next paint correction stage is the remaining particles or residue that are still in the paint will alter the performance of my compounds polishes and pads as well as potentially inflict minor damage making it far more difficult and a lengthier process to achieve a good result I'll have a complete list of the products used in this video in the description box as always but I don't want to focus on specific brands here but rather on specific grades of compounds polishes and pads as you can honestly achieve these same results with many different brands of products on the market but it's really in your best interest to have at least a fine medium and coarse compound as well as a finishing polishing and cutting pad selection [Music] your starting point for correcting automotive paint should always be the least aggressive method that still has the potential to work I honestly don't know what this paint is like in relation to being hard or soft but based on what I'm seeing with the severe defects a fine polish on a finishing pad just isn't going to have the potential to remove these defects and if the paint turns out to be supersoft a coarse compound on a cutting pad may be too aggressive and remove more clear coat than is necessary so a medium compound on an intermediate or polishing pad is the perfect place to start to do a test section there'll be some text at the bottom of the screen to display the technique I'm using but a few points to also mention is that when you start with a fresh pad you do need a little more compound for the first set of machine passes but after that you can no closer to half the amount I added on the pad or two to three pea-sized drops be consistent in your method and technique then try and work an area too large as it will dramatically decrease the results and increase issues such as dusting difficult y buffs and excessive heat a set of passes usually consists of three to four row passes of your machine but in general when working with finer polishes and pads for just finishing or refining paint you will see better results by reducing your work times and aggression slightly whereas when working with heavier compounds and pads to level out defects you will see a benefit in working slightly longer polishing cycles and just slightly increasing aggression in your technique but the key word here is just slightly don't go overboard with machine speeds of pressure or work times as it will lead to even more issues as I mentioned based on what I'm seeing in the results I've removed about fifty to sixty percent of the defects with this combination of compound pads and my technique and I can also say that although the finishing qualities of this combination aren't perfect they still are quite good so this firstly tells me that the paint is neither rock hard or terribly soft but perhaps somewhere in the middle but more importantly it tells me that I need a more aggressive approach if I want to remove the greater percentage of those defects [Music] now based on the results of that first test section another more than just slightly off removing all the defects so just stepping up to a heavier cutting pad one give me the results I need I also need to step up to a coarser compound and my guess is that both the step-up in pad and compound my very well give me the results I'm looking to achieve [Music] after a set of passes with this new combination you'll hopefully see that almost all the defects have been removed but you should also see that there is a bit more haze or cloudiness in the finish this is absolutely normal when using a heavier combination and it's also the main reason why at two or sometimes three stage correction process is needed so now that I've found a great combination that will remove almost all the defects with a single set of passes all I have to do is stay consistent with my technique and repeat this process over all the paint I wish to correct and will achieve the same results it's also important to note that you do need to brush or blow out your pads after every set of passes or two and be sure to have at least a few pads when doing a whole car or you will see your results take a downhill turn as the pads get too hot and gunked-up [Music] [Music] so with all the existing they fix removed it's now time to remove the minor defects that are I inflicted on the paint during the first compounding stage now based on my first test section with the medium compound and pad I could still see a touch of haze in the finish so this tells me that if I step down to even a finer polish and pad it should be the perfect combination to clean up that existing haze and bring out the maximum gloss and clarity on this particular paint [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hopefully you can see a clear difference in the section that has been refined with a far cleaner finish with the metallic flakes and just popping now with amazing depth and clarity so just like the previous stage all I have to do now is repeat this process on the rest of the paint and I will have the same fantastic results [Music] [Music] [Music] you can decide for yourself but I'd personally be extremely happy with presenting any of my customers with this level of quality and finish [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so onto the protection stage with almost all the hard work done in the correction stage it's really important to now protect the paint with some form of paint protection now I'm sure a lot of regular viewers would have seen me use ceramic coatings extensively on this channel as there really are what I use to protect almost every car I detail but to keep things a little more simple I'll be applying an sio2 based spray sealant instead this sealants which are everywhere today I really for the most part quite fantastic as they are super quick to apply but will also tend to last longer and be more hydrophobic than traditional waxes or sealants the basic application is to primer microfiber cloth and give a small section of a panel one or two sprays spread the sealant into the area with your first cloth and then buff it clean with a second dry cloth and you're done just don't use too much product work away from direct sunlight and it just couldn't be easier and it should also last you a good six months or so but also with mentioning is that it'll also increase the depth and saturation in the paint and we'll make the upkeep and washing process so much easier in the future well that's pretty much it guys if you do want some more information on any of the decontamination paint correction or paint protection processes there are tons of videos on this channel that go even further into those specific processes as well as applying a ceramic coating as always I really hope you guys enjoyed and found this video useful please like comment and subscribe to this channel to show your support for these videos and I'll see you guys soon [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Car Craft Auto Detailing

Views: 2,306,390

Rating: 4.9027152 out of 5

Keywords: How to polish car paint, how to detail car, how to deep clean car, how to protect car paint, best car polish, best car wax, best ceramic coating, how to apply a ceramic coating, carpro cquartz, meguiars, rupes, autoglym, how to fix car scratch, how to touch up car paint, how to fix car paint, how to use car polish, how to use car wax, griots garage, adams polishes, lake country, how to use machine buffer polisher, how to maintain car paint, how to polish a car

Id: 6tepA3wjPbY

Length: 23min 2sec (1382 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 24 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/montero65]

Great video, I learned a lot