Hopefully none of your paint looks like this...

I've got a neighbor who works in Kenya one month on and one month off. He does something with oil drilling. Anyway, we are in his last week of 'one week on' and we made a deal before he left. He does incredible things with wood and I had a project I wanted to trade him for. So I got to polish his 1997 T100 truck and he will make my wood project for me. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

 

The thing has been ridiculously neglected, but fortunately it is from a time when paint was practically bulletproof. It had some damage that wasn't going to get fixed by polishing, but a lot of it was just really bad oxidation. I knew that would clean up easily with the tools and products I had in mind. The Flex 3401 and some XMT3 should do the trick.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7701.jpg

 

I washed and clayed it last night and started working on the paint this morning. Because it is black and the sun was just not at the right angle, 'before' pictures were kind of tough to take. The camera wouldn't focus on the damage and just zeroed in on the reflections. You know the type of damage though. Just sort of rainbowy and oxidized looking black paint.

 

I bust out my red FLEX pad and went to work. I wanted to get some half/half shots since that was probably the only way the difference would really be seen with the lighting I had to work with.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7706.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7715.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7711.jpg

 

I did the same thing on the hood. That part was just so much worse looking in person, but this shows it off pretty well.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7722.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7724.jpg

 

The top of the cab was pretty terrible too, but I didn't think to get the half and half up there. I figured I had what I needed.

 

All in all I have about 5 hours of polishing into this beast. I went over it once with XMT3 and then once more with XMT1 just to clear out some haze. It looked so much better than I thought it would after that second pass. Then I used some Wolfgang Polish Enhancer and then a final step of Wolfgang Paint Sealant. Nothing looks better on black than Wolfgang, so it only seemed appropriate.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7732.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7733.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7734.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/97%20T100/DSCN7735.jpg

 

The paint may still not be perfect, but I think it is still going to blow the owner's mind when he gets home next week. The difference before and after was pretty awesome. I love vehicles like this. It took some time, but it wasn't really that difficult. I was glad for the opportunity and really hope he likes it.

me like!

 

now what is this wood project you mentioned?

He is making a display stand for a sword. He has access to some pretty exotic woods and is an awesome craftsman, so I'm really looking forward to see what he comes up with. The project should be simple enough, so hopefully he is impressed enough with my effort for him that he does his best work for me.

That's great and a huge improvement! Not to high-jack your thread, but funny you mention this, my dad was in town and for their 50th Anniversary gift, I spent about 9 hours on his truck yesterday. It had a 5 inch faded and baked on decal strip on the bottom running panel on both sides and faded, baked on pin stripping.

 

First order of business was to strip off the old decals. He plans on getting new stripping put back on. Then I proceeded on the polishing. This was an old ford (1996 I believe) that he used for work and hunting etc. It had been neglected for many years. Now that he's retired as of this summer, I figured I would give him a push in the right direction. First thing was to teach him to NOT USE SIMPLE GREEN.

 

Anyways, attached are some fruits of our labor. I even sent my pops off with some new micro cleaning rags so he can keep it touched up.

 

Products used:

Aircraft® Decal & Adhesive Remover

XMT4

Meguiers Polish and Cleaner

XMT Carnauba Finishing Glaze

Meguiars Ultimate Paste Wax

 

Various other cleaners for prep and trim.

so much win!

 

reminds me of a thread I saw on NASIOC, someone detailed a 96? Civic with black paint, before and after is crazier than this...

He probably had a better camera or a little more photography skill than I do. I just couldn't get it to focus on the damaged paint. You can kind of see the rainbow effect on the half/half hood shot. The whole vehicle was like that. Definitely not the worst I've ever seen though. Hondas can get pretty bad too, so I'll have to dig for that thread.

 

This is only the second black one in this condition that I've done. All of the rest of the bad oxidation projects have been red cars. I've got three or four of them documented in my photo albums somewhere. I should put them all into one page on my site just so they are easy to spot. Oxidation removal is my favorite thing in the world because it really isn't that hard and the difference is incredible. All you are really doing is cleaning off dead paint, but since all of the swirls and appearance problems are in that layer, the thing practically looks repainted when you are done with it. I wish all paint correction projects were that easy and that dramatic when I was done.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2370986

 

My last car was from 1989, black, I know how it is to have a car with bad paint like that...

Yeah, black is a paint. At least this Toyota was single stage paint, so it was a piece of cake to polish out. The swirls and all the oxidation come out in one step instead of several like it takes on clear coated paint.

 

That Civic definitely came out better. I wish they would have taken some 'after' pictures with the sun directly in the reflection like they did with the before. That is what really shows that you corrected the work. Something like this:

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/Rear1-1.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/rearafter3.jpg

 

I only say that because as good as this angle looks:

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/rearafter1.jpg

 

It doesn't really show that the swirls are gone. You can't see that unless you get the sun catching them directly. I like to show off that kind of work with a shot like this:

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/DSC08052.jpg

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/OCDetails/9ae2d5d6.jpg

 

I have no doubt that Civic is perfect based on the process, but black is just too easy to hide imperfections just by changing the angle of your camera. That it probably just because I am picky or something. I'm certainly jealous of their documentation of that process. I wish I had someone to help me take pictures with a nice camera like that as I went so I could document my processes better. That is some great production quality stuff there.

He probably had a better camera or a little more photography skill than I do. I just couldn't get it to focus on the damaged paint. You can kind of see the rainbow effect on the half/half hood shot. The whole vehicle was like that. Definitely not the worst I've ever seen though. Hondas can get pretty bad too, so I'll have to dig for that thread.

 

This is only the second black one in this condition that I've done. All of the rest of the bad oxidation projects have been red cars. I've got three or four of them documented in my photo albums somewhere. I should put them all into one page on my site just so they are easy to spot. Oxidation removal is my favorite thing in the world because it really isn't that hard and the difference is incredible. All you are really doing is cleaning off dead paint, but since all of the swirls and appearance problems are in that layer, the thing practically looks repainted when you are done with it. I wish all paint correction projects were that easy and that dramatic when I was done.

 

Anthony - What kind of camera do you have? I might be able to help you improve the photo skills. To that end, I wouldn't worry too much about the camera as I would about the light.

there's a dealership local to me that bought a junker and polished half like and left the other original.

 

It's pretty amazing!

 

As usual, I enjoy reading your posts. great work!

Anthony - What kind of camera do you have? I might be able to help you improve the photo skills. To that end, I wouldn't worry too much about the camera as I would about the light.

exif data:

Make NIKON

Model COOLPIX P100

 

 

I have an okay camera, but no skill to do stuff like this...

I've just got a fairly POS Nikon. I'll have to look at the model when I get home. I'm sure it is listed somewhere in the metadata of the picture. It is one step above a point and shoot, but definitely no SLR or anything like that. One of these days I'll need to throw down for a real camera, but until then I'll just deal with this. I used to be really into photography back in the early 90's before everything went digital. I do end up getting a new camera every three or four years though, so I am probably just about due for a new one. Maybe next year...

I had that same thing going on with a few vehicles that have gone to various family members.

 

This is a truck we got for one of my little brothers. It was oxidized to hell like that toyota was.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u280/garrett804/pete%20truck/IMG_10151.jpg

 

Thread with more pics. http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/just-did-new-truck-87717.html?t=87717

 

There is nothing like working on something and getting to see the immediate results like working on a car. Awesome job as usual OCD.

if your ever in Ireland you can do a job in mine in return for some quality 18 year old whiskey!

Dude! MiniStiGuy, that is awesome work! You know exactly what I mean when I say this is kind of hard to photograph then. I have no doubt that the paint looked even worse in person, but once you clean out half of it like that it stands out so much more. That is great work.

 

I've had a few questions sent to me since I posted this on a couple forums, so I went back through some of my photos and posted some others. Check these out. This kind of repair really isn't that hard. Especially when it is on single stage paint. It just takes the right combination of products and pads and then you can pretty much do it blindfolded. I think it is just time more than anything else. Of course, to the customer it is just mind blowing, so that is the real payoff. This is exactly why I would rather work on an old beat up car than a brand new one. Nobody really drops their jaw at your work on a brand new car, but when you bring an older one like these back to life then it really impresses people. I love that the most.

if your ever in Ireland you can do a job in mine in return for some quality 18 year old whiskey!

 

 

Deal!!