This is a write up I've been meaning to do for quite some time. This was as fun of a detail as it was filled with constant anxiety. U believe it was 2 years ago that this was completed.
The title says it....
original paint on this almost 60 year old GMC pick-up. Here she is:
Oh yeah, forgot to mention this isn't a show truck, garage queen, pampered baby. No no, this truck had been in their family since it's origin.....and it was used as a farm truck! Yeahhhh, we're talking super thin spots, rust, oxidation...this truck had lived a true truck life!
The owner had called and spoken with several different detailers (including us) regarding what (if anything) could be done to restore his and his wifes classic 58' GMC. One said there was nothing that could be done, another said he would do it but was charging a pretty low ball price, which made the owner a bit skeptical...and then there was us. Our price was higher than any of the other quotes, but he opted to choose us because he felt we knew what we were talking about...and that we were passionate about what we do. Well...he was right....now lets begin
Lets take a closer look:
Shiny like a chalk board lol.
Now you may notice something here...a lot of these areas on the sides of the bed especially - are not "buffer accessible" ...that means a lot of by hand polishing, which we'll get to shortly.
Lets continue the walk around!
Oh yeah, theres lots of chrome too..yup, lots and lots of chrome!
The owner had just completed some serious mechanical reconditioning (thus the hood being removed) and now it was time to make her shine again. First thing we were to deal with was...it wasn't yet running lol. So it was time for a rinseless wash.
Lets get at it!
After a thorough rinseless wash (and a LOT of towels) it was time to clay it because it didn't just look like a chalkboard, it felt like one as well.
After decontaminating the paint it definitely felt much smoother....kinda like a chalk board with lotion on it? Being that the decontamination process thinned some of the oxidation, the truck now also looked like it had chicken pox.
Now for the fun part, working on paint that was measuring UNDER 1 mil in thickness (for a comparison, most modern cars measure between 4-6 mils...this paint was THIN).
Our task, to squeeze as much oxidation removal and shine out of this beautiful classic as possible, with out compromising the extremely thin paint. This was a tricky one for sure.
My first step was to try Meguiars #7 Show Car Glaze. "Correction" was not what i was aiming for here...preservation was. While #7 did a decent job, it took several passes and was still leaving some "blotchy" spots in areas where it did not remove all of the oxidation. It looked 100x better - but i personally wasn't satisfied.
When in doubt - get some advice from someone who knows more than you do about the subject. Time to call Mr. Jason Kilmer - famous for his insane sanding skills and "If you're not burnin' you're not learnin'" mentality. Here's a guy who has more time with just sanding alone than i likely have in detailing in any aspect.
After a 10 min conversation about what we were dealing with, what we had tried and what we felt comfortable with proceeding, we decided to go with one of our most favorite stand by's...Meguiars M205 and a more aggressive polishing pad.
Per our conversation, Jason recommended 205 to help give a LITTLE bite to our process and thought a medium polishing pad would help pull some of the oxidation off without thinning out the paint too much. This made sense to me since 205 is a fairly "wet" polish but does in fact have abrasives.
I tested out an area using a medium cut pad and 205 - and the results were definitely better. But, being that the oxidation was so heavy..i decided to take it a step further and bump it up to a Meguiars 3" foam cutting pad for our small work and a Lake Country Orange cutting pad for the larger areas.
I felt the stiffer and porous pads would do a better job at collecting the oxidation and not cake up so quickly and that as long as i kept the pressure and speed low and did fairly quick arm passes, i'd get away with my surgical goals lol.
My intuition was right...and this old girl started coming back to life.
Now the challenge was on. If you've ever polished single stage paint, specifically oxidized single stage paint, you'll know one of the biggest issues is having your pad get caked up.
Fortunately the owner had a compressor (we had to do this job mobile for obvious reasons) for us to hook up our Tornador to and let me tell you, it is the BEST pad cleaning tool ive ever used (foam or microfiber)
I know it looks like a blue pad, but its actually maroon! Just blue from paint.
Bam...ready to go. This was something we were having to do after each section to maintain consistent results section by section...but hey, thats what we do.
