CobrAA's Eastern detailing pic

[cobrAA]

Umm lovely, if you ask me




















MEAN!


Rims didn’t had a treatment, just focus on the paint héhé




And these shot were 2 hours before he came to pick up his car:

























Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed it because it’s not everyday I write for that long!

P.S: Talentless,******** someone said ? yeah.. yeah.. I will leave it at that.

[cobrAA]

Hello,

I've been quiet recently but that's because I've been working on some stuff + I had the funeral to deal with. More details to be followed*tu*

I will be sponsoring a car event in Montréal and would like to showcase my work as much as possible at the event so I'm thinking about making windows decal to put on the wuarter glass just for the show and I would remove it as soon as you leave. It's a win-win situation. You get a super deal and showroom detail for dirt cheap and I get extra explosure

Since this is my first show, I'm working on the detail but I spoke with Mark @ Raceglaze.UK and he is sending me some bottle of pre-wax cleanser and a good load of RG55 sample so I will be able to do free demonstration on the spot.

I'm also looking for someone to help me out at the show. Someone who is billingual would be more suited for the occasion.

Wow, i'm pretty excited! Any Italian cars or bikes, please drop me a PM!

[cobrAA]

So last week I had 1 day free time because of a cancellation, so I decided to do a little test between two Zymol wax ; Ital and Glasur.

The car needed a quick refresh anyways so I wanted to play with lime prime who contains micro-abrasive and see how the correction would be. I really liked it. But I have a shipment of raceglaze products coming up soon also hahaha, more stuff to play with.

Reflection before:


Reflection after:
























Ital appeared to make thing a little wetter but I will see later on after a couple rain like we had recently, it will be a good test!

[cobrAA]

So I was asked to polish this charge pipe. The metal was very dull but I had the feeling I could turn this boring pipe into something more interesting.

So I did a light wet-sanding, quite quick actually. Took me about 10 minutes for the whole pipe.

Then I took the various wool pad and special compound for metal and gave it a good spin on my table-saw. I end up using 2 differents wool and 2 compound. I then took my rotary and used a metal polish as a finishing step. Finally, I used g-technic coating as a metal sealant.









50/50



And close-up of the scratch:






Done!


I let the sealant cure for the night:



The next day:










See ya guys

[cobrAA]

Bonjour,

Par manque de temps terrible, je ferais une première version de ce detail en anglais. Aussi, par respect pour le propriétaire qui est anglophone, je vais utiliser la langue anglaise, n’hésitez pas par contre à poser des questions.

Sur ce,
Bon visionnement

So here it is, my first GTR detailed. We all love a Ferrari, a TT Gallardo or wish to detail a veyron right? But when it comes to sub 100k car, I think the GTR was clearly my #1 most wanted car to detail! I already had to chance to touch and have a close look at other GTRs in the past but nothing like having one in your workplace for 2 days doing your thing haha. I’m already taking appointment for 2 others GTRs so thing are doing well and just hope to see more and more popping.

The owner picked up this car used. It’s red so scratches show up easily. He looked at other REDG GTR getting detailed and told me he was looking for showroom result. We spoke in august. Time past ( he go to meet and get offered by tons of others detailers to have a spin on his car, I really appreciated his solidarity to me) and we can’t fix an appointment (either me or him can’t work the car for 2 days). So he come up and tell me since winter is approaching that he would prefer a normal 2-step detail job. I told him, I rather leave him my car for 2 days than having to ‘’rush’’ one of my most anticipating detail of the year. And as you will know later on, I should’ve of kept the car for 3 days! Hint: the clear coat is VERY HARD.

What more to say? I think its time to present you the car and my work!

Process:

Please refer to my intro thread under my signature to understand what the ‘’showroom’’ package include but basicly you leave me the car for 20-30 hours and I do whatever is needed with whatever products I feel is best for the job. In this package, nothing is more important than the end-result. I ask for your trust in return I give you showroom result.

At arrival:







Dusty, scuff this and there, little stain, nothing too major!












Car is dirty but not in bad shape either. Just need a very good cleaning. So I start up with an air compressor. This will remove as much debris as I could where it would be impossible to vacuum and have access. Also, by removing these debris, you also reduce the chance of scratching the leather and other fragile fabric inside while scrubbing with brush.




Time to take out the set of RACEGLAZE brushes. These brush are made of boar hair and are very soft and when agited, they can foam up pretty well which help a lot to get debris stuck under crevice.


I then realised the sticky residu in the back-windows. A good glue remover will take care of this in a breeze:


Just need a good windows cleaning now.


Here come RACEGLAZE Alcantara cleaner; I chosed this cleaner because it’s a very soft cleaner that I know won’t warm the fabric. Also, since it’s the first gtr I’m detailing, I wanted to play safe with the material of the seat. This cleaner also contains bacterie-killer which sanitize the fabric and at the same time can kill bad odors.


I also used Raceglaze Leather cleaner to clean the leather insert. Still using a horse hair brush in order to not warm the soft material. This brush do little miracles

[cobrAA]

After this is done, I pass the extractor everywhere I can in order to give the cleanest feeling possible. This machine is a must for professional interior cleaning. It’s not just about shopvacuuing but these machines are made to have as much water-lift as possible so the interior can be as dry as possible. Having a dry interior is not just a cool-thing but I’ve seen lots of seat getting destroyed because the foam got too humid and the clue can delaminated also. It also spray a hot water solution using a high pressure pump that does a way better job at cleaning than a simple spray-bottle water jet.


Once this is done, it’s time to clean the carpet and let them dry. I then use RACEGLAZE Color enhance on all trims and seal because this stuff will last for months not just weeks. I’m highly impress with this stuff. IMO, this is one of the best 3 products raceglaze do!

After, I live to use a water-based dressing with uv protector to protect dash and card board to try out and discolour. When all this is done, its time to wipe down windows and finally spray a bacteria-killer spray that will eliminate odors and not just mask them with cheap fresh odor spray. Sure, it doesn’t smell as pretty as the fresh odor deodorant spray but at least it really works!

And there ya go; the end result: a clean interior:






























I always try to polish as much as I can the plastic screen to give a more finished touch:




And heres the leftover water after the leather cleaning and extractor:




The exterior and engine bay portion is to be followed later on!

See ya,
Alex

[cobrAA]

Here comes the engine-bay. I covered the electrical component that didn’t seem protected and then sprayed some cleaner and let it work for 2 minutes. I then rinsed, Took a wheel boar’s hair brush ( important when you deal with carbon engine part that can scratch easily). The cleaner foam quite well with this brush so let the thing work and get under tight space. After I rinse again and see if I didn’t forget any spot. If I didn’t, I go on with my long-reach brush, the same one I use for wheel barrel. When I’m done, I get a cleaned engine. I then apply by foam a rubber protector that darken a little rubber and make the whole thing a lot nicer.







Raceglaze Brush make the cleaner foam very well.




And you end up with a result like this:





Some times, hood need to be polished or carbon fiber parts but this time it wasn’t the case. Okay so now, the engine bay is done, its time to move on to the outside.

As always, I start with the wheels because any brake dust splatter will be washed off right away. And these wheels were in need of a really good wash!! Look at this brake dust: wheels had hint of orange and caliper didn’t look very shiny.





For the wheels, I’ve been using a metal-reactive wheel cleaner that turn purple under metal particle. This cleaner is very effective but also safe on all types of wheels so instead of having 2 different products and asking myself if it’s safe or not to use this product on this type of wheels, I just buy this stuff and make my life easier.

I use Raceglaze brush (again! Damn these brushes are nice!) to work the cleaner, I also use a long-reach brush to clean the inside. Then agitate a citrus cleaner on the tires and brush the wheel well also. Then I rinse and move on to the next wheel.

At the end of the detail, I apply a wheel sealant that will give a little more shine and make cleaning wheel easier in the future because dust stick less on the wheel. When the wheel design allows me, I also coat the caliper. Some might ask; why don’t you simply remove the wheel then?!

I know some peoples do it but I don’t want to. The reason is simple; unfortunately, in the past I’ve been blamed for stuff I didn’t do and I’ve learned that the ‘’less you do/touch’’ the less you can get blamed on. I don’t always work on brand new car and on a 101-5 yr old car you can get weak frame rail/rusted and I could accidently bend the rail or let say 2 weeks later a random garage lift his car and then bend the rail and they come back at me saying I did it ? I just don’t want to deal with this crap.

Also, I would wait to be blamed for lost wheels because I haven’t torqued the nuts to the oem spec, even tho, you did it. It’s very unfortunate, but because of the few guys who blamed me for stuff I never did, I’m not taking any chances now. So now, you know, I don’t think it matters THAT MUCH anyways because I’ve been doing it like this forever and I think my wheels detail always come out nice.

With that said, I don’t have any close up pic of the wheels so keep that in mind when you see the final pictures

Dirty gas door, must not be fun to gas


I then start my decontamination process with a foam bath. This help lift up dirt without touching the paint (less touching = less swirls!)


Wax built-up to be removed:


I then use a citrus cleaner to clean molding and crack always with a raceglaze brush haha!

[cobrAA]

Everything has been cleaned, debris has been lifted from crack and brake dusts have splatted on the paint!? Well good! Now its time to clean the paint. I always go on with the 2 bucked method wash. I also add 2 grit guards in both buckets for a total of 4. The grit guards help to keep dirt in the bucket instead of lifting up every time you dip the mitts.

One bucket use clean water to rinse the mitts first, the other one is soap/water solution. I dip my mitts every 1 or 2 panels:



Look how one bucket is dirty and the other one is almost clear:


Once this is done, I then proceed to a physical decontamination aka the clay bar. You know the feeling, you washed the car but it still feel rough, you don’t understand why or you simply think it’s normal to feel like this. Well no it’s not haha!! You have small particle, usually metal dust from brake, stick on your paint and the only way to remove it is with some sort of mechanic abrasive. You could remove it by polishing it but then all this dust will stick to your pad and you don’t want this because it might put marks on your paint and imagine a dust particle spinning at 1200rpm on your paint! The damage is quickly done! So you want this to be done right now before the polishing.


Next and lastly but not least, I apply a chemical decontamination, same kind for the wheel cleaner, it will turn purple if it gets into contact with particle stuck in the paint. Car is red so it’s hard to see but look at those pictures, after the clay bar, I’ve been able to remove all this extra contamination with the chemical product. This also helps the wax to last longer.






After all this, I like to rinse and clean the car one last time and start polishing:


I then proceed to polish the headlight; they were not in a bad shape to a point where a wet-sanding was needed so I knew by experience that these lights could come up brand new only with a multiple step polish using different kind of pad and level of aggressiveness polish.



And after :



All its missing is a nano-coating to protect the plastic from scratching easily and from UV damage.

I then continue to tape all molding to not warm them during the polishing:




I then go on with my paint gauge to measure the thickness of the clear coat and make sure there’s no variation of paint. In other words, I’m like the paint doctor, I do an examen to make sure your paint is in good shape and no chance of burning your paint. This is one very important step to take but because it’s an expensive tool some people don’t use it and skip this part. I know this tool saved me troubles in the past! However, this paint was in very good shape.

The owner asked me for 50/50 so I did two and send them via SMS so he could see them right away! (Damn these guys these days hen!! Nobody is patient anymore loL!! Kidding, I understand some can be excited to see the end-result!)

[cobrAA]

No light, can you see the 50/50 !? a good difference in the brilliance of the red. One is more deep than the other side!




Now there’s no doubt haha!


Again, no light to spot the difference:












The lights I use are the same as the 3m sun gun but they are electric-powered which I prefer. I also prefer the two bulbs so you can really see the difference on a 50/50. I don’t always have the luxury of having sunlight under me to inspect my work so it’s important to have different set of light to make sure my job is OK. So I use halogen 500watts light, LED gun and these sunlight-like bulbs.

Since the paint is quite hard (pretty much the same as the ceramic one from Mercedes or corvette), I had to go more aggressive than what I usually do on a ‘’standard’’ job. This is not really a problem but its just that the more aggressive you go, the easier is the chance to burn the paint, to mar the paint and it will obviously dust more than light polish so it’s just a little user-friendly. At the end, the job gets done but doing light detail like 1-step is almost useless on these cars.

And then comes the small details, you know the little details that you might not see, but when you do 5-10 of them, it really show off.

Under the spoiler, the machine doesn’t pass so I have to do it by hand.


Polishing the taillight with smaller pad:


Tried to remove as much polishing dust as possible!


Looks a little fade, don’t you think?


Tools used:

[cobrAA]

Polishing the crest, I think these crest goes for like 150$ ( lol!) so better keep them in shape:


And then, look a LITTLE better :P


Polishing the metal exhaust:


To this:


It started to get dark so apologize for this last set of pictures: How do you like this shot? 2 GTR I detailed! Grandpa and little grand-son


Just some of the pad/microfibers I used that day:


Inspecting the paint before going supper:








Fast forward, I gave 2 coat of this devine wax; the raceglaze Special Reserve. This is an up rated version of the original Black Label retail version. I’m glad Mark decided to let me have one jar. The only jar being used in NA for an unique carnauba glow I feel this wax is closer to Zymol Royale in terms of carnauba glow but closer to Swissvax Crystal Rock in terms of durability because of his 76% carnauba ratio

[cobrAA]

Look at the paint, the reflection is perfectly clear; you could read what is written on the jar by looking at the paint:


Fattt!


Look like the wrx crest ( oh wait, I think the GTR came first haha! Anyways, it look nice on both car IMO!)












This is what I refer to a ‘’carnauba glow’’ that special effect the paint gives that make it ‘’glow’’. The combination of the wax and cleanse give this effect.


















Ouufff that was a long thread, I can’t say I will do them as long as these one for every car but hey I hope you guys appreciated and don’t hesitate to leave feedback!

Pour une question de polissage réalisé à montreal.. alexandre.lemay @ hec . ca
For more info regarding this polishing job, detailing , done in the greater Montreal , please contact me at alexandre.lemay @ hec . ca

[cobrAA]

Here’s my second showroom detail of the month. I ask the customer to give me white card and 100% confident. It will usually takes between 2 to 4 days to be completed. So between 20 to 40 hours. Price is not the first concern here, I use the best product available on the market and priority #1 is the end-result; a stunning ride!

Process:
I can’t even remember, I think I did 2 pass of compound and then 4 more step. So a total of 6 –step polishing
Paint gauge reading
Foam gun bath
2 bucket wash
Brush detailing
Swissvax Cleaner fluid + Crystal Rock
Etc.
Etc.
Oh did I say etc ?

1) Engine detailed:

This engine was very dusty and because of the anti-rust some of the dirt sticked everywhere and it looked even worse!





Here’s a special stuff that remove OEM anti-rust coating to give it a clean look:




And after:

Les voitures allemandes aiment mettre une sorte d’anti-rouille beaucoup plus efficace que ce qu’on voit chez le garage du coin, le problème c’est qu’après des années, la poussière colle et ça devient laid en titi! Je laisse les photos vous parlez!









2) Washing:

As always, I do the wash process, then clay the car, then go on with a chemical decontaminant in order to remove as much dirt as possible:

Mousse la voiture avec un dégraisseur, lave la voiture à la mains, passe la barre d’argile ensuite j’utilise un décontaminant chimique pour vraiment s’assurer que la peinture est la plus propre possible. Ces étapes sont souvent oubliez par une majorité de detailer car c’est une étape qu’on ne peut pas avoir à l’œil nue, donc pour payer moins chère, il coupe dans ses étapes.







Once dried with quality microfibers, I tape all the molding:






3) Paint correction:

Now, when I took reading of my gauge, I realised that two panel has been repainted . it didn’t cause me a problem at the polishing step but when I went to rewash the car, I induced some micro-marring that needed to be re-buffed again on these 2 panels ( sweet..!)

Après avoir pris connaissance de l’épaisseur de la peinture, j’ai réaliser que deux panneaux ont été repeinturé et cela m’à causé des problèmes lors de la dernière étape du lavage, j’ai du repolir ces deux panneaux uniquement à cause des scratchs supplémentaires.



Méchante variation!


Under different light :

[cobrAA]

I then go on with the test panel:







At this stage it clearly didn’t look like a well-corrected paint job so I went back to the compounding step and end up with that;



Only the very deep random scratches remains which are very small and hard to notice anyways. Not worth to bring the paint too thin just to *try* to correct these.

Seulement les scratches très profondes demeurent sur la peinture et cela ne vaux pas la peine d’essayer de les corriger car la peinture deviendrait trop mince par la suite.

Voici de quoi avait l’air la peinture après le compound ? People do you still want a compound done on your car ? haha




After the polishing:






















4) Paint cleanser:

When I think I’m done, I put the car outside in the sun in inspect it, I then wash it with a citrus bath especially made for paint. I don’t like to cut corner and use detergent made to wash dishes.

Contrairement à certains qui utilise du detergent à vaiselle pour laver leurs voitures, j’aime bien utiliser un produit fait spécialement pour la tâche du dégraissage.


It’s looking good!

Removing debris with my brush:

[cobrAA]

5) The finishing step:

Swissvax Cleaner fluid and one of the best wax on the market ; Swissvax Crystal Rock. 2 layer applied.



Some random shot:











Polished the metal pipe:


















All the grills have been coated with a uv protector

[cobrAA]

All trim dressed with wolfgang trim sealant:
















While taking the pic, I found out I still had some residu around the trunk





I usually do the inside also but this time the owner contacted me 6 hours before to tell me he was going to pick up the car later the same night, I couldn’t make it and we decide to not touch the interior. Oh well, it was quite clean anyways!

Hope you enjoyed this one also and don’t be afraid to ask me about your project, the bigger the project, the nicier I will make it !

Un autre projet super qui donne un résultat de qualité. N’hésitez pas à m’offrir de gros projet, c’est lors des gros projet que vous voyez vraiment ceux qui se démarque!

Pour une question de polissage réalisé à montreal.. alexandre.lemay @ hec . ca
For more info regarding this polishing job, detailing , done in the greater Montreal , please contact me at alexandre.lemay @ hec . ca