1st time ever...detailing rear spoiler w/ random orb. buffer

[Bster13]

Based on the advice I received in another thread, I went to work last night. Total time, including taking pics and scratching my head was ~50 minutes.

 

My order got screwed up by the vendor, so Meguiar's 105 was not at my disposal, but from the advice I received a Edge 2000 blue polishing pad (light) and Meguiar's 205 should do the trick.

 

So last night I threw caution to the wind and "practiced" on my 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX SE. I won't bore you with all the passes I took (7 in all), but all pictures and video can be found here:

Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010 pictures by bster13 - Photobucket

 

I taped spoiler off, and worked on the right side. You can see the spider webs and ramdon deeper scratches:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030719.jpg

 

I primed the pad like I read on the forums (for each round I primed the pad exactly the same, and eventually all the darker spots filled in on the pad.):

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030722.jpg

 

 

After 1st Pass w/ M105 spd. 4:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030723.jpg

 

After 2nd Pass w/ M105 Spd. 4:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030725.jpg

[Bster13]

After 3rd Pass w/ M105 spd. 4:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030727.jpg

 

After 4th Pass w/ M105 spd. 4:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030730.jpg

 

After 5th Pass w/ M105 spd. 5:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030733.jpg

 

After 6th Pass w/ M105 spd. 5:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030735.jpg

[Bster13]

After 7th Pass w/ M105 spd. 5:

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030741.jpg

 

I missed a spot near the tape, but you can see the difference between both sides.

 

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/bster13/Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010/P1030738.jpg

 

And here is a short video where ~I~ can hear the difference between the polished right side and untouched left side. A little difficult to pick out I suppose. The right side feels very smooth compared to the left:

 

Spoiler_detail_6_18_2010 :: After 7th Pass w/ M105 spd. 5 video by bster13 - Photobucket

 

Lessons learned:

 

- I was way too light on my pressure in the beginning and didn't see any results...then I went to the other extreme and applied way too much such that the pad did not rotate. In the end I added a bit of painters tape to the top of the bad to help me see when the pad was rotating. I cranked the speed on my PC to #5 and applied as much pressure as possible while letting the pad rotate every so slowly. This started to give me results.

 

There are a few deeper random scratches I need to address, but this was a good learning experience. I can definitely tell the difference. Polishing my daily driver on my time schedule is definitely going to be a body panel at a time. :ack: