Hyper Awesome?

[Heijneker]

Hey All,

Small backstory;

I'm a part-time professional detailer doing mainly dealer work. Which works great for me since it's awesome practice and an almost never-ending supply. In just a couple of months, I've gotten a million times better/more efficient and learnt a boat-ton. I almost solely use Optimum products, however during these couple of months, I kept switching between Menzerna polishing compounds and OPT ones. Slowely but surely, my Menzerna polishes are becoming redundant, as I'm learning to use the OPT ones to great effect.

To the point:

So today, I was assigned a badly neglected and weathered white van. I get these quite often, but I figure this was the worst one yet:

I tried to polish out similar ones with OPT polishes before but to no succes, neither with rotary or FLEX XFE 7-15. What did somewhat work though was a High Speed Rotary, an 8' wool pad and lots of Menzerna 400. It would get the paint shiny pretty quickly, but of course not near/around the edges. It was also hard work and I don't believe the results would be lasting.

Well fast-forward a month, and I've really learnt alot about the OPT spray polishes, since I use these most of the time. I got a Zentool 21mm, Lake Country 4000 pad washer, and a meriad of microfiber and wool pads. Yvan's advice to stick to low tool speeds finally struck home. I'm finally polishing on speed 2 (which was difficult to do if you're used to speed 4-5...) with no weight on the tool and getting awesome results. I've never gotten flat black cars to be so nice so quickly, as with Hyper Polish on a Rupes Yellow wool pad.

Back to the van in question. This was the third car of the day, and I knew I was going to get a good hourly rate. I felt like upping the anté and readied my Zentool 21e2 for duty. Armed with Hyper Compound on rupes blue wool and Hyper Polish on sprayed Rupes Yellow wool. I took my time, and arm speed was nice and slow. Firstly Hyper Compound, 6 sprays on a spinning pad, and about a 3ft x 3ft section. I saw the oxidation vanish before my very eyes, but after 3 cross-sections (left-right, up-down, left-right), some was still remaining. I then switched to Hyper Polish, 4 sprays on the pad, and with the Hyper compound residue remaining on the panel, again performed 3 cross-sections. Of course the typical easy OPT wipe-off revealed the new state of the paint.

And the results were:

Hyper awesome.....?

This van is losing all it's old dried out skin! Even around and near the edges, there's no comparison to when I used a rotary. I'm so glad I'm getting to grips with the Optimum polishes. I wouldn't have gotten these results as easily with any other polishing system I believe. 

[Heijneker]

This monday I got to finish the van, and decided to try some other things to compare.

I tried my old way again, and used a Dewalt Rotary, 8' wool pad and lots of Menzerna 400. I tested this on one of the dual trunk doors. The other door I already polished in abovementioned way and looked great! See for yourself:

The rotary did not do the job, the finish didn't improve enough. To be fair, I didn't crank up the RPM's up, but stuck to 600 RPM. Before I turned it up to 1800 and seemed to get better results (on cars that weren't as bad though). However, turning up the 'boost' wouldn't have improved it enough this time. It just wouldn't cut in certain parts, for example around/up to body lines.

I then got out the Zentool 21e2, Rupes Blue wool and Menzerna 400. This delivered the cut I needed and worked great. It even finished down nicely enough, so no need for a round of finishing polish on this white van. Of course no pressure and just speed 2-3. On a sidenote, I suspect Menzerna 400 temporarily fills in any micromarring remaining from polishing. I once polished a Black Ford Focus, polished it with Menzerna 2500, came out looking good. 4 Week later I got it back to wash it, and discovered micromarring all over!

Back to the van. After the rear door, I tried Menzerna on half of the hood, the other half polished with OPT products and that looked and worked great. Menzerna 400 did not really work here. Pad and paint temperature rose too much, and there seemed to be too much friction. It even disintigrated the pad (to be fair it was damaged already). I'm thinking the polish dried out, due to the added weight of the polisher now resting on the pad, which increased the friction between polishing residue and pad.

It did seem to cut well enough though, after one round of Hyper Polish on Rupes Yellow Wool got it looking almost as good as the OPT side.

[Heijneker]

Damn, Daniel, back at it again with the white vans!

Sinterklaas (Dutch early Santa kinda guy) gifted me yet again two weathered white vans. This time both not as bad as the one above, but still pretty bad. One van I attacked with Menzerna 400 and Rupes blue wool and the Zentool 21e2. That worked well, of course I had to stay away from any black trim, which is APITB on these kinda vans. But it sure did the trick!

On the other van, I went the OPT way, And to achieve a one-step, I am at max limited to Intensive Polish right now. Hyper Compound leaves too much haziness and also slightly stains black trim in my experience. The van's looking pretty rough to begin with:

So Intensive Polish and Rupes blue wool on the Zentool 21e2. The cut was insane, as was the finish!! I could see the oxidation disappear through the reflection of my headlamp.

No staining on black trim, so I could go to town on this van! It saved a considerable amount of time compared to the one I did with Menzerna. In fact, the Dealer was absolutely astonished how quickly I finished the van. From start to finish, including interior and upholstery cleaning and engine bay cleaning, this van took me just 2.5 hours, in-sane! And there was little to no effort involved, due to the easy Hyper polish wipe-off with damp ONR towel.

Way to go OPT!!

[Heijneker]

Yesterday I got too polish a Dacia Duster with a grey metallic paint. This car had seen some bad car washes, it was hammered!

Paint was fairly soft but not too bad. I used a new RUPES Blue wool pad on my Zentool 21e2 with Hyper Polish and went to town. That corrected very well and left a great finish. Residue wiped off with a wet ONR towel, dried with Car Wax:

I love the easy wipe-off and how easy it is to get a smear-free result. I cleaned the pad during polishing with the Lake Country 4000 and Power Clean. As I went on, the pad started to leave a bit of holograms, but no biggy at all. After about 1.5 hours polishing, the result was great! A very big improvement over what it was.

And another car I did, also almost completely smear free with great gloss. With this car, I did notice a bit staining on the black trim underneath, from hitting it with the polisher. It wasn't white, just a different shade of grey/black:

This car was pretty hammered on the roof and the bonnet. My guess is that it wasn't washed often enough. Lots of etchings. I tried a couple of things on the roof:

- Menzerna 400, MF cutting pad and RUPES LHR 21 MKiii, speed 6(!!!); great  cut and finish but too much vibration. Residue difficult to remove completely.

- Menzerna 400, MF Cutting pad and Zentool 21e2, Speed 6(!!!); same results but way less vibration.

- Intensive Polish, RUPES Blue wool on Zentool 21e2, speed 2-3; equal cut but worse finish. Easy on the body.

I continued with Intensive polish on all horizontal parts, followed by Hyper Polish on the same cleaned pad. Rest of the car just saw the Hyper Polish.