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Author Topic: Detailing a Jaguar XKR  (Read 2362 times)

Offline Dave KG

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Detailing a Jaguar XKR
« on: November 06, 2008, 05:29:12 pm »
As per requests  :happy2: this is one of my details I am most proud of in recent times, so thought I would share with you  :smiley:

Bryan made an early start on the car with Stu to get it washed, clayed, arches and wheels washed and arches dressed all before I arrived!  (At 9am)...  The car looked good from afar, too... 

But come up close, and my heart sank.  It was clear this car had been resprayed at the front, and the quality of the finish left behind was poor to say the least!  Horrific orange peel killing any decent reflection from the bonnet:





Rolled the car into the garage, and the true horror of the finish could be seen under the Brinkmann:  bad orange peel, and severe swirls and buffer tails:





Sanding disks were at the ready for this one, but as always, I started with the least aggressive combos and worked up....  Menzerna Final Finish made about as much difference as a fart in a hurricane.  Intensive Polish and #83 killed the lighter swilrs and general buffer trails but the deeper marks remained, as did the orange peel...  One last polish before the sanding disks were mounted up:  Menzerna S34A Power Gloss.  On a Meguiars W7006 cutting pad.  Spread at 600rpm, two or three passes at 1500rpm and then ten to twelve passes at 2000rpm (generated a little bit of heat :) ) until the residue cleared and then refined at 1500rpm.  This was then followed with Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish on a W8006 polishing pad, as I found the extra little bit of bite seemed to work best when burnishing this finish to a gloss.  The results under the gun:



By way of evaluating the effect on the orange peely finish...  this side of the bonnet is unpolished:



and this side of the bonnet was polished:



So a successful return to life of the finish.

This process was repeated across the whole car. 

Wing before:



and the wing after:



Bootlid before:



and the bootlid after:



This is the passenger side of the bonnet, remember the orange peel and swirling from before:



The polishing process above was carried out to give the following results under the sun gun:



and the result of the finish in the garage:



And a pre-wax picture of the car:



The LSP of choice today was Victoria Concours Wax.  Bryan applied the Victoria Lite Cleanse by hand, while I followed applying the wax using a foam applicator pad, removing the residue panel at a time to prevent the wax from drying and becoming difficult to remove.  The glass was also cleansed with Victoria Lite Cleanse, wheels with Smartwax Rim Wax, tyres with Meguiars Endurance Gel.  And Bryan polished the tail pipes.  ;) :lol:

Rolled back out into the natural light for the after pictures...













Happy with the results achieved here, and pleased that life could be breated back into the resprayed areas which was badly letting the finish down before.

Offline 182_blue

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Re: Detailing a Jaguar XKR
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2008, 05:30:49 pm »
Superb job as always