Wax isn't everything. Paint quality is!

[Intel486]

Ok, soapbox time again plus, I luv posting pictures! Paint quality is the biggest thing to decided how clear the reflection in your paint is. Orange peel, fish-eye'd paint with tons of wax on it will never outshine a high quality paint job with no wax on it. Color also makes a huge difference! Black will always give the deepest reflection even without wax. Black reflect everything! Also, like I mentioned in another thread ( http://f150online.com/forums/showthr...threadid=90515 ) the prep work you do on the paint also decides how clear the reflection is. With pictures it is hard to judge a wax. Taking pictures of the vehicle in the shade will always give the deepest reflection. I was working on a white vehicle and in the shade I could have taken a great picture of the reflection of a tree. As soon as I pulled in into the sun there was not a clear reflection to be found. Every swirls could be seen, the paint was slightly discolor'ed yellow, and it had some oxidation on it. The photographer can also move the camera around until he finds a position that hides imperfections in his paint. Now, the other day I used C-45 Liquid Fallout Remover on my truck. It is an acid bath that strips everything! I used it to remove a coat of P21S and 4 coats of Klasse Sealant Glaze. It did a good job because I can notice a difference plus water no longer beads on my truck, it just lays flat. My truck hasn't been polished for 6 months and I haven't had time to polish it yet. These picture are my truck w/ no wax on it and no polishing for 6 months, (except the hood picture but I'll tell more about that later) Orange peel!!! This is a picture of my bedcover. The particles on it are sawdust because I'm building boxes for the back of my truck to help organize all my detailing stuff. The bed of my truck is a mess right now so the boxes will really help. Look at all the orange peel!!! But I still have a nice, deep reflection. You can actually see a few scratches on the left above the tree branch in the sky. See the white lines? good!

[Intel486]

Now, these are pics in the side of my bed. You can kinda see how they are somewhat hazy. This is caused by two things. One, I had the sun coming in at an angle, which will fade out a reflection ( see how I talked about taking pictures in the shade? ) Plus, my truck is deep, wedgewood blue, which will never give a reflection as clear as a black paint.

[Intel486]

This is a reflection into my hood. About a week ago I colorsanded my hood and polished it. There isn't any wax on it yet though. This angle shows spiderweb swirls the most. You'll see them radiating around the sun. I actually saw a picture of someone's truck in their gallery that had them bad but I don't want to post it. They probably don't want me too mainly because he gives out a lot of detailing advice (not on this forum, FTW)



Here's the picture of the box I built today. I hope to have them all finished soon so I can seal them and start to use them. This one is for my towels.



Here's a picture of how my bed is currently. Nice and unorganized It is a real PITA to use. The boxes will help out A LOT! I have to carry my tent behind the seats in my truck. Hopefully I'll have room in the bed for it... hopefully.

http://f150online.com/galleries/imag...1008-33511.jpg
http://f150online.com/galleries/imag...1008-33510.jpg

[98SCREAMER]

I agree 100% that paint quality is more important than what wax you use. I only get home one or two times a year, but at least one time the truck gets completely gone over. Wool pad with cutting compound, then a foam pad with something like 3Ms' Finesse It. Then finally a coat or three of wax My neighbor with the faded black Chevy thinks I am nuts, but my truck still looks less than a year old at close to 5 years. I do have a chip or two, but they get the wax scrubbed out, and touched up then too. I have never attempted color sanding a factory paint job, I have had too many of them burn while trying to remove a simple scratch, back in my dealer days. What do you use for that, 2000 grit??,,,,98

I would rather not post a close up of my paint right now, last November was my buff out time, lol. C'mon January

[Intel486]

Yhea, I use 2000 grit sandpaper for the colorsanding. Some people use 1500 for it.

[grishfish]

Intel,
I took the time and really considered what you said about paint quality. On the last round of heavy duty cleaning I went all out.
Dawn wash, clay bar, Meguiar's paint cleaner, Meguiar's #9 twice, Meguiar's #7 (probably a waste of product given that the #9 already has some paint oils in it, but I could swear that there was a deeper shine afterward), and finally one coat (so far) of LG.
But the point of the matter really is that I've never seen the paint surface of my truck look as shiny as it did after the #7 (no wax yet). In fact, the LG application did very little to the overall deep shine of the truck.
Cheers and thanks for all the info,
Marcus

[Intel486]

Glad yall liked it!

I got some other threads about stuff over on FTW.