# Louvred edges and machine polishing



## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Thought I would write a little guide (its been a while ) with regard to machine polishing and edges of paintwork. A friend called around today and wanted his bonnet polishing and well it presented the ideal opportunity, not only for this write up but also for some mild ribbing.










^^As you can see not only is faded and looking rather dull it has louvres installed and more edges than a dodecahedron The problem with edges is that the paint can be a little thinner and if caught with the edge of a rotary pad it can be good night vienna. The outer edge of a rotary pad spins faster than the innner edge (yup work it out). Therefore just catching a thin edge with a compounding pad can very likely remove the paint. The edge of polishing pad will almost certaintly be in the danger zone and your only really 'safe' with an ultra soft finishing pad and even then you need to exercise great caution.

So in a nut shell, edges and machine polishing don't go hand in hand. Whilst your car may not (hopefully ) have louvres it will have numerous edges that can be prone to damage from machine polishing.

Anyway lets have a look at some of the edges.










^^Firstly we have the close up of the faded paint right inbetween the louvres.










^^Secondly we haved the carbon fibre 'film' on the bonnet pins, whilst its fair to say its not as fragile as the painted edges, no ones going to thank you for going through. Just in case you didn't realise the louvres are 'cool'.










^^A bonnet shot showing the fading around the louvres, the owner has previously attempted colour correction by hand on the bonnet and its clear where a few areas didn't receive quite as much attention.










^^Bonnet pins don't just look pretty, they work...










^^With the bonnet closed the edges of the wing are very close and in this case look ever so slightly higher. Whilst we could tape these edges to protect them from the edge of the rotary pad it would be better if we could just get rid of them entirely.










^^My answer is to insert a thick cloth or towel over the bonnet catch to raise up the bonnet a few inches.










^^As you can see this enables you to polish right up to the edge of the bonnet with no fear of damaging the edge of the wing.










^^Next up we need to mask the edges of the louvres. I wanted to machine polish the flat parts of the bonnet before turning my attention to the louvres so using 3m masking tape the louvre edges were masked using a nice 'tight' mask curving the masking tape. Any lifting edges during machine polishing can pick up glue and deposit it on the paintwork. Not a disaster but an annoyance.










^^Bonnet half masked.

//////// Fast forward three polishing pads, a few dollops of Meguiars 105 ultra compound and the bonnet was polished to remove the oxidation and bring back the shine. //////

So lets take a look at the louvres once the surrounding paint is shiny. They certaintly stand out a lot more as the paint is dull, the masking lines are obvious.




























So these areas need to be cut in by hand. A bit of good old hand polishing. All you need is a microfibre pad. I used an old one, its a little harder than my lsp m/f pads and ideal for tasks like this as it has some 'bite'. Combined with a dollop of Meguiars #105 ultra compound.



















^^Before using the Meguiars #105 requires spreading into the pad so you don't loose any product down those holes!

Ok next we need a very strong man, some Ginsters, Nestle and motivation. Luckily I had one to hand.










^^The owner Dwayne Dibbly's arms are the same size as my thighs so, I set him off and watched him go:thumb:




























^^To be fair the first one he did wasn't bad at all. If you look very closely in the last pic you will see some hazing still present around the edges of the louvres. But this was ok... For now.





































^^Some of the longer louvres were also quite severe










^^A 'louvre' 50:50

Last weekend was spent detailing another friends clio. He turned up during the morning wanted it washed as it was being sold. So whilst my strong armed friend continued with his hand polishing The clio 182 got its final wash in my friends ownership. And what a good wash it was too. Allowing me to check the finish for swirls in the bright sunshine. I digress here but it was raining the previous weekend so the clio was 'corrected' to sun gun standards, so this was my first chance to see it in the sunshine and to be fair we weren't dissapointed.





































Anyway back to Dwayne and he had progressed.














































So yes a huge improvement but a few hazy edges and some polish/paint residue and some ugly stone chips. What was needed was a finishing polish to tidy things up.

After the worst of the stone chips were touched in I Took a soft blue 3m pad and some Meguiars #205 finishing polish and I buffed the bonnet including around and inbetween the louvres. :doublesho Extreme caution was applied here, 600rpm on the makita and being very careful the louvre edges were gently burnished. I had to use the pad edges but given its so soft, the rpm was so slow the risk of damage was minimal. NB polish was applied right up to the edge of the pad.

And the result was crisp Louvres





































And lastly



















So from This:










To This:









I left him to the remainder of the car himself


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## wedgie (Apr 5, 2008)

Thanks Mark, very nice turn around :thumb::thumb:


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## Dipesh (Oct 12, 2007)

Great read that, Nice write up. :thumb:


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## CK888 (Apr 23, 2006)

Top turnaround, v useful guide that mate:thumb:


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## Mini 360 (Jul 17, 2009)

Very cool and very useful guide! Dont get those louvres though......they dont line up with any other lines on the bonnet....but each to their own!


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## Loony (Nov 12, 2005)

Glad I escaped when I did rather than get roped into the manual Louvre polish 

Great turnaround as always butter, just a pity the car could really do with a re-shell lol


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## Danny B (Apr 14, 2010)

Brazo said:


> I left him to the remainder of the car himself


:lol: Great guide, thanks for that


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## Summit Detailing (Oct 9, 2006)

About time we saw a writeup..of sorts:lol:

Good read that fella:thumb:


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## dooka (Aug 1, 2006)

You must be pleased with that :thumb:..


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