A Tale of Two Abilities
Discussion
I have learned a salutory lesson!
About a year ago, I was following one of the many threads on keeping the car looking good during the winter. I ended up chatting to Francis (Paddy328) who recommended C-QuartzUK and Reload as a very good coating that would see me through the bad weather. So I bought the stuff, watched the on-line video showing how easy it was to use and set to. It was pretty cold but within the temperature range for the product (albeit a bit close to the +5 lower limit). I found it reasonably easy to apply but difficult to buff off and a couple of places clearly hadn't cured properly when I went to do so as they were a bit sticky. When I next saw the car properly in the daylight I realised that, although the coating had gone on, I had introduced a dispersion pattern onto some areas of my car (like the rainbow pattern when fuel sits on water). Apart from ruining the beauty of the car through my poor preparation, the coating was fabulous and repelled water like nothing else.
After a year, the protection level was still superb but I needed to do something to get the car looking good again too. Que another call to Francis and a booking to come and put my efforts right. Well yeasterday he came and worked his magic but it took him far more hours than it should have done to get right. Through sheer hard graft and endless rounds of machine polishing he got the old coat off and returned the bodywork to the thing of beauty it once was. He worked a very long day but has done a fabulous job.
So to the moral of the story. What appears to be straightforward with protective coatings probably is if you have the skills in the first place. For my part, I think I was too optimistic that I could do the job in the conditions and then didn't have a clue how to put it right when it started going wrong. Also my preparation work, which I had thought was good, was pants. I should have saved myself, and Francis, a heap of effort by getting him to apply the coating in the first place. It would then have looked for the past year as it does now - superb.
Thanks Francis - a fantastic result even if you would probably desribe it as the job from hell!
For anybody else out there, as others have, I can't recommend Francis (Paddy328) highly enough.
About a year ago, I was following one of the many threads on keeping the car looking good during the winter. I ended up chatting to Francis (Paddy328) who recommended C-QuartzUK and Reload as a very good coating that would see me through the bad weather. So I bought the stuff, watched the on-line video showing how easy it was to use and set to. It was pretty cold but within the temperature range for the product (albeit a bit close to the +5 lower limit). I found it reasonably easy to apply but difficult to buff off and a couple of places clearly hadn't cured properly when I went to do so as they were a bit sticky. When I next saw the car properly in the daylight I realised that, although the coating had gone on, I had introduced a dispersion pattern onto some areas of my car (like the rainbow pattern when fuel sits on water). Apart from ruining the beauty of the car through my poor preparation, the coating was fabulous and repelled water like nothing else.
After a year, the protection level was still superb but I needed to do something to get the car looking good again too. Que another call to Francis and a booking to come and put my efforts right. Well yeasterday he came and worked his magic but it took him far more hours than it should have done to get right. Through sheer hard graft and endless rounds of machine polishing he got the old coat off and returned the bodywork to the thing of beauty it once was. He worked a very long day but has done a fabulous job.
So to the moral of the story. What appears to be straightforward with protective coatings probably is if you have the skills in the first place. For my part, I think I was too optimistic that I could do the job in the conditions and then didn't have a clue how to put it right when it started going wrong. Also my preparation work, which I had thought was good, was pants. I should have saved myself, and Francis, a heap of effort by getting him to apply the coating in the first place. It would then have looked for the past year as it does now - superb.
Thanks Francis - a fantastic result even if you would probably desribe it as the job from hell!
For anybody else out there, as others have, I can't recommend Francis (Paddy328) highly enough.
Lunablack said:
Come on......you can't tell us all how great the car looks and then not include a few pictures
Can't get a decent set of pics due to the weather. If these have uploaded correctly, the first here shows the before and the rest are after Francis worked his magic
Edited by notsaV8V on Wednesday 2nd October 16:48
Edited by notsaV8V on Wednesday 2nd October 16:49
Hi les,
Don't know how I missed this. The first pic kind of shows what the car looked like, but if everyone imagined a car covered in oil, then you're pretty much there. The protection was fantastic though. Still going strong a year on. It took 3 stages of machine polishing to get it to a respectable state. It was a late day, though I've had later.
I'm still puzzled as to what exactly happened, but one thing is obvious, Les really did do a number on it, I mean great job.
I was kept company all day by Tasha, who kept on getting her ball under the car while I was washing it.
I was even bought a chocolate cake to keep me going!
The car is now wearing a coat of 22PLE and the moral of the story is, always get me to make your Aston shiny for you.
Don't know how I missed this. The first pic kind of shows what the car looked like, but if everyone imagined a car covered in oil, then you're pretty much there. The protection was fantastic though. Still going strong a year on. It took 3 stages of machine polishing to get it to a respectable state. It was a late day, though I've had later.
I'm still puzzled as to what exactly happened, but one thing is obvious, Les really did do a number on it, I mean great job.
I was kept company all day by Tasha, who kept on getting her ball under the car while I was washing it.
I was even bought a chocolate cake to keep me going!
The car is now wearing a coat of 22PLE and the moral of the story is, always get me to make your Aston shiny for you.
paddy328 said:
It was tesco's own, but very nice.
I didn't know where it was, so thought it must have been miles away.
What cake did you have?
A bloody great chunk of Walnut and Coffee,the Thug had the same..........very nice as well.I didn't know where it was, so thought it must have been miles away.
What cake did you have?
What better on a Sunny Sunday than sitting eating Cake surrounded by sparkling Aston Martin's whilst putting the world to rights
with His Lordship Tony Hall..................eye opening.
BTW it must have been all of 15 minutes from your place,just think of the Cake you missed out on my boy it was a mouth watering selection
to say the least.
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