E46Fanatics - 1981 DeLorean Preview: The Perfect Handjob. Regraining Stainless Steel by Hand

i call this the perfect handjob! its for someone with alot of experience in auto body & paint prep work. im sanding bare stainless steel by hand & i did it all dry. dry cuts better, faster & deeper. its a dirty job for sure!

before any exterior work started the interior got a full cleaning & leather treatment. i also did a light engine clean with some towels & light cleaners, no hose was sprayed back there.

i washed the DeLorean with car soap then dried with a leaf blower & microfiber towels. i used WD-40 to prep the stainless steel. i also went over the door moldings with WD-40. i wetsanded & polished the front bumper & then polished the rear bumper + applied 2 coats of wax to them. i wanted to get the bumper work out of the way!

rubber seals, door moldings, black fiberglass engine compartment cover & a few other black trim pieces + bumper covers (which are the only painted parts on the car) were taped & covered with plastic. i needed to keep those things protected. sanding wet with with just water or with soapy water wouldve messed up my prep work & wouldve made it hard to see the grains.
the blending pad & the liquid polish that follows contains materials that can damage those parts. the work needs to be done dry. the surface got a little chalky but i could still see the grains as i im working.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c1...gle05/1-45.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c1...gle05/2-41.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c1...gle05/3-43.jpg

i finished her on sat afternoon & got started right away on a 2012 Lotus Evora S. the Lotus didnt have many swirls but my customer wanted to make it look flawless & wet for sunday to show off to his friends in his car club.

both cars were on the floor here: http://manhasset-concours.com/

sun @ 8:30 am i met up with Ronnie & Matt at the garage so he could get his Lotus. once we got to the Americana i gave the Lotus a wipedown with some spray wax & i let Ronnie do his thing with his camera! photo shoot on the floor!

then i sent a text to Harry & met up with him by his DeLorean. it was fun! i saw a small crowd started to form in front of the car as i was giving it another wipedown. i went over the DeLorean for the second time with 3M Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish. the first time was back at the garage on fri afternoon. i sprayed it on brand new microfiber towels till it foamed, working one section at a time in slow, long even strokes. this stuff turns the the towel a lil black.

i wanted to see if i could pick up any more black on some new microfiber towels. if anything else comes up that means im cleaning the surface a bit more which would increase the shine of this beauty. you have to see her in person after the detail to see what im talking about.

so i went over it 2 more times with dry microfiber towels & it looked amazing!
every time i would wipe it down it would glow a little more. i told Harry you gotta do this twice, stand back, have a beer & call it a day! too bad i couldnt have one right there!

ronnie followed with a photo shoot of the Delorean as one of the judges looked over the car!

goodbye for now!

:D