Ask any professional detailer and they’ll tell you the secret to a show-winning shine is in the preparation. The articles we’ve featured elsewhere in this issue of 911 & Porsche World will go some way toward helping you achieve a flawless finish, but to capitalise on all your hard work, you need to seal decontaminated surfaces with adequate paint protection. Not only will this stage of the detailing process preserve your Porsche’s paintwork, it will also provide extra depth of gloss, further enhancing the finish you’ve already achieved in the previous steps.
As we’ve highlighted elsewhere in this magazine, polishing is essential to remove swirls, light scratches, marring (areas of paintwork subject to abrasion), stains left by bird poop and other frustrating surface imperfections. The subject of polishing, including its associated products and the techniques adopted by professionals, is far too detailed for this article’s available column inches, suffice to say we’ll be publishing a dedicated guide to machine polishing in a forthcoming issue.
With the right equipment, expert advice and a little patience, you’ll be able to master the art of automotive polishing and enjoy fantastic results, whilst simultaneously learning how each polishing product works.
That said, it would be remiss of us to jump from decontamination to paint protection without at least summarising the polishing stage of detailing work. After all, this is arguably the most important part of the process. Put simply, whether you’re polishing by hand or with machine-operated equipment, the aim is to eliminate surface defects by removing a microscopic amount of the top layer of your car’s bodywork.
In most cases, this will be one of the layers of lacquer, but complications can arise when working with classic (and even modern-classic) cars, which may have been treated to single-stage paintwork at the factory. Indeed, different paint types — variations exist due to changes in automotive paint technology over the years — present different challenges, meaning there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to polishing. And all
