Buick Paint Restoration - Waxing Lyrical

It's not only the trim that needs masking, but the edges of the adjacent panels. When polishing near an edge, always ensure the pad is rotating "off" the edge as shown. If it rotates against the edge it will burn through the paint. The masking tape on the adjacent panel protects that edge, as the pad will be rotating against it when it is moving "off" the other panel. Clear?

Masking tape is also useful to protect raised bodylines, as the pad will burn through these while polishing the lower portion of the panel. The protected edge can be polished by hand later.

By way of comparison, we buffed half the trunk to show a "before" and "after" scenario. While the paint isn't the smoothest (we weren't about to color-sand the car, especially not knowing how much paint was actually on there, and not wanting to go through it), you can clearly see the difference between the oxidized and polished finishes.

The foam pad will require cleaning intermittently. We generally do this after finishing each panel, though it'll likely be needed halfway through a large section, such as the roof or hood. Using a blunt mini pry bar (though a screwdriver would also work), we ran it from the center to the outside of the pad, ensuring it is facing away from the direction of rotation, to prevent it digging in. You can see how the compound on the surface of the foam is cleaned off with minimal pressure.

Mothers has come up with a number of extremely useful power tool accessories for polishing in the recent past, the PowerBall Mini making light work of hard-to-reach, tedious jobs. Using the 10-inch extension on a battery drill enabled us to reach into the curved area between the trunk and rear bumper, though it should be pointed out the Powerball Mini is really designed to polish metal, not paint!

The front of the hood and left fender had weird white marks that wouldn't polish out, almost like paint spatter, so we color-sanded this area using 1,500 superfine paper, a flexible rubber block, and soapy water.

Once the white marks were sanded away, we used the heavy-duty rubbing compound to tackle the area by hand, as it was too intricate to use the buffer.

After the Buick had been buffed using rubbing compound, we switched pads and repeated the process with Foam Pad Polish. Very small amounts of this are required as can be seen from the amount on the pad.

A little goes a long way with the Foam Pad Polish. Once we'd polished a panel and moved to the next, we masked the previous panel to prevent unnecessary cleanup. Note the shine is improving with each step.

Mothers supplied these microfiber detail towels, which have a two-sided dual-nap design. The long nap side is used for initial wipe down, while the short nap will buff the shine. We're using the long nap side here to remove any excess polish before applying Machine Glaze.

The final step in the paint maintenance, or in our case, restoration process, is to wax the vehicle, though we actually waxed the Buick after the following trim polishing steps. We like to use carnauba wax and apply it by hand. Normally, with a new paintjob, we'd obviously not place the tin on the paint!

As part of the PowerBall range, Mothers offers the PowerBall 4Paint, which makes short work of polishing or waxing large surfaces, though of course we used the orbital buffer. The kit comes with 4 ounces of synthetic liquid SynWax, as shown, though we're fans of carnauba wax, which is what we used on the Buick.

The final step in the paint maintenance, or in our case, restoration process, is to wax the vehicle, though we actually waxed the Buick after the following trim polishing steps. We like to use carnauba wax and apply it by hand. Normally, with a new paintjob, we'd obviously not place the tin on the paint!

Moving on to polishing the stainless trim, we used Mothers PowerMetal scratch removing polish, followed by PowerMetal liquid metal polish. This will work on all polishable metals, such as aluminum, brass, stainless steel, gold, and silver. We used what is probably the most versatile tool in the PowerBall line, the PowerCone, as it is ideal for reaching into tight areas.

The conical shape of the PowerCone allows it to reach areas the PowerBall can't. It made short work of the Buick's portholes as well as the stainless body trim, which you can see here we masked off to prevent damage to the paint.

OK, so the metal is pitted, but check out the difference before and after we hit it with the PowerCone and PowerMetal products.

It was interesting to note now the PowerCone formed to the shape of whatever it was polishing, once rotating. Its long tapered side is perfect for polishing broad, curved surfaces, and worked great on the headlight rims as well as the rear light housings. Incidentally, it should be used at a slow speed for best results, similar to the speed you'd polish by hand.

The PowerBall Mini MD (Metal Doctor) was Mothers first specialty tool in the PowerBall family, and while it's designed for removing scratches and stains from polished aluminum and stainless steel, we used it to polish the tired and dull chrome on the Buick's bumpers, coupled with Mothers Chrome Polish.

Here's the rear of the Buick after polishing the paint, chrome, and stainless. A vast improvement over what we started with, we think you'll agree.

Despite yellow and white probably being the hardest two colors to show a shine on camera, compare the Buick after a couple of days work to what it looked like when we started. Some difference we think you'll agree, and way cheaper than even a cheapy paintjob to tidy her up!