1947 Buick Land Yacht Grill Polishing
 

1947 Buick Land Yacht Grill Polishing



Last night we used the Marine 31 Stainless Steel Liquid Polish and to clean and polish the stainless steel grill on the 1947 Buick Slantback Land Yacht.


Before
Note this shot was taken before we polished the paint too. Most people looking at the paint on this car would think it looks pretty good and it is shiny, however it's also covered with overspray paint and overspray undercoating and there are swirls in the clear coat finish from years of wiping with spray detailers. Be sure to check out the shine and gloss in the after pictures because we also machine polished the paint.


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Not too bad, I've certainly see worse but let's see what we can do to remove the haze and dullness and restore some brilliance and clarity...

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This is me applying the Stainless Steel Liquid Polish using a Griot's Garage 3" Mini Polisher and 3.5" Lake Country Microfiber Pads.

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Here's my buddy Jeff Bell lending a hand. Jeff is a Pro Detailer and offers mobile detailing for daily drivers, show cars, airplanes as well as marine detailing. He's based out of West Palm Beach and I can put you in touch with him.

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After polishing we sealed the surface using Marine 31 Stainless Steel Liquid Sealant by hand using a microfiber applicator pad. This also helps to remove any residues not removed after machine polishing which also helps to increase a clear shine.

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The results from what we did above looked great but the next day, I wanted to see what I could do with the same microfiber pad and polish but I switched over to a Flex PE14 lightweight, compact rotary polisher.

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After machine polishing with the Flex I could see some swirl marks in the stainless so I re-applied the polish by hand using a little elbow grease and easily removed them. Then re-sealed with the sealant and took the below photos.

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To really capture the improvement, I took on our ice chest so I could shoot down on the rain deflector...

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Huge improvement that really adds to the overall shine and beauty of this car after we machine polished the paint. The Griot's 3" Mini Polisher worked a LOT faster than trying to polish by hand and didn't leave any swirls. Switching over to the rotary polisher did an even better job or polishing the stainless but keep in mind just like a rotary buffer can leave swirls in paint it can also leave swirls in metals. For some thin trim pieces this will be okay as you just can't see them, (like the teeth in the grill), but for larger, flatter panels you can either re-polish using a dual action polisher like the Griot's or just do a little re-polishing by hand.


And here's the finished project...


1947 Buick Slantback Land Yacht...

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:fisherman:

Re: 1947 Buick Land Yacht Grill Polishing
 

wow mike, that's our kind of land yacht. the metal really turned out nice. is that an extension piece on the flex rotary ?

Re: 1947 Buick Land Yacht Grill Polishing
 

Technically it's called an adapter because it's used to adapt or place a double sided pad onto a rotary buffer.

I call it an extension because I use it to extend the backing plate away from the body of the rotary buffer to do what I call surgical buffing. It's great for getting into tight areas, or buffing intricate designs.


Here's the link to it on the Marine31.com store...


Rotary Backing Plate Extension


This is also a great addition to a Flex PE14 Rotary Polisher. The Flex PE14 in my opinion works best for doing surgical buffing because it's compact in size and only weights 5 pounds. This makes it much better suited for this type of work as compared to any full size rotary buffer.


:)

Re: 1947 Buick Land Yacht Grill Polishing
 

Great job Mike!

One thing I really like about Marine 31 Stainless Steel Liquid Polish is that it's white in color. A lot of liquid metal polishes are purple, blue, green, pink, etc.

Where am I going with this?

If you accidentally get any WHITE metal polish on a WHITE gel coat (the most common color), it won't stain! This product was intentionally formulated that way.

Just one more reason Marine 31 products are the best of the best. :D