[stimpy]

I've only done a two step polish on my car once and it's getting to be time to do it again. While it may be silly, I feel the only frustrating part was taping the car before the polish and during so I'm turning to you all for advice.

Besides taping off the obvious things - what is the proper way to tape off our cars during a two step polish? For example - the doors on a coupe are long so I assume I need to tape it in half. Hit SIP on one side, hit PO85 on that side. Once done, move the tape over an inch onto the now polished side and then hit the other side with a two step (I hope that makes sense!)

Or would it be better to just tape off the obvious things and hit the whole car with SIP and then hit the whole car with PO85? The disadvantage of this is overlapping polishing and just general confusion I suppose.

I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill but like I said, this was really the only frustrating part - trying to make my way around the car in an organized and non time consuming manner.

[pander5]

Don't bother with taping into "sections" to polish. Just tape up the things you want to protect first like door handles, crevices, trim pieces, rubber trim etc. and then just buff away. I like to do the first step to the entire car (SIP in your example) and then I do the second step to the entire car (PO85).

[Detailed Image]

Originally Posted by pander5

Don't bother with taping into "sections" to polish. Just tape up the things you want to protect first like door handles, crevices, trim pieces, rubber trim etc. and then just buff away. I like to do the first step to the entire car (SIP in your example) and then I do the second step to the entire car (PO85).

+1 this is how I do it as well. Some other things to tape... lights, edges of clear bras, window trim, emblems, and anything else you don't want to get polish on.

Do one coat then the other. You want some overlap for uniformity in the paint.

[Envious Eric]

tape up the whole car, like so


The wheel arches have a runner piece between the body and the molding, and he small horizontal piece in front of the rear wheel is to cover the clear film edge like DI said. the handles that are not painted are taped up completely, and so are all the surrounding trim around the windows and lights. Basically anything rubber or plastic need to be taped up!

then go around the whole car with your 1st polish, then your 2nd polish

then re wash the car

no need to tape the car again if you use a non staining polish like FPII, or a glaze

then wax

[BK]

+1 just tape open gaps (to avoid getting polish in there as it is a b*tch to clean out) and rubber trim (polish will stain it). FWIW, I do a lot less taping now than I did the first time I polished. You don't really need to go to town with the tape, just cover the real problem areas.

Also, the reason you've see tape of "sections" of panels is only for the purpose of showing before/after photos to fellow detailers on Internet forums.

[pander5]

I've learned to consider all rubber areas close to paint as the pad will pick up black crap from the rubber if not taped and you run a little wide (onto the rubber) with your machine. That black crud gets on your pad and you then buff with that stuff on your paint.

I'm with BK in that I use less tape now than I used to but I've had a couple of paint "burns" over the years that has taught me the value of tape too. The best part is when you remove the tape and then simply have to clean up any lines of polish or stuff that gets caught in the residual adhesive edges.