stone chips – One Man And His Mustang

Last weekend I went to a car show at the Enfield Pageant of Motoring, and guess what? It rained; OK it wasn’t a bad downpour, but it was still wet stuff from the sky which landed on my car. That’s the first three shows this year that I have attended and rain has appeared, although to be fair it wasn’t until later in the afternoon. This won’t put me off car shows, it just makes me check my useless weather apps more to see what lies they are going to tell me. It seems as though my luck this year with car shows is not going very well at all. I drove to the end of a field and parked up on the Mustang Maniac stand where I meet Adam, Yogi and Paul who were busy getting their priorities right, making the cups of tea. My priority was to start cleaning my car. Simple reason being that the previous day Saturday was a hot day for a change at the show and the entrance car park had dried to a dust bowl. The show cars that were driving into the event were going slowly so as not to kick up much dust and gravel. In other words, showing respect for other people. However some selfish a-hole in a van decided to do mini burnouts every time he moved. Needless to say the dust cloud that enveloped the car park was like cloud of nuclear fallout and just as toxic. Not a great a great start to the show, I wasn’t best pleased.

I have continued to review lots of car cleaning and detailing products as I get a few questions now and again about what products I use on my Mustang as well as the daily driver cars too.

Contrary to popular belief I am not a one brand product devotee, far from it in fact. A big pet hate of mine is where somebody will buy a single product and be brand loyal refusing to admit that some of that brands products are in fact a useless waste of money. Those same people will have blinkered and tunnel vision when it comes to trying other products. My outlook on the matter is simple, I’m still looking for the perfect combination of products for each step I perform whether it be; snow foam, drying, decontamination, cleaners for paint, cleaners for wheels, glass cleaners, polishes, waxes, microfiber cloths, brushes, carpet stain remover, rubber restorer, vinyl cleaner etc. Just about everything I use is in a combination of many products such as Meguiar’s, Auto Finesse, Chemical Guys, Poor Boys World, Mirror Bright, Valet Pro, Dat Wax and so on depending on what is need, and what I intend to do to get the results I want. This time I decided to use a Chemical Guys EcoSmart which is a waterless wash & wax product I have been using for a while now, but just couldn’t get it right to use it properly. The results are amazing (now) which have improved a huge amount since I started to use top quality plush, deep pile microfiber cloths at £5 each and not the 25 cloths for £5 scenario, which aren’t much better than toilet rolls if the truth is to be known. Round two was onto the quick detailer, a brand new product recommended to me which is Chemical Guys – P40. (Yes, I buy ALL my own car cleaning products, and I am unbiased in my reviews.)

The car finished and it looked quite clean again.

The Mustang Maniac stand was starting to get full as I was almost done and was easily the Mustang place to be. There were customers who turned up for a chat, people interested in getting a Mustang, and people who were just happy to be around the cars.

With the car finished some one and half hours later I went for a wonder around the show to look at the cars and stalls.

It was an fairly good show in general, but I think that this show is getting more mainstream rather than car focussed stalls. There were lots of house clearance stalls selling cheap rubbish, stalls that sell plenty of plastic toys and stalls selling a selection of tools (I use that term very loosely), which were aimed at people with an extremely tight budget should we say. For once I didn’t buy anything at all from anybody. The wife says I should take her out for the day with the money I saved, she’s right of course, there is a car show this weekend, I could take her there and maybe get her a burger and buy more stuff for the car.

Classic car owners second worse nightmare? Stone Chips.

The worst nightmare has to be rust, the second has to be the dreaded stone chips. I always drive with an extra spaces between the car in front of me and I back off if somebody pulls into that gap. It seems as though I have been caught out with the hated stone chips. Let’s just say I was pretty pi55ed off and the air was filled with the colourful language that may have slipped out of my mouth on a repeated number of occasions.

I spotted the evil craters from the previous car show and fixed them up before the trip down to Enfield. Although I got another one on the way back from Enfield, I spotted this one when I cleaned the car on Monday. I have done a walkthrough or tutorial guide that works for me under the Menu ‘How To…Projects/Fixing Stone Chips’. Here is just a taster of what I did to fix them. This is only the basic explanation, I fully explain it all here.

Identify the location of the chips by marking with a piece of masking tape.

Thoroughly clean the area with Isopropyl Alcohol (or similar) to remove all waxes and sealants, use lint free panel wipe or similar. Then take a little colour and place into a pot. I had some left from the original paint job so I was lucky in that respect for colour matching.

isopropyl alcohol

lint free cloth

There are various ways to apply the paint, with a brush, paper, matchstick, toothpick or similar. I use a wooden burger skewer as they are longer, easier to hold and I can sharpen them well without splintering.

tooth pick

The idea is to place a tiny droplet into the centre of the chip so that it sits just proud of the rest of the paint around it. Place the tip of your choice of applicator into the paint and remove it which should now hold a tiny droplet which is held in place by the wood and not running straight off. If you get a big drop you have the chance of it dropping onto places it shouldn’t be, with a lot of recovery work for yourself later.

With the paint drop as small as possible, covering the chip itself and sitting proud of the paint – leave it to dry and cure. Not an hour or two, I’m talking a couple of days, I left mine for a week. This will also allow any waxes to apply to the fresh paint properly.

Next is to get the sanding paper out, I got a wide selection of wet & dry papers starting with coarsest being 1500grit all the way to impossibly fine 8000grit. They are different colours for identification.

I then take my special stone chip tool, a pencil eraser and mark out the width I need on the grades of paper to cut to the size I need. These erasers come in various sizes and shapes for your needs or what suits you.

The idea is to start with the courser grade and work finer to remove the previous sanding marks. I prefer the rubber eraser as it will give slightly to a contour as it’s not rigid, but firm enough to hold the paper flat to the surface. I marked the back of the papers as the cut strips may not show the grit grade itself.

Patience, then use lots more patience.

Wet the area, I use a small travel spray you can get from eBay. Then gently rub the paint drop down keeping the paper flat as possible. A few gentle rubs then check. This will give an idea of how the paint is reacting to the paper and also you don’t want to sand the topcoat or lacquer of the paint if you can help it. You can adjust your technique accordingly.

water spray bottle

wet area

initial paste rubbing

after drying

When you are getting close to the flat paint, swap the papers over to a higher grit. With the sanding the paper may shed and give you a light paste look depending on the type of paper you bought.

The higher the grit number will reduce the previous marks and stop you from rubbing the paint to hard, keep the area wet. Repeat as necessary all the way to the fine grades. When you rub your finger over the chipped area you shouldn’t feel anything at all, it should be glass smooth. If the paint has sunk and you have a pit, stop sanding and add another tiny drop of paint by repeating all the application steps above and let it dry.

Once you are happy with the sanded area then it’s time to bring the car paint back to life. Use a polish that you normally use to remove swirl marks or light scratches. This will remove all the sanding marks, I used Tripple on this occasion as it’s hardly abrasive. Rub into the area using a DA machine or by hand as in my case using the ‘Handipuck’ to get the shine back.

With the area polished it just leaves the protective wax to be applied, this after the hand polish. Pointed out stone chip area with the wooden paint pick tool.

My next step to wax and protect the area. Dat Wax which is show wax and is heavy on oils not the paste style which is ideal for this type of work. Oh, its also blue and smells of beautiful bubble-gum which I reviewed here.

The finished results:

The trouble is, I have to do it all again soon. 🙁

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My first trip of the year in my car was fine, but I had a few scary moments there and back. There were idiots with no consideration slicing across the front of my car, the other was to avoid all the trenches or pot holes in the road. The roads in the UK are complete joke right now to be honest after the snow, sun and rain. I think that I compressed my spine by an inch and shook a filling out my tooth due to all the mega craters in the road. I guess that’s what you get when stiffen the suspension in order to make the car handle a bit better.

During the round trip I had a thought to myself wondering if these people realise what us Classic Car owners are thinking while we drive along? So, I had a little fun and came up with this little list in my head then wrote it down before I forgot it;

We treat everybody on the road as somebody who can’t drive properly.
We seriously believe that other road users want to crash into us at every junction.
Pulling out from a junction at the last-minute in front of us really is a problem.
We never trust somebody’s indicator as being their true intention.
We give ourselves extra space to the car in front to allow us time to slow and stop as our brakes may not be as good as modern cars.
We give ourselves extra space to avoid the chance of any stones being flicked up causing a stone chip on our paint jobs.
Our paint jobs can cost as much as a small family car.
Stone chips may look tiny to you, but to us they look as big as a satellite dish and just as ugly.
It may look like we are drunk while driving although we’re not. We are avoiding the pot holes in the road, you normal car drivers wouldn’t give a second glance to.
Pot holes are like moon craters or trenches for classic cars.
We spend as much time looking at the road conditions as we do predicting traffic.
If you wish to overtake us we don’t mind, but don’t chop across the front of our car, give us space, see points 4, 5 & 6.
We will avoid a crash at all costs and we will take extra care.
We will avoid mud. That mud stores moisture and starts the rust process off.
We are paranoid about rust. We can hear our cars rusting in the garage!
We don’t drive close to side of the road where there are hedges as they are a potential for paint damage.
We will stop rather than drive past or through a bush or hedge.
We will slow down for large puddles.
We don’t like rain.
We will do everything we can to protect our cars from water damage.
Tailgating makes us nervous, we won’t speed up just because you want to go faster.
Because we tinker around on our cars doesn’t mean anything is wrong.
If you see our car and you don’t like what you see, don’t tell us because we don’t care.
We are happy to talk to anybody about our cars, but please don’t tell what our cars should look like or what we have done wrong in restoring it.
We will drive around endlessly looking for a safe place to park.
If our car is parked somewhere you can guarantee we can still see it.
There is no need to touch our cars.
Finger prints on our paint is a problem for us. We will clean it off.
Leaning on our cars is definitely not acceptable.
The tinkle of zips, belts, buckles or the metallic sound of a ring will damage our paint.
Young children with ice creams are a potential for more unnecessary cleaning.
Dogs using our tyres as a mobile toilet is not acceptable. We will clean it off.
We don’t like parking under trees because tree sap can ruin paint. We will clean it off.
Birds mess on the car will cause serious damage to paint work. We will clean it off.
Dead insects on our cars is unsightly and can cause damage. We will clean it off.
Cleaning our cars is a pleasure and some of our cleaning products can cost as much as a tank of fuel.
The “You missed a bit” cleaning joke isn’t funny, honestly.
No we won’t clean your car when we have finished ours.
Yes we do need to clean our car if its been in the garage, it gets dusty.
We tend not to thrash our cars around just to prove a point for you.
The grip from our tyres may not be as good as modern-day compounds.
A set of traffic lights is not a cue for drag race with you.
The interior of our classic cars are cleaned with the same care as the outside.
Adding fuel to our cars means we will wipe off every single spilt drop.
We carry spare fluids in the trunk for all eventualities under the hood.
We sit by our cars at car shows to keep an eye on our cars.
No you can’t sit in it – don’t ask.
No we won’t start our car up just so you can hear it, wait untill we leave.
There are two prices for our classic car parts, the proper price and the price we tell our partners.
A classic car is not “just a car” to us, it’s a way of life.

I hope I haven’t missed anything and made a few people smile and say – “yep that’s me!” If I have missed something that needs to be on this list, please let me know and I shall amend it. Although this is a little bit of fun, there is also a serious note to the points too. When I see any Classic Car on the road and I am in my daily workhorse car; I give them plenty of room now.

I just couldn’t do a post with no picture of a car that wouldn’t be right.