Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

[charlest25]

I applied Ultimate Compound by hand using a pad yesterday, and it messed up the paint job. I was using it to remove oxidation and any bonded contaminants. What do I do now to remove the damage that Ultimate Compound caused?

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

I actually just used some Ultimate Compound today and it was 100% flawless and ready for wax on a 2006 Nissan Frost White (Pearl) Maxima- just goes to show how many variables there are in detailing! (Paint, problems, application media, technique, etc).

That said, can you possibly elaborate on your exact process when using the Ultimate Compound?

What type of pad did you use to apply the product? Was it 100% clean? (Was the surface washed first?)

Also, what type of "damage" did it leave? Any chance you have pictures?

The more information we have, the better our ability to help you solve the problem.

Mark

[Murr1525]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

You'll have to check how you loaded your pics. Assuming those are pics, they dont seem to show up, and it would be best to see what happened.

[gb387]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

First, welcome to MOL!!

We do need a little more info on the problem to help you out. Better yet do you have any photos you can post, I have tried to locate the photos that appear to be posted but no luck? Give us the info mentioned above by Mark and we will help you out.

[mb911]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

Bonded contaminants should be removed via clay.

A compound would be used to remove below surface defects.

Nevertheless, I'm sure when you provide the guys some more details they can help you out. I've used Ultimate Compound and even more aggressive on entire cars, so I doubt it did anything that can't be fixed.

[charlest25]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

I used a new pad and tried to use the technique in the video. It was washed and dried. I did not apply any thing else to the car. I was thinking about going back over it.
Any suggestions?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

What are you working on?

Type of car?
Year?
Does it have single stage paint or a clear coat?

Did you to a Test Spot first?

Or did you go over the entire car?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

Looked at the code for your image and it's all messed up, here's what the code looks like,

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu148/anonstone/IMG_1066.jpg%5B/IMG%5D

Find the image you want to share and right click on the image, snag the URL ADDRESS for the picture and copy and paste it into your message and someone here or myself will correctly insert the [img] tags to make the picture show up.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

Click on the link below and see if your car's paint looks like any of the pictures in this thread,

The Clearcoat Failure Photo Archive

[draperd]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

Fixed it for ya...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

First, here's why you always to a test spot instead of the entire car, you make sure not only the products you've chosen are the right products for the job but there's a certain level of technique and skill required to successfully work on a clear coat paint by hand.

Same kind of thing happened to another person in this thread,

Used ScratchX 2.0 and this was the outcome

Read through the thread and read my comments...

Here's the pertinent one...

The problems look like finger marks which are from the pressure from your fingers pushing through your applicator pad.

Just to note, clear coat paints are delicate in that they scratch very easily and the scratches show up SUPER easy to your eyes especially when the color coat is black or a dark color.

You can't apply any product sloppily or haphazardly especially when using a paint cleaner or a compound to do the cleaning step. You have to massage the product over the paint in a very focused manner, working small sections at at time and then when doing a new section, overlapping your passes into the previous section.

For example one single door would be broken up into anywhere from 4 to 9 sections and you would apply fresh product for each section and work each section for about a minute if you're good at this, that is if you have good technique and you're doing a great job of using your hand to hold the pad and work the product.

Polishing paint is an art form, not merely a mechanical process, it takes the right product for the job and applying it in a focused and purposeful manner as well as the human elements of care of care and passion.


Did it take you an hour or two when you applied and worked the Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner over the entire car?

Or less than an hour?

To do a great job of rubbing that car out by hand with a paint cleaner where the goal was to remove swirls, I'm going to guess it would take me 2-3 hours.

[tguil]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

You are right. You do have a mess.

I suggest putting the compound away and start working patiently on each section with a polish -- almost any polish -- following Mike's suggestions. I guess the latest and greatest polish would be Meguiar's 205.

This is a job that I most certainly would not like to tackle by hand. You may want to have a pro buff it out for you. Then you can go into a maintenance mode.

Tom

[02zx9r]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

Was it worked long enough??

I just used UC by hand on my Candy Gold Spark zx9r and it came out awesome. Followed it with 3 coats of fuzion. All I can say is-WOW

I first started out using 3M Rubbing Compound, while it was doing ok, I swapped to UC and promptly put the 3M away.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

It looks like too large a section was worked at one time and it doesn't look like good technique was used.

You can't haphazardly apply a product like Ultimate Compound around on the paint and wipe it off and hope it's going to look good.

As posted above in my quote from another thread dealing with a similar problem, rubbing an entire car out with Ultimate Compound where the goal is to remove swirls and make the paint look good, would take someone that's good at this kind of thing hours to do, as in 2-3 hours minimum and that's if they're good at rubbing paint out by hand.

Polishing paint is an art form, not a mere mechanical process.

The way to fix this paint job is to start over, probably with a less aggressive product like ScratchX 2.0 or SwirlX and only work a small section at a time, 12" square or so, smaller if you're new to this and then when you finish one small section, wipe off the residue and move onto another small section and overlap into the previous section.

Use a clean, foam applicator pad like one of these,




Afterwards, apply a thin coat of wax as this correction step you're doing isn't the last step.

[imacarnut]

Re: Ultimate Compound messed up my paint

judging by the pic, is this a honda civic? you might want to pick up some swirlx, the ultimate compound may have been too aggressive (least aggressive approach first). start over by claying to remove the bonded contaminants and use some swirlx on a little test spot and evaluate your progress from there.