Need direction on hammered Explorer

[WhiteLX]

I just picked up this 1998 explorer. The paint on it is pretty bad, riddled with swirls and scratched along with being oxidated. The front clip looks like it has been resprayed at some point. It's oxford white with clearcoat. No color transfer to the pads.


I tried a couple test spots using M105 and an orange 5.5" LC flat pad on a PC, speed 5. Followed with ultimate polish (ran out of M205) and a white 5.5 pad. The hood responded well, but the door just laughed at me. I was able to get some gloss out of it, but the swirls are still there. I do have a rotary with a megs burgundy 7" cutting pad. I'm thinking about giving that a go.


Any suggestions? Maybe another product or pad or technique? Sorry, no good close up pictures at this time. I'm not looking to make it perfect, but I'd like for it not to look like someone washed it with scotchbrite.

i also have a wool pad for the rotary and a LC purple foamed wool pad and LC ultra fiber pad for the PC. I tried the ultra fiber mf pad, but I must not have used it correctly as it didn't seem to do much. I primed the mf pad with m105, so that may be the reason.

[Nick Winn]

Re: Need direction on hammered Explorer

I feel the need to confirm a couple things:

Are you working in a 2 X 2 area?
How many section passes in this area are you applying?
Moderate Pressure, Moderate Arm Speed?
Are you able to achieve slow to moderate pad rotation at speed 5 on your PC? It's possible you may want to bump it up to speed 6. If the pad is not at least spinning at a slow to moderate pace, you are not going to be cutting much.
Is the orange LC foam pad you used a foam "cutting" pad?

Other than the above, my next recommend if the foam cutting pad & M105 laughed at your, would be to move to a microfiber cutting disc, like our DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc paired with a compound. It sounds as though you do have a microfiber pad for your machine. Is it designated as cutting or finishing? Also, it would be correct technique to ensure the microfiber disc is primed with M105. That is partly why a microfiber cutting disc cuts so well, it grabs onto the liquid compound being used and carries all that abrasive on each little strand straight to the paint. I would imagine if you can get familiar with a microfiber cutting disc, this will increase your cutting ability tremendously and you would not have to use a rotary, but if it doesn't, then yes one option to gain more cutting ability would be a rotary w/ a wool pad or foam cutting pad & a compound.

Remember if only the door is responding like you have mentioned, you likely won't have or wont want to use the same process for the entire car. It sounds as though you were getting close to the results you were after on the hood.

[WhiteLX]

Re: Need direction on hammered Explorer

Are you working in a 2 X 2 area? More like a 1 x 1 area
How many section passes in this area are you applying? About 6 passes, I alternate direction on each pass making sure I get full coverage
Moderate Pressure, Moderate Arm Speed? Moderate pressure, slow arm speed
Are you able to achieve slow to moderate pad rotation at speed 5 on your PC? It's possible you may want to bump it up to speed 6. If the pad is not at least spinning at a slow to moderate pace, you are not going to be cutting much. I have a mark on the backing plate to make sure the pad is still rotating
Is the orange LC foam pad you used a foam "cutting" pad? yes it is a cutting pad

Correct, the hood responded well and I expect the front fenders to respond the same. From the front doors back is the problem area and unfortunately, the largest part of the vehicle. It's too bad I missed out on the Thursday and Saturday classes this year.

[Nick Winn]

Re: Need direction on hammered Explorer

Are you working in a 2 X 2 area? More like a 1 x 1 area
How many section passes in this area are you applying? About 6 passes, I alternate direction on each pass making sure I get full coverage
Moderate Pressure, Moderate Arm Speed? Moderate pressure, slow arm speed
Are you able to achieve slow to moderate pad rotation at speed 5 on your PC? It's possible you may want to bump it up to speed 6. If the pad is not at least spinning at a slow to moderate pace, you are not going to be cutting much. I have a mark on the backing plate to make sure the pad is still rotating
Is the orange LC foam pad you used a foam "cutting" pad? yes it is a cutting pad

Correct, the hood responded well and I expect the front fenders to respond the same. From the front doors back is the problem area and unfortunately, the largest part of the vehicle. It's too bad I missed out on the Thursday and Saturday classes this year.

Thanks for the detailed response. Based on your attempts, and this is the case of the paint being on the harder side, my recommendation would be to move to a microfiber cutting disc paired with a compound like our DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc & D300 DA Microfiber Correction Compound.

It is also important to note that you are potentially working with paint from the model year, 1998, which is quite old. The clear coat is likely much thinner than new. In general I would try to stick with a DA for your compounding. A rotary & an aggressive pad could do permanent damage quick on a thin & aged clear coat.