Help! Bad clear coat problem

[Mudwalker]

What do you mean when you say that using a buffer too fast will cause more swirls? I'm sure I will have to use a buffer to get these swirls out, but when I hear things like that it makes nervous about trying it.

Another question; I used Meguiars paint cleaner to remove some water stains under my side mirror and some really nasty swirls were left behind. Do you think that was just from dirt particles in the applicator or on the paint?

[Michael Stoops]

Originally Posted by Mudwalker

What do you mean when you say that using a buffer too fast will cause more swirls? I'm sure I will have to use a buffer to get these swirls out, but when I hear things like that it makes nervous about trying it.

Improper use of a rotary buffer will cause swirls and holograms in the paint. Improper use of a D/A buffer like Meguiar's G110v2 will just result in you pushing product around and not getting results. The nature of the D/A tool won't put swirls in the paint, but it can easily remove them. The learning curve on the D/A is very shallow and most people get great results on their first attempt. The learning curve on the rotary is quite steep and many people never truly figure it out. You definitely want to stick with a D/A tool.

Originally Posted by Mudwalker

Another question; I used Meguiars paint cleaner to remove some water stains under my side mirror and some really nasty swirls were left behind. Do you think that was just from dirt particles in the applicator or on the paint?

If you used a terry cloth applicator that alone could have inflicted the swirls and/or hazing of the paint. Of course, even the right applicator can do this if it's dirty or if the paint isn't clean before you start working on it. Wipe the area clean with some quick detailer spray and a microfiber towel, then go back over the swirls with Ultimate Compound and a foam applicator pad and you should remove the defects.

[dope92cc]

Like Michael Stoops said, DA polishers are very easy use and end up with great results.
Invest in one. You could probably wax your entire truck in about an hour

[EssieK]

Originally Posted by Michael Stoops

Improper use of a rotary buffer will cause swirls and holograms in the paint. Improper use of a D/A buffer like Meguiar's G110v2 will just result in you pushing product around and not getting results. The nature of the D/A tool won't put swirls in the paint, but it can easily remove them. The learning curve on the D/A is very shallow and most people get great results on their first attempt. The learning curve on the rotary is quite steep and many people never truly figure it out. You definitely want to stick with a D/A tool.



If you used a terry cloth applicator that alone could have inflicted the swirls and/or hazing of the paint. Of course, even the right applicator can do this if it's dirty or if the paint isn't clean before you start working on it. Wipe the area clean with some quick detailer spray and a microfiber towel, then go back over the swirls with Ultimate Compound and a foam applicator pad and you should remove the defects.

Sorry Michael, but I have to disagree with you on a very particular point here - you can and will instill swirls and/or pigtails in the paint if the pad is contaminated even with a DA (heck, even the wrong use of microfiber cloth / terry towels can marr / swirl the paint). And yes - hologramming is _easier_ to get with a rotary, but not that difficult to get with a DA either. I've gotten hologramming using DA on very soft paint - and that particular paint needed very carefull buffing in order to become flawless (wiping off wax would cause RIDS with the wrong cloth etc)

So this "use a DA, then you can't go wrong"-approach most people preach is a bit misguiding in my opinion. You _can_ burn the paint using a rotary, and you can more easily ruin plasctics - but burning the paint requires a very very wrong use of the rotary. I tested on the bonnet of a 1998 Volkswagen Golf, and I had to be stationary for over 15 seconds on about 2200 rpm before the paint got burned (mileage may vary from paint to paint)

Chipping / flaking the paint is of course something that easily go wrong when using the rotary near sharp edges on the paint, but so will scraping your belt buckle on paint as you use the DA too.

So unless the v2-version has some magical abilities not known to man yet I really doubt that it cannot cause swirls and hologramming. In my experience it's learning and respecting the tool at hand that gives the best result with as few faults as possible (preferably none) caused by the use of the tool.

[Michael Stoops]

Originally Posted by EssieK

Sorry Michael, but I have to disagree with you on a very particular point here - you can and will instill swirls and/or pigtails in the paint if the pad is contaminated even with a DA (heck, even the wrong use of microfiber cloth / terry towels can marr / swirl the paint). And yes - hologramming is _easier_ to get with a rotary, but not that difficult to get with a DA either. I've gotten hologramming using DA on very soft paint - and that particular paint needed very carefull buffing in order to become flawless (wiping off wax would cause RIDS with the wrong cloth etc)

So this "use a DA, then you can't go wrong"-approach most people preach is a bit misguiding in my opinion. You _can_ burn the paint using a rotary, and you can more easily ruin plasctics - but burning the paint requires a very very wrong use of the rotary. I tested on the bonnet of a 1998 Volkswagen Golf, and I had to be stationary for over 15 seconds on about 2200 rpm before the paint got burned (mileage may vary from paint to paint)

Chipping / flaking the paint is of course something that easily go wrong when using the rotary near sharp edges on the paint, but so will scraping your belt buckle on paint as you use the DA too.

So unless the v2-version has some magical abilities not known to man yet I really doubt that it cannot cause swirls and hologramming. In my experience it's learning and respecting the tool at hand that gives the best result with as few faults as possible (preferably none) caused by the use of the tool.

Nobody will argue that the learning curve and safety aspects of a D/A make it by far the better tool for a novice, compared to a rotary buffer. But as with anything, it assumes proper use of the tool. Anyone who isn't even using proper housekeeping practices - ie using clean pads and towels - is going to have problems no matter what. But you certainly can not blame the tool for that!!!

As for burning paint with a rotary - yes, in the middle of a panel you have to do something well outside normal use of the tool, generally speaking, to burn through a relatively new factory paint job. But to burn an edge with a rotary can happen with just a moments lack of attention, whereas with a D/A you can repeatedly go over that edge without concern. Again, assuming we're talking about a relatively new factory paint job.

Once you start dealing with an older car where you can not verify any prior machine buffing history and/or are unable to take paint thickness readings, all bets are off. If you've got a 40 year old car with original paint and there isn't much of that paint left, then you can take that paint off down to the primer fairly easily on an edge, even using a D/A. On that same car, however, you could probably go down to primer in the middle of a panel using a rotary, and do so in fairly short order.

There are more variables when polishing paint than you can imagine, but instances of damage caused by use of a D/A are quite rare when compared to instances of damage caused by a rotary. It comes down to the power differences between the two tools, and they way they deliver that power. We see horrific holograms inflicted by improper use of a rotary almost on a daily basis, but can likely count on one hand the times we've seen it happen with a D/A. If you use the power of the D/A as it should be used, chances of doing damage are very, very small indeed. But we see more and more people stepping outside the confines of "conventional use" of this tool, really pushing the limits of what it can do. That's fine in the hands of someone who understands the dynamics of what's going on when you do things like work with 4" pads, strong compounds, high pressure, etc. It's those who don't consider these variations that tend to get into trouble.

As for the properties of the G110v2, provided you aren't using dirty pads with it and you use it intelligently (ie, you understand that differences in paint do exist, etc) then the chances of damage to any degree are far, far less than when using a rotary - especially in the hands of a novice. As an example, this past summer we had someone attend a Thursday Night Open Garage who was struggling to remove defects from fairly soft paint using a D/A polisher. No matter what he did, the paint was always hazed. He even got the point of using M105 on a yellow polishing pad and wasn't getting the results he wanted, or expected. So he stepped up to a burgundy cutting pad on the D/A with the same M105. Still no results. In fact, the paint looked fairly horrible. When we had him step way down to M205, even with a finishing pad, he produced gorgeous results almost immediately. Is that the fault of the D/A polisher? No, it was a lack of understanding of the dynamics of what was happening. One can only imagine what might have happened had this same individual repeatedly gone over his paint with a rotary buffer, continually increasing the level of aggressiveness in an attempt to correct his paint defects. Certainly that same approach would have resulted in irreparable damage to the paint. But even the "damage" he caused with a D/A was easily corrected - and by none other than the person who caused the "damage" and even using the same tool!!! And therein lies the big difference between the D/A and rotary.

[Mudwalker]

I'm convinced that I need to use a d/a buffer to get these swirls and holograms out. What is the best method when going over body contours and areas where the surface is narrower than the width of the pad(such as the back of the cab behind the side windows)?