Micro marring

[ShinyChevy]

I understand random scratches, swirls, and holograms but I'm not sure about this micro marring thing. What does it look like, what causes it?

[Murr1525]

Re: Micro marring

It is faint swirls, that tend to be left behind after a cleaning or polishing product was used. For instance, your main swirl/scratch will be gone, but a few, or many, fine lines will remain.

The causes are usually the applicator material, or that the product was not worked in well enough. Another cause would be very sensitive paint.

[ShinyChevy]

Re: Micro marring

That makes sense, but it sounds more like holograms or buffer trails than what I'm seeing. Here's what I did and saw, tell me what you think:

I did side by side test spots on my hood (black) using my rotary on one spot and my PC on the other with the same pads (8006) and polishes (83 followed with 80) to try and see the difference between a rotary and a PC finish. Both spots came out nice and shiny with no swirls but the rotary side looked "blacker" while the PC side looked "cloudy". Very close inspection under very bright light revealed tiny, randomly oriented "speckles" on the PC side. Very different than swirls, spiderwebs, or holograms, almost a metal flake or metalic look. And tiny. Maybe 10 or 20 thousandths in length if I had to guess. Is that micro marring?

[RDVT4ME]

Re: Micro marring

Micro marring is common on cars like my corvette. I guess my best way to describe the marring is that is looks like very tiny question marks (?). The paint looks shiny but has a bit of haze, especially seen using a brinkman dual halogen light. The solution on the vette is using M9 or M80 with a finishing pad if you are using a PC. It will still leave some very minor micro marring, but it will be much reduced. M86 or M105 seems to work pretty good on the vette.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Micro marring

I did side by side test spots on my hood (black) using my rotary on one spot and my PC on the other with the same pads (8006) and polishes (83 followed with 80) to try and see the difference between a rotary and a PC finish.

Both spots came out nice and shiny with no swirls but the rotary side looked "blacker" while the PC side looked "cloudy".

Very close inspection under very bright light revealed tiny, randomly oriented "speckles" on the PC side.

Very different than swirls, spiderwebs, or holograms, almost a metal flake or metallic look. And tiny. Maybe 10 or 20 thousandths in length if I had to guess. Is that micro marring?

What you describe is micro-marring or what we call "Tick Marks" internally.

It's hard to explain and hard for most people to understand but a rotary buffer with a polishing or finishing pad and a light cleaner/polish will leave a more clear surface in most all cases than a dual action polisher because of the action of the machine.

The problem is that the rotary buffer will tend to leave holograms or buffer swirls that will show up in bright light. These holograms or buffer swirls or buffer trails will be in the paint even though when you look at the paint out of direct sunlight it's very, very clear as you noticed. That's the drawback of a pad that's rotating on the surface. It's great for removing defects and producing a clear, high gloss finish, but the direct drive rotating action rotating a pad on the surface tends to leave these circular swirl marks that usually reflect the pattern the rotary buffer was moved over the surface.

The DA Polisher on the other hand won't leave buffer swirls, and in fact will replace them but on some paint types it will, like the rotary buffer, leave it's own mark in the paint we refer to as micro-marring or hazing like you described above.

Sometimes there's no perfect solution and sometimes you'll see me reminding people where they started, that is a swirled and scratched paint finish that was an eyesore. You remove the big defects but now your left with little tiny tick marks called micro-marring or hazing.

So your paint is better, but not perfect, but sometimes it's important to remember where you started.


These tick marks are instilled not just by the oscillating action of the pad against the finish but are also an effect of either the pad you're using or the chemical you're using and in some cases both. Not how Meguiar's has never recommended using our W-7006 Foam Cutting Pad with DA Polishers and why we've dropped the recommendation to use our new W7207 Foam Cutting Pad with the DA Polisher.

W7207 Washable Foam Cutting Pad





Key Features

• New foam technology cuts through moderate surface defects with fewer swirls
• More consistent cut throughout life of pad
• 7" pad size helps to reduce chatter resulting in easy buffing
• High tech laminate provides durability and is machine washable
• Recessed backing for easy centering
• Recommended for use with rotary buffer only

W-7006 specifically not recommend in this thread in Hot Topics

Cutting Pads with the PC - Is this a good idea?




Below is a picture of the hood on GTBrad's black Mustang. In the upper left hand corner you can see swirls in the paint that were there when Brad bought the car.

• In the upper right hand side is how the hood looked after he tried using another company's cutting pad on the dual action polisher. Note how scoured the paint looks.
• In the bottom half of the hood, we removed both the swirls and the scouring using Meguiar's products and only our W-8006 polishing pad and our W-9006 finishing pad.
• The point is, using the correct technique, you don't have to resort to a foam cutting pad and risk scouring your car's paint to remove below surface defects and restore a show car shine!

Often times you can remove the haze or tick marks by re-polishing the area with a finishing pad and either ColorX, M66 or M09 or M82.

You can also mask the haze by applying a quality wax. I know that's not the perfect solution but the end result is a clear finish and remember where you started.

The good news is all my experience with M205 and SwirlX using a finishing pad on the G100 has left a haze free finish this includes when we used M205 on the single stage paint on the Batmobile, when I buffed out our clear coated black Honda Pilot and creampuff's Lexus.









So you can try one of the options I listed above or get in line for M205 and/or SwirlX

[OhioCarBuff]

Re: Micro marring

Mike, in your experience did the m205 or swirl-x leave a more glossy finish when used with the PC and finishing pad? Was the swirl-x easier to work with (the reason I ask this is the directions on the bottle of M205 says to prime the pads, which makes me think this product is finicky and less user friendly)

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Micro marring

Mike, in your experience did the m205 or swirl-x leave a more glossy finish when used with the PC and finishing pad? Was the swirl-x easier to work with (the reason I ask this is the directions on the bottle of M205 says to prime the pads, which makes me think this product is finicky and less user friendly)

I only used M205 with the rotary on the Batmobile and I seem to get identical results both with the rotary and the DA on this paint type.

The priming the pad directions is a good best practice when starting out with a dry pad.

[ShinyChevy]

Re: Micro marring

Hey Mike, thanks for a great reply.

What you describe is micro-marring or what we call "Tick Marks" internally.

Got it! Tick marks.

The DA Polisher on the other hand won't leave buffer swirls, and in fact will replace them but on some paint types it will, like the rotary buffer, leave it's own mark in the paint we refer to as micro-marring or hazing like you described above.

That's what I thought was going on but I wasn't sure what to call it.

Often times you can remove the haze or tick marks by re-polishing the area with a finishing pad and either ColorX, M66 or M09 or M82.

That was the solution in this case. I used M09 on a 9006 pad with the PC and the ticks were gone. This was recomended by the phone support guys when I called in.

Thanks for the help!

Idea: How about a sticky with photos of various defects - random scratches, swirls, buffer trails, cobwebs, tick marks, etc.? This might standardize terminology (at least on this forum) and help people indentify specific problems.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Micro marring

Idea: How about a sticky with photos of various defects - random scratches, swirls, buffer trails, cobwebs, tick marks, etc.? This might standardize terminology (at least on this forum) and help people identify specific problems.

Great idea, we have something like that for some defects in our Hot Topics forum, we'll snag a couple of photos of micro-marring and add it to the collection.

Cobweb Swirls vs Rotary Buffer Swirls

Tracers, RIDS & Pigtails
(no pictures yet for this one)

[ShinyChevy]

Re: Micro marring

I like it: A paint defect "Gallery of Horrors"!

Seriously, it will help a lot to standardize some terminology

[OhioCarBuff]

Re: Micro marring

I'm sorry, I didn't mean prime the pads, I meant mist them with final inspection, that's what its says you need to do on the directions of M205 and what made me think it would be more finicky then swirl-x