Cars going to get cut and polished...

[AnthonyCorbo]

My dads car has recently been painted and now part of the deal is that they are going to cut and polish it.

3 questions

1. If they are not good at doing what they do what defects will i see?
swirls?

2. And if there are defects such as swirls could i correct them with my 7424?

3.And if not what can i do?

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

[AeroCleanse]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

I think holograms would be the defect you should look out for.

[AnthonyCorbo]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

I think holograms would be the defect you should look out for.

So how can i fix holograms ? what products?

[Tim Lingor]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

My dads car has recently been painted and now part of the deal is that they are going to cut and polish it.

3 questions

1. If they are not good at doing what they do what defects will i see?
swirls?

2. And if there are defects such as swirls could i correct them with my 7424?

3.And if not what can i do?

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

Morning,

There are several things to look for:

1. Wet sanding tracers...these are sanding marks that may not have been removed properly through the buffing process. Take the car into the sun light and look at the paint very closely and from many angles. If you see sanding marks (little lines in the paint), these need to be removed.

2. Look for any spots that appear to be lighter or duller than the rest of the car. If the tech was in a hurry or inexperienced, he/she may have rubbed (sanded) through the clear coat into the base coat.

3. Sadly, you will probably have holograms.

Of course, I am referring to paint problems and not the obvious like paint overspray in the wheel wells, in the bumper seams, door jambs etc.

You *may* be able to remove the remaining sanding marks with a PC while the paint is still fairly workable.There are many posts on MOL that talk about this, so doing a quick search will bring up a ton of information for you. But as for the holograms you should be able to remove those with the PC and a cleaner/polish like M80 and a W-8207 Polishing Pad. For the burned through areas, there is nothing that can be done except to repaint those areas.

What kind of car is it? What color? Any pics?

Tim

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

My dads car has recently been painted and now part of the deal is that they are going to cut and polish it.

3 questions

1. If they are not good at doing what they do what defects will i see?
swirls?

You'll see swirls and like Tim wrote, possibly Tracers or Pigtails. Hopefully no burn-throughs on high points, edges or corners.

If they haven't compounded it yet, find out what compound they're planning on using and if they're not using M105 or M95 then take the initiative to purchase and supply them with a quart or two of either one, M105 is the premium version of the two products and is designed to finish out to a low/no swirl, high gloss but both will finish out better than most other compounds and polishes on the market.

Most body shops will sand the paint flat, next they'll use an aggressive compound with a wool pad on a rotary buffer to remove the sanding marks. If they don't get them all out this is where you'll see the Tracers Tim mentioned or Pigtails if they machine sand the paint and get any abrasive particles stuck between the paper and the paint.

See this thread,

Tracers, RIDS & Pigtails


After the first compounding step a second polishing step is done using hopefully a foam pad on a rotary buffer and something less abrasive than the first product. After this step the car may or may not be hand glazed with some type of product used to mask swirls and give the paint an even shine. That's kind of the norm, it's usually done in hours, not days.


There's also a number of one liquid systems on the market like our Solo System, and it could be they're using one of these but again, the liquid portion of these systems is a huge variable as to the depth of swirls or holograms that will be instilled into the paint. Our Solo System is one of our new SMAT products so it's actually a good option too.


The idea is to try to pro-actively get involved so that at least in the compounding step they're using a high quality compound. By doing this you'll have gone a long ways towards reducing the depth of any holograms, (also called buffer swirls, rotary buffer swirls or buffer trails), which will in effect make it easier for you to remove them using a DA Polisher.

If you really wanted to be proactive you could find out what they're sanding with and insure it's top quality as there are differences in quality of sanding papers. Kind of depends upon how important this paint job is to you and your relationship with the people doing the work.

A lot of times the painter isn't the guy that does the sanding and buffing, so talking to him without talking to the guy actually doing the work might not be very productive.

Basically you want to find out what they're going to sand and cut the paint with and if it doesn't look like the employees are knowledgeable about our new SMAT products maybe see if they're open to trying at least one of them?

"It's the guy that does the sanding and buffing that makes or breaks a great paint job, not the painter"

2. And if there are defects such as swirls could i correct them with my 7424?

Yes.

So how can i fix holograms ? what products?

In most cases you can remove the holograms by re-polishing the paint using a DA Polisher and either a compound or a cleaner/polish from our Professional Line like M105 or M205, and in our Consumer Line both Ultimate Compound and ScratchX 2.0 are both Body Shop Safe.


Maybe you'll get lucky and the guy doing the sanding and buffing will be someone who hangs out on forums like this and is up to speed on new products and techniques?

[AnthonyCorbo]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

Morning,

There are several things to look for:

1. Wet sanding tracers...these are sanding marks that may not have been removed properly through the buffing process. Take the car into the sun light and look at the paint very closely and from many angles. If you see sanding marks (little lines in the paint), these need to be removed.

2. Look for any spots that appear to be lighter or duller than the rest of the car. If the tech was in a hurry or inexperienced, he/she may have rubbed (sanded) through the clear coat into the base coat.

3. Sadly, you will probably have holograms.

Of course, I am referring to paint problems and not the obvious like paint overspray in the wheel wells, in the bumper seams, door jambs etc.

You *may* be able to remove the remaining sanding marks with a PC while the paint is still fairly workable.There are many posts on MOL that talk about this, so doing a quick search will bring up a ton of information for you. But as for the holograms you should be able to remove those with the PC and a cleaner/polish like M80 and a W-8207 Polishing Pad. For the burned through areas, there is nothing that can be done except to repaint those areas.

What kind of car is it? What color? Any pics?

Tim

It is 1963 Corvette with base clear. It's Metalic Blue, heres a pic.

[Tim Lingor]

Re: Cars going to get cut and polished...

SWEET! One of my favorite cars!!!

Please post photos before and after! All of us gear heads would love to see photos of the Vette!

Tim