Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

[nnjeim]

hi all,

i believe the topic is old and addressed long in other threads, but i need the patience of someone answering directly what i should be doing to remove micro-scratches visible on my car's hood. i recently bought G110 DA with 8006 and 9006 pads and i did the following this morning:

1- clayed the hood.
2- applied swirlx with the DA at 4.5 speed setting
3- applied liquid polish i have from turtle wax (4.5 speed)
4- applied hard shell wax from turtle wax as well (speed set at 3.5)

the result is shown in the picture.

What am i doing wrong?

please advise...

[Andrew C.]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Chances are that Swirl X is not aggressive enough or you are working too big of a space to properly attack the swirls. How big of a space do you work on at a time?

[nnjeim]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Chances are that Swirl X is not aggressive enough or you are working too big of a space to properly attack the swirls. How big of a space do you work on at a time?

i divided the car hood in 2 halfs and then i applied swirl x i made the DA do 6 passes approx in the 2 directions. What do you advise?

[BrianPow84]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

I would advise putting another piece of tape across the car and doing it in 4 sections at the least. Personally I would do a very small section as a test spot to see if it works before I wasted that much product. If that doesnt take care of it I would maybe try some Ultimate Compound or maybe Scratch X 2.0

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Definitely try a much smaller work area, either a square foot or 16x16. This should dramatically improve your results.

But, there is a chance that SwirlX may not be aggressive enough for this application. It is a fairly mild product compared to some other options.

I would also advise bumping up to speed 5, using a polishing pad, and trying again. If this still does not work then you can use a more aggressive product such as Ultimate Compound.

If you try the Ultimate Compound be sure to do a small test spot and check your results before doing the entire car.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

As has been pointed out, your work area is waaaay too big and really needs to be shrunk down. No more than 2' x 2' when working with a paint cleaner like SwirlX, Ultimate Compound or even something as aggressive as M105 from our Mirror Glaze Professional line. Part of the safety of using a D/A polisher is the way it works product against paint, but that also means you need to give it some "dwell" time as it were.

A few other points to consider when using a paint cleaner for defect removal:

• Use a polishing pad (W8006 in your case) with the machine on speed 5
• Apply enough downward pressure to deform the pad a fair amount, but not enough to stop the rotation - putting a couple of hash marks with a Sharpie on the back edge of pad will give a good visual indicator of pad movement
• Keep the pad flat against the paint - tipping onto an edge won't do any damage with the G110 but it will stop the pad from rotating
• Concentrate on that small work area and overlap your passes by 50% - cover the whole 2' x 2' work area in horizontal strokes, then vertical strokes and repeat both sets; that should get you to a point where it's time to wipe off the remainder of product (which shouldn't be much at all by this point)
• Move the machine s-l-o-w-l-y over the paint, something like a couple of inches per second is all. Take your time, let the machine do the work but give it time to do so.
• Don't overuse product; a circular bead of product no more than 1/4" thick toward the outer edge of the pad, or in an "X" shape through the center of the pad, is all you need

If you still aren't getting rid of the defects with SwirlX you may then need to repeat the above with Ultimate Compound. But your case is a classic example of why we always suggest doing a test spot first - there's nothing worse than going over an entire vehicle with multiple steps only to find the first step didn't take you to the result you were after. So do yourself a favor and use SwirlX as outlined above but just in one area, then pull the car into direct sunlight and see where the process got you.

[HealthyCivic]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

As they said above, your work area was definitely too large. That photo that you posted really doesn't show THAT many swirls. This suggests to me that by simply shrinking down your work area and getting a few good passes, you'll probably eliminate them all.

But as they said, if you still have a couple stubborn swirls, you might use Ultimate Compound. If you do choose to use U.C. keep in mind that it may not even take that many passes to remove the swirls so continue to check your work and do a test spot first.

[Andrew C.]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Well not much more for me to say haha. Let us know if the Swirl X doesn't work in the smaller area, and then let us know how the UC works.

[nnjeim]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

thanks for your replies, i bought ultimate compound last night but as suggested i will not use before testing giving swirl x a try on a 2x2 area and will be posting the result later on today.

thanks again.

[OBSSEST]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

I just polished my Camaro with SwirlX and and Swirlbuster pad for the first time and it turned out great. Like someone else said, don't use too much product, it doesn't remove swirls any faster. You need the pad to do it's work too.

[nnjeim]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

hi again,

i worked on a smaller area as suggested using Swirl X and made sure the DA is set at speed 5 and my arm movement was relatively slow. i also applied an average pressure on the DA's head.
Unfortunately tiny swirls are still showing after the completion of the polishing and waxing.
i want to try the same procedure with the ultimate compound.

the question is : if the ultimate compound is more aggressive than swirl x, what is the allowed usage frequency ?
Same question for swirl X.

How frequently do you detail your cars? I mean complete detailing (claying, cleaning, polishing and waxing).

[Josh9131]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Using SwirlX or UC multiple times is not gonna cause any problems. That being said you do not want to polish your car with UC every weekend.

Once the initial correction is achieved, try to reduce the amount of swirls introduced into the finish by using proper washing and drying techniques and good products. IE Gold Class car wash, Grit Gaurds, quality MF towels and such.

You could then do a light polishing once a year, or even less, and that should not cause you any issues for years to come. Using a DA and light to mild compounds are relatively gentle on your paint finish.

[reasoned]

Re: Swirls, Swirls and Swirls

Just polish when you need to. If you are OCD you can use a paint cleaner and then a pure polish one time a year if your car is already defect free.