Scratch X 2.0 question...?

[SX4DUDE2013]

got my first TRUE scratch does scratch remove it or when i clay it again it will show again?

[Murr1525]

Re: Scratch X 2.0 question...?

Well, there are a few ifs...

If the scratch is not too severe, then it can be removed completly.

If you apply the product properly, with some passion, it will remove a scratch that isnt too severe.

[noobhax0r]

Re: Scratch X 2.0 question...?

scratchx is not a product that is designed to fill in or hide your scratches its actually designed to level the paint out to actually "remove" the scratch

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Scratch X 2.0 question...?

ScratchX 2.0 is a moderately abrasive paint cleaner that uses Super Micro Abrasive Technology to accomplish the task. In order to actually physically remove a scratch you must remove some of the surrounding material and level the surface to the bottom of the scratch. Swirl marks are scratches, they're just very, very shallow but also very sharp edged. It's that sharp edge that causes light to reflect/refract back to your eye and it appears as a white light. The darker the color coat below the clear the greater the contrast between the reflected light and the colored layer underneath, which is why swirls are so much more evident on a black vehicle than they are on a white or silver vehicle.

Part of the mechanism involved in removing swirls is to round over those edges so they don't reflect light in such a sharp and defined way. Deeper scratches, by definition, need to have more surrounding paint removed in order to level down to the bottom of the scratch. As scary as that thought sounds in most cases you still aren't removing much paint at all. But when you have a scratch that you can feel with your fingernail, odds are you've gone deep enough that leveling to the bottom of the scratch requires the removal of so much surrounding paint as to no longer be safe. We so often hear people say "but it's only in the clear coat" and that may be true, but how far into the clear is it? Keep in mind that factory clear coats average a miserly 2 mils of thickness (thinness???); that's only 2/1000 of an inch!!! Can you feel that??? Consider further that your clear coat contains the UV inhibitors that protect the color coat, and that when the clear is drying those UV inhibitors tend to migrate toward the surface. That means you remove a large percentage of UV inhibitors when you remove a small percentage of clear. So small an amount, in fact, that factory service manuals caution against removing more than .5 mil (5/10,000 of an inch!!!!) because you will so severely compromise the UV protection that you'll be promoting premature clear coat failure. And once that starts you simply can not stop it.

So, if you've got a scratch so deep that you can feel it, think long and hard about how you want to proceed. In many cases, even working by hand with a product like ScratchX 2.0 or Ultimate Compound (similar to, but stronger than, ScratchX 2.0) you can minimize the appearance of these deeper scratches. Often times you can minimize them to the point that nobody but you knows it's there.

Our vehicles are meant to be driven and enjoyed, and that means exposing them to all sorts of dangers. We do the best we can to minimize damage, but sometimes you come in contact with something that goes just a bit too far and you end up with a permanent, but small, scar. When the option is to store the car in a bubble and never enjoy it, most of us would take a little scar along with the enjoyment of our favorite ride.