can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

[Alexandre]

I want to know what does it takes to hide swirls and scratches? I hear a lot of people complaining about "paint make up". I myself saw few cars get a clean paint finish and after a few washes it was back to normal.

What kind of wax is that? Tell me about that miraculous wax! I just used M26 on my cousin' s car and the swirls are still there.

This is what I read on a 3M training material:

Waxing

Waxing fills swirls, very minor scratches and imperfections by leaving a thin layer of wax protection.
Wax does little to further refine paint after the polishing step. After wax is washed or worn away, the imperfections remaining after polishing will reappear.

[BobbyG]

Re: can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

Waxing will initially hide "some" of the defects but not that many that's why we go through a correction process prior to waxing. Wax adds gloss and protection.

To temporally hide minor imperfections, a glaze can be used prior to a sealant or wax. Ideally swirls and minor scratches removed with the use of compounds and polishes. Once you reached the level of finish you're after then a sealant or wax should be used to protect and bring depth and gloss to the finish.

[Alexandre]

Re: can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

I was reading this thread, how did the detailer managed to "hide" that mess?

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24840&highlight=glaze

[tguil]

Re: can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

I was reading this thread, how did the detailer managed to "hide" that mess?

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/sho...ighlight=glaze

His/her product had a lot of "filler". The wash detergents removed the "filler".

Tom

[Alexandre]

Re: can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

His/her product had a lot of "filler". The wash detergents removed the "filler".

Tom

Can toy tell me a Meguiars product that has good amount of fillers?

[Michael Stoops]

Re: can wax really give a fake perfect paint finish?

The word "filler" seems to have a bad connotation on many detailing forums, as if "filling" fine swirls and scratches is somehow a terrible thing to do. These discussions would have you believe that anything that "fills" rather than truly removes is just a cheap shortcut. Yet..... someone on the UK detailing forum brought up a good point: if you detail a car by using products that merely fill these defects with the end result being an outstanding appearance that everyone loves, why is that bad? Further, you can fill in defects an unlimited number of times without damaging the paint, whereas there is (theoretically at least) a finite number of times you can buff the paint before it's gone. There is some validity in that line of thinking, but we all know that products designed to mere fill in defects just don't last all that long. Still, for the average consumer who has no interest in machine polishing their car (and even less interest in hand correcting it!) then maybe it's not such a bad option.

Having said that, Meguiar's does not develop products with the intention of merely filling in defects and hiding them. It is also true, however, that some of our products do this quite well - specifically our pure polishes like M07 Show Car Glaze and Deep Crystal Polish. Still, that is not the design intent of these products. We intend for them to be used on a perfectly prepared surface, or at least as near perfect as your skill level allows, in order to enhance gloss and depth of color.

These products are commonly referred to as "glaze" in the body shop world. They can do such a good job of hiding swirls that some body shops will apply several layers of glaze to a freshly painted and buffed finish in order to conceal all the holograms they've inflicted during the rotary/wool pad buffing stage. But these products don't last long, so once the customer has washed the car a few times the holograms start showing up again.

So, is this the preferred way to properly correct defects from the paint and achieve a show car shine? We don't think so. Is it a horrible, cheating thing to do? Well, that's kind of harsh, but for some people it may be an option. For a while anyway.