To many section passes or step it up?

[guy]

Hi, I'm new to this and need some advice. Have a new G110 with soft buff pads and I am starting on my first project. Using Ultimate Compound with a polishing pad it is taking 18 to 24 section passes to get the surface scratches out. I am following up with 205 0n a finish pad. The test panel is awesome! but should I step up to 105 or try the red pad as this
seems to be quite a process with this many applications. Thanks, Guy.

[xantonin]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

How fast are you making those passes?

Try slowing down, it will give the DA more time to oscillate around the section.

If no luck, I would only use the red cutting pad if the marring caused by it is easily removed by M205 on the DA. You don't want to make more work for yourself.

[Shawn T.]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

Just to be sure, I hope you are not making 18-24 section passes in one application. I have not gone more than 10 section passes before the product began to dry.

[Bill Davidson]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

Are you using around 15lbs of pressure? Did you put a mark on the pad or backing plate to monitor your rotations. You should be getting approx 1 rotation per second, if you are using the proper pressure.

Your arm speed (moving the pad) should be around 1 inch per second.

Another thing, how much product are you using? Are you cleaning the pad enough? If it is saturated it won't remove defects as well.

[guy]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

I am making 6 section passes per application with good pressure and slow speed and cleaning on the fly every 2 apps. The swirls are gone but scratch marks from a dirty towel or wash mit are still present. Dont know if the car, a 2001 mustang just has really tough clear coat or I need to get more agressive. Guy.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

Are these deep scratches isolated or are they throughout the car? If isolated you can step up the speed of the tool to max for a brief period of time, seriously increase the pressure or dwell time, or a combination of the three. Please understand we would NEVER recommend this as a standard operating procedure for defects found through out the paint - moving to another liquid or even a rotary would be called for in that case. But if you just got some isolated spots that need extra attention, you can do the above to increase the cutting ability of the product.

Last night at our Open Garage we had a gentleman who's pickup had a combination of bad water spots, moderate/heavy swirls and some very nasty etching from bird droppings. The swirls and water spots came out right away with UC on a polishing pad, but the etching was taking quite a bit longer. Since these were just isolated spots we mounted a 3" backing plate and 4" polishing pad to the G110v2 and attacked them that way. In just a couple of passes they were gone.

But again, and we can't stress this enough, if the deep scratches are found throughout the paint, then you probably want to step up to M105. All that assumes, of course, that you can NOT feel these scratches with your fingernail. If you can feel them, don't try to fully remove them as they are just too deep.

[guy]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

Thank you for your input Michael. Unfortunatly the scratches are thru out the car, some areas are not as bad, it is amazing how much damage can be done by improper washing teqnique. They can not be felt with your nail and they do come out with alot of time with the Ultimate Compound which I think is a great product, it is finishing out LSP ready, but 4 hours later and only one door complete. I have the 4 inch Soft Buff pads and have spot treated areas near curves and ridges, Mustangs are tough that way as many areas are hard to get any rotation with the 7 inch pad. What speed can I run with the 4 inch pads, I went up to speed 3 no problem but if I could get a recomendation that would be great as I really could not find anything in a search of the forum base. I am thinking of trying the M105 as that seems to be the way to go short of a rotary which I am sure would make short work of it but I am not going to even go there as that is a whole other animal. I am taking pictures thru out and will post some later. Thanks again, Guy.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: To many section passes or step it up?

The 4" pads will definitely increase the amount of cut you'll get out of any liquid and the D/A. In your other post we talked about speed settings a bit, and how you can usually get away with a slightly slower speed. In your case here we would suggest doing a test spot on speed 4 and evaluate from there. If you need speed 5, then so be it.

One thing to watch out for though when using smaller pads on a D/A; when you get to the painted bumper covers be careful about excessive speed and pressure. The flex agent added to the paint that is sprayed on this material seems to be the culprit in creating some limited adhesion issues. We have seen cases of the paint actually twisting off in this area under very aggressive use of the D/A - and you don't more aggressive with a D/A than a small pad at high speed with a lot of pressure. You'll start putting a lot of heat into a small spot, and the urethane panel under the paint doesn't dissipate heat like steel or aluminum, and with the flex agent in the paint, well, things can get ugly very quickly. Just keep that in mind for those areas.