Scratches difficult to remove

[deej0121]

I am newbie at detailing. Recently purchased 7424XP and learning how to use it on a 2000 Honda Civic that needs a lot of correction. A good vehicle on which to learn.. There are some scratches on the trunk that I thought, based on much reading on this forum, could be removed. Based on my reading here, I thought the scratches that CANNOT be removed with DA/UC/UP are only those that "catch" your fingernails. I can "feel" these scratches with my fingers but they don't really "catch" my finernails so I thought I could take care of these. I have worked quite diligently specifically on these but have not been able to make these scratches go away. I am currently using UC & UP, then NXT, all with 7424XP. By the way, the car looks totally AMAZING compared to before I started with these products, especially the badly oxidized paint. Any advice? Perhaps use a more aggressive Megs product?? Thanks so much in advance.

[deej0121]

Re: Scratches difficult to remove

One more note--my 7424XP came as a "kit" with four Lake Country pads--orange, white, black, & blue. I have been using orange for UC, white for UP, & blue for NXT. I haven't used the black one yet.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Scratches difficult to remove

If you can feel them at all that's a sign that they are fairly deep and may be a challenge to eliminate. If you aren't running the tool at speed 5 when trying to remove these, you should. You should also be applying enough pressure on the pad to almost stop the rotation. Lower speeds and lighter pressure may be fine for light swirl removal on softer paints, but for deeper things you need to increase the level of aggression.

Now, this isn't a green light to just go crazy next time you're faced with a stubborn defect. As you get more aggressive on these isolated defects you don't want to forget about certain things like heat generation, pad wear, etc. It is all too commonly stated on the interwebs that "it's impossible to damage your paint with a DA buffer". We're here to tell you that nothing is impossible. Whenever you find the need to get more aggressive, your diligence should go up accordingly. Stop frequently and check for hot spots on the panel, especially when you're new to this and attacking isolated defects. Never stop thinking about what you're doing.