Flex XC3401 - What am I doing wrong?

[Kendra]

Re: Flex XC3401 - What am I doing wrong?

^ Thank you for the links greg0303, I'll be sure to read through them!

This is the progress made thus far. My Dad doesn't particularly care how much paint is lost as long as I don't take it to the primer, he just wants to save money for now. I might end up charging him after this lol!!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Flex XC3401 - What am I doing wrong?

You mentioned that you're working this with an orange pad - did the face of the pad turn white after working on this paint for a while? If so, you've definitely got single stage paint here, and as Mark pointed out that is probably the hardest paint you'll ever work on. The pigment used is titanium dioxide and it is a bugger to level out. (As a side note, TiO2 is used as the pigment in white printing inks too, and in some types of printing it wreaks havoc on the printing press - very stout stuff). Looking at some of the "after" images you've provided it sure looks like deep scratches in single stage white. As you say, the oxidation was fairly easily taken care of but the scratches are being very stubborn. This is also pretty classic when working on single stage white.

As others have suggested, you're going to need to concentrate on very small areas at a time, use a decent amount of speed and a fairly aggressive pad with M105 (but watch for heat build up). A potential downside to M105 on older paint is that if the paint is pretty well dried out it will pull all the lubricants out of M105 and it will dry up really fast. You may want to look into the DA Microfiber Correction System (6" discs with the Flex) and experiment with both D300 and M105 that way. Don't use a lot of M105 though, even if you stay with foam pads. Get the pad primed and then just use three or four pea sized drops of M105, and maybe even make use of a very occasional spritz of plain water to keep it wet.

[Motorsports-X]

Re: Flex XC3401 - What am I doing wrong?

any update on this? i just wanted to mention, you said this was probably a repaint, i cant really tell for sure from the pics , but that looks like sanding marks UNDER the paint. from where it was not properly prepped. i only say that because i have seen it before and it looks really close tp the same.. let us know how it turned out!