Hello! a Swirl question for the guru's..

[neuralfraud]

Hello. I recently discovered this message board and have read a lot of interesting and educational material. I have recently decided to self-maintain the finish of my new vehicle to insure it stays beautiful as long as I own it. Now. On to the question.

I recently purchased a PC 7424, 8006 pad and #9/#7. The #9 was weak so I upgraded to the #83. I spent about 10 minutes on the decklid with about 3 applications of product with no exceptional results. I used probably a dab the size of a quarter, spiraled on the pad, turned buffer on, spread product (half trunk at a time) and worked until it began drying up. Wiped clean with my MF polishing towel and repeated a few times.

The shop which I buy my products from (4 Star products) has some very knowledgable people (they manufacture their own line of detail products). One of the employees was kind of enough to check out the condition of my vehicle, and noted that the paint is in good shape as far as the severity of the swirls.

Am I not using the product long enough, not applying enough pressure, or applying too much? Here are some pics

(Edit: I cropped out a section 650 pixels wide and uploaded it into my gallery and then place it here. -Mike)


The whole car pretty much looks like that.

Thanks!

[neuralfraud]

I should note, the pic above is the result of:

Clay bar

#9
#7 on the hood and fenders

Gold class CC paste wax (1 coat)

[Tim Lingor]

Hey neuralfraud

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

I would suggest that since the swirls are very mild that I would use Meguiar's #80 Speed Glaze on a clean W-8006 Polishing Pad. Work the product with the PC set to speed 5 until it is only a light residue/dust (but not dry). It will take some time to break the product down. Remove with a MF towel.

Next apply 2 coats of NXT Tech Wax with 12 hours in between each coat.

Give that a try!

Tim

[neuralfraud]

Quick reply. Hmm. I figured the speed glaze was just for a quick polishing, does it actually help remove the swirls or fill in? And, actually I am going to wait till i can get my hands on some #21 ...from the pictures that ive seen.. But I do like the way the GC looks

You tink the #83 is too much?

[benhui86]

#80 is also a cleaner/polish combination

im not sure but i think 80 has more polish in it than 83

[Boss_429]

The #80 sure will remove some light swirls. It is also a very "forgiving" product and a bit easier use than DACP. DACP can leave some hazing if not worked properly. Don't get me wrong, DACP is a fine product, but #80 is not as "touchy".

Just my 2 cents.

[scrub]

Re: Hello! a Swirl question for the guru's..

Originally posted by neuralfraud
Hello. I recently discovered this message board and have read a lot of interesting and educational material. I have recently decided to self-maintain the finish of my new vehicle to insure it stays beautiful as long as I own it. Now. On to the question.

I recently purchased a PC 7424, 8006 pad and #9/#7. The #9 was weak so I upgraded to the #83. I spent about 10 minutes on the decklid with about 3 applications of product with no exceptional results. I used probably a dab the size of a quarter, spiraled on the pad, turned buffer on, spread product (half trunk at a time) and worked until it began drying up. Wiped clean with my MF polishing towel and repeated a few times.

I agree with your assessment on #9's strength. Not the strongest stuff with the PC at least.

What pad and speed did you use with the #83 on the deck lid?

What kind of vehicle are you working on? This does have some impact on how many swirls can be removed with the PC. Some vehicle brands have harder paint than others. I think some German made cars have very hard paint. This will limit the amount of work down with the PC.

Sounds like your technique was great so that shouldn't be an issue.

Originally posted by neuralfraud

Am I not using the product long enough, not applying enough pressure, or applying too much? Here are some pics



The whole car pretty much looks like that.

Thanks!

The next post says the pic above is clay, #9, #7, and GC wax. Anyway the area pictured looks better. Its hard to say without seeing an area before the polishing. But the swirls look like they have been kind of reduced. Not totally removed but reduced.

Can you take pictures of the deck lid to show the problems you're speaking of? I'm sure your work has improved the area some. If you compared before and after pictures the difference would be more noticeable. That happens to me when I polish a car, I forget how bad it was beforehand and think man I didn't do much. Then I review the pics and realize I improved the paint. Only within the limitations of the PC.

As for the amount of pressure I've had good luck with drawing a line on the edge of the Velcro side of the pad with a sharpie. If the mark is spinning I know I have about the right amount of pressure. At least this works for #80. I've heard this might not work for #83. I haven't tried this trick with #83 yet.

Good luck

[Mike Phillips]

Hi neuralfraud,

I cropped out the important part of your photo because the one you inserted was forcing everyone to horizontal scroll which is usually not a good thing. (Unless you have huge monitor, I have a 21" and I had to horizontal scroll).

Here are some tutorials on working with images when posting to forums.

How to put pictures into your posts

The swirls in your photo are rather minimal and if you've worked the finish with M83 really well, then I would say that the ones you're seeing are/were deep enough that in order to completely remove them you're going to have to spend more time with the M83 with a dual action polisher or switch to a rotary buffer.

Always follow this with a lighter cleaner/polish like M80 with the dual action polisher and then go to wax. Your finish isn't bad though, most people would love to have a finish on their daily driver as good as you have worked it up to. For even better results, you will have to massage what's left out however. Depending on what you use your car for, show car or daily driver there does come a point where you have to decide to accept some deeper defects as removing defects means removing paint and you are limited by your paint's thickness, also called, film-build.

Hope this helps...

Mike

[neuralfraud]

Yea. The car is a chrysler, 99. I was looking at the decklid under the light of my driveway (street light on the power pole) and the swirls do seem reduced, it seems they show up best in dark ambient light to enhance the reflection.. I think i'll take some pics tomorrow evening and see what I can come up with.

thanks for the help so far!