Not getting good results with #80 & #83

[DaveBM]

Hi,

I have just tried my new PC for the first time and the results aren’t that good. I have managed to remove about 75% of the light swirls but still have medium scratches (you can’t feel them with your finger nail) and swirls.

I have been using Sonus DAS pads (as they came with it. Will get megs pads next). I used lots of pad/product combinations but even with #83 on the orange pad I can’t get rid of these defects.

I have spent ages reading through forums/guides on how to use it and seem to be doing things correctly. The main thing I can see being a problem is how much pressure to apply?!?!

I have tried not using any pressure at all to what is prob about 10 lb of pressure (just pressed down on a weighing scale).

It would seem if I press down the pad stops spinning, it just does the other 'jiggly' thing that it does. Is this what it’s meant to do???

Oh, I have been using speeds 3 to 6 aswell.


Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Going and pushing down on some scales the same amount you do on the PC would be awesome!!


Many thanks in advance!!

Ps. Spent about 2hr so far on the bonnet (hood?).

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Dave,

Hang on a second....

[Bill D]

Hi Dave,

I see you have some non Meguiars pads. Since you do, I'll make a suggestion about another kind:

In addition to pressing down more firmly with those you currently have, I have experienced using 4" pads not only drastically cuts down on the jiggling, you can work on isolated defects and get more "correction oomph". With the techniques you are currently using, a little more pressure and the 4" pads, you might make some more head way.

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Dave,

It sounds like you've tried a variety of techniques and have removed some swirls, but not all the swirls. Let me list a couple of ideas...

1. Arm Speed - When removing defects using the dual action polisher, you need to use a slow arm speed. Moving the polisher to fast over the surface is a mistake many people make when learning to use the dual action polisher. I haven't ever tried to measure the time used to cover a certain amount of distance when working out defects, but suffice to say, most people move the polisher too fast and need to slow it down. For applying a pure polish or a wax, you can use a faster arm speed, but for removing defects slow arm speeds are necessary.

2. Overlapping Motions - It's important to overlap each pass by 50% to insure uniform material removal.

3. Small Work Area - Another thing we see when people are learning to remove defects using a dual action polisher is they try to tackle to large an area at one time.
When trying to remove below surface defects, you need to shrink your work area down to small sections, somewhere around 18" square or so, depending upon the shape of the panel your working on. Look at the panel and divide it up into small sections. I don't know if this example will work since you're in the U.K., but if you've ever been to a McDonald's Hamburger restaurant and eaten their, over here in the states they place your food for you on a plastic carry tray, (I'll take a picture and measure one). Imagine working an area about the area of a food tray like this, it's kind of a rectangle shape, not too small, not too large.

4. Swirl and Scratch Depth - If you have removed 75% of the swirls, yet swirls still remain, these will be the swirls and scratches that are deeper than the ones removed and in order to remove them you will have to remove more paint. Sometimes you are better off to merely improve the swirls than to try to completely remove the swirls as you are limited by your paint thickness. This is where experience helps a lot.

3. Paint Hardness - Paint hardness, or softness will be a major contributing factor that will determine how hard or how easy it is to remove below surface defects. If the swirls you removed polished out easily then your paint could be soft enough to be called workable and the remaining scratches are merely deeper and will require longer periods of buffing. If it took a long time to remove what you have removed so far, then this is an indicator that your paint is relatively hard and it will be difficult to remove the deeper swirls and scratches as the dual action polisher oscillating action is gentle to the finish, not aggressive. (That's why people like it, it's safe because it's gentle).

More later...

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Bill_D has provided some good insight with his comment in that by reducing your pad size you increase the cleaning ability of your pad and product choice. This is one of the reasons a dual action polisher with it's smaller pads is effective at removing below surface defects while the older, traditional orbital buffers with their typically larger buffing pads, 9", 10", 11" and 12 inches are common size), are not effective. (OPM speed is a big factor too)

It could be you will need to use the M83 and spend more time with some of the techniques I listed above, and it could be your swirls will require a rotary buffer to remove the most effectively.

Mike

[DaveBM]

Thanks a lot for the replys - much appretiatied!!


I had another go at the car boot an bonnet but still dont seem to be doing very much. Indeed on the boot after about 1hr of starting off with 83 and the most aggressive pad down to 80 on the polishing pad I still have lots of light swirls!!

Is it normal for the head to stop spinning when only pushing down lightly? (it still does the wiggly thing)