Autopia members Mystic Cobra lightly polished and Sealed

[TH0001]

This car had some of the worst water etching I have come across. I tried (to no avial) to hit this paint hard and level some of the etching but after 4 passes of M84 with a 7006 cutting pad and 3 passes of M83 with a 8006 pad and barely an improvement in the etching, the owner (04MC) and I decided that caution was the better part of valor in this case. The paint is expensive and neither him nor I wanted to risk burning it.

The etchings could all be caught with a finger nail so it looks like a wetsand and cut would be the only way to fix it. Being that he made a long drive over to my house, we busted out or ROB's and did a quick polish and seal.

The paint was amazing to begin so I can't really take all credit as Thiago (04MC) does an amazing job with his paint using #9 and it was pretty flawless to begin. He decieded to step up to #80 and with two people it took maybe 30 minutes to finish. Then we applyed a quick coat of #21 by PC and did a quick dressing of the tires and wheel wells.

I also got to go for a quick ride. The car has a pulley and turns out 15 lbs of boost, and gets sideways through first and second, no problem.

Anyways here are some afters, which I can't take full credit for.

Swirl free, the paint was hard for me to photograph in direct sunlight as it would washout...



Again the full sun shot kinda washed out, but swirl free...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Autopia members Mystic Cobra lightly polished and Sealed

This car had some of the worst water etching I have come across. I tried (to no avail) to hit this paint hard and level some of the etching but after 4 passes of M84 with a 7006 cutting pad and 3 passes of M83 with a 8006 pad and barely an improvement in the etching,

Anytime 4 passes with M84 with a foam cutting pad with a rotary buffer doesn't remove the defects, or just barely starts to remove them, this is truly an indicator of how hard the paint is because this combo of product/pad/tool is pretty aggressive and usually effective.

The next most aggressive step would be to stick with the M84 and the rotary buffer but switch to a wool cutting pad. Your choice was in most case the wise choice,

Do your best, live with the rest

as wool pads while they might be aggressive they also instill swirls that you must then remove.


Nice work!


p.s.

Hear you on the photography work, this time of year it can very difficult to get a great picture and also to capture swirls as the sun is too low in the sky.

[TH0001]

Re: Autopia members Mystic Cobra lightly polished and Sealed

Thanks Mike.

I started with one pass of M83 at about 1200 rpm, didn't touch it.

Then I stepped it up to 1500 rpm, no improvement. I started lightly aggresive (from working experince I knew that a PC wasn't going to touch it).

Then I switched pads and went with M84 at about 1200 rpm. Nothing.

Got alittle more agressive and tried a second pass with at 1500 rpm. Nothing.

I always try two passes of each product before going to the next aggresive process, trying to stick with the less is more policy of trying the least aggresive polish/pad to get the job down.

Here I amped up the rotary to 2000 rpm and tried two passes here. The improvement was slight and only after the second pass. As this point I had already buffed the paint twice with #83 and four times ( ) with M84 and decieded enough was enough.

I stepped back down to M83 to clean up some of the hazing I tend to get with the 7006 pad and called it quits.

As far a wool pad, I have tried them and never had much luck. I need more practice with them, and customers car is never a good way to learn.