Reformulated #2

[SteveT]

There is a thread on Autopia about #2 being reformulated. Apparently it is now safe for hand and PC use instead of rotary only. Is this true and if so can Mike or someone please provide some more info. For example what is it's rank on Megs abrasive scale. I know the old #2 was mistakenly marked as a 5 when in fact it was really more aggressive than DACP. When will it be in stores ect. Thanks

[gb387]

Re: Reformulated #2

Originally posted by stevet
There is a thread on Autopia about #2 being reformulated. Apparently it is now safe for hand and PC use instead of rotary only. Is this true and if so can Mike or someone please provide some more info. For example what is it's rank on Megs abrasive scale. I know the old #2 was mistakenly marked as a 5 when in fact it was really more aggressive than DACP. When will it be in stores ect. Thanks

I saw that same post... Hummm...

[Mike Phillips]

Hi stevet,

The new M02 Fine Cut Cleaner is now shipping, but the old formula's are still on store shelves, so read the back label carefully if you're looking to purchase the new formula.

I personally have not had the time to work very much with this new formula but will do some testing with it tomorrow on our black Honda Pilot and post my impressions.

[RamAirV1]

#2 was a very good product. I am anxious to get your impressions of the reformulated version. Does it say something like "#2 V2.0" like they did with #9 when the reformulated it.

#2 might be a good alternative to #83, which really takes a long time to break down with the PC. A good sequence of products for moderate swirls might be #2, #80, then #81 followed by NXT Paste.

RamAirV1

[SteveT]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
Hi stevet,

The new M02 Fine Cut Cleaner is now shipping, but the old formula's are still on store shelves, so read the back label carefully if you're looking to purchase the new formula.

I personally have not had the time to work very much with this new formula but will do some testing with it tomorrow on our black Honda Pilot and post my impressions.

Thanks, looking forward to reading your impressions.

[Setec Astronomy]

Well, I guess life really is a circle...my bottle of #2, which is 15-20 years old, is labeled for hand or machine use.

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Setec Astronomy
Well, I guess life really is a circle...my bottle of #2, which is 15-20 years old, is labeled for hand or machine use.

The recommendations to use M01, M02 and M04 only with the rotary buffer took place in the early 1990's, anyone dare to take a guess why?

[SpoiledMan]

BC/CC???

[rusty bumper]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
The recommendations to use M01, M02 and M04 only with the rotary buffer took place in the early 1990's, anyone dare to take a guess why?

I used to use #02 by hand in the late 1980's, and I got pretty good results with it.....That's when I became hooked on their stuff.

I can only guess that Meguiars reformulated the products for use by a rotary later on?

[Tim Lingor]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
The recommendations to use M01, M02 and M04 only with the rotary buffer took place in the early 1990's, anyone dare to take a guess why?

I'll bite! The introduction of BC/CC paint. Since the M01, M02, M04, were all designed for Single Stage paint, the Diminishing Abrasives in those products did not work well with the new clear coat paint when used by hand, DA or Orbital buffer. So while the new BC/CC paint is usually harder than SS paint, it also tends to mark easier. Therefore when these SS designed products were used on BC/CC with a DA for example, the resultant finish would be hazy. The products needed the heat and/or friction created by the rotary buffer to break the abrasives down, and create a haze free finish on these harder BC/CC surfaces.

How's that?

Tim

[Rick]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
The recommendations to use M01, M02 and M04 only with the rotary buffer took place in the early 1990's, anyone dare to take a guess why?

I'm gonna say a rotary is the only thing that's powerful enough to break the abbrasives down to the point where they won't leave any swirls.

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by 2hotford
I'll bite! The introduction of BC/CC paint. Since the M01, M02, M04, were all designed for Single Stage paint, the Diminishing Abrasives in those products did not work well with the new clear coat paint when used by hand, DA or Orbital buffer. So while the new BC/CC paint is usually harder than SS paint, it also tends to mark easier. Therefore when these SS designed products were used on BC/CC with a DA for example, the resultant finish would be hazy. The products needed the heat and/or friction created by the rotary buffer to break the abrasives completely down, and create a haze free finish on these harder BC/CC surfaces.

How's that?

Tim

That's correct, I added one word in bold, italic red.

I think it was Barry that coined the term scratch-senstive upon the introduction of basecoat/clearcoat finishes into the assembly plants, and then subsequently into the refinishing industries.

I remember calling on body shops starting in 1988 and many shops were only then starting to switch over to shooting these new paint systems. They were forced to as more and more new cars made their way into the market.

Think about it for a second,

New car with basecoat/clearcoat paint finish gets sold at you local car dealership. Car gets wrecked, perhaps just a fender-bender, car gets taken to auto body shop, insurance determines car can be repaired, dents are pulled, body work is done, car is primered, now the painter has to match the repaired area with the rest of the car.

The refinishing industry had evolve with the times, they had to adopt the new paint systems in order to correctly repaint a damaged car, in essence, like many industries, the shop owners had to evolve in order to survive.

Believe it or not, I can remember calling on body shops that hadn't learned to spray basecoat/clearcoat paint systems and the painter would do his best to match a clearcoated car with a single stage paint. Sometimes they could get very close in color, but it will never look perfect and over time the differences will become more and more apparent.

As these new paint systems were adopted in the refinishing industries, besides having to learn how to apply these paint systems, the next thing that was discovered was a new way had to be designed to sand and buff on these new paint systems as the old system didn't work.

The philosophy,

"This is the way we've always done it"

just didn't work. These newer catalyzed, or chemically cured paint systems tended to be harder than traditional solvent evaporation paint systems, not always, but in comparison, most of the time.

Besides being harder, and setting up faster, (which meant a shorter window of time to do any wet sanding, cutting and buffing), the clear coat finishes magnified and highlighted any swirls or scratches in the finish.

Old fashioned compounds where the abrasives were very hard and sharp, which allowed them to cut fast, (remember body shops like detail shops tend to be production oriented), used together with wool pads did what they always have done, scoured and swirled the paint, but when this system was used on clear coat finishes, the true results were very apparent and customers were not happy.

You see, the old, archaic system of using coarse cutting compounds with wool pads never worked, it was just that with single stage paints, painters, painters helpers and detailers could get away with using this system.

When bc/cc systems became the new norm, the free ride known as cut 'n shine, came to an abrupt end. People continued to try to use it, but no matter how great the painter was, and how great the paint job came out, if they used the old buffing products to buff the car, the end result was always the same, swirl city.

This opened the door anew for Meguiar's. Meguiar's has always used diminishing abrasives in their paint cleaners, if fact Meguiar's never used the term compound, until the 1990's because in the professional side of this industry, we didn't want our superior products lumped together with all the rest of the products in this category known as compounds.

When people think of rubbing, cutting, or polishing compounds, they thing of something with grit in it, and for those other products, this was true. No so for Meguiar's. Never has been, never will be.

In approximately 1986 or 1987, Meguiar's introduced a new product called, M09 Swirl Remover. This new product was an in-between product, that is it was part paint cleaner, and part pure polish, it bridged the gap between a product formulated specifically to remove defects, (M01, M02 & M04), and a product formulated to specifically add brilliant gloss, (non-abrasive pure polishes such as M03, M05, & M07).

M09 Swirl Remover was a combination product, it was part paint cleaner and part pure polish. It was basically a pure polish with just a little bit of a specific type of diminishing abrasives to give it the ability to remove swirls and fine scratches, but breakdown completely and leave a swirls free finish.

It was also a very complimentary product to Meguiar's W-5500 and W-1000 foam buffing pads that were introduced in 1965 and up until the 1990's, for the most part had no competition. I personally didn't see foam pads for using with a rotary buffer or the air D.A. until after 1990 and all these newcomers to the game were experimenting at that time. Even when they found a a foam formula that kind of, sort of, got the job done, these pads were still being used with traditional compounds, so as a system, the competitors products still didn't solve the problems because even though the foam pad they introduced got them out of the swirl issues caused by the fibers that make up their wool pads, the abrasives, or grit they used, in their compounds, because it was sharp, and hard and didn't break down, the results continued to be the same, and that was a swirled out paint job.

Many people in the body shop and detailing industries rediscovered and began switching over to Meguiar's paint cleaners and foam pads for their paint polishing needs during the time of change from single stage solvent-evaporation paints to basecoat/clearcoat catalyzed paint systems.

While our M01 Medium Cut Cleaner, M02 Fine Cut Cleaner, and M04 Heavy Cut Cleaner worked fine when applied with the rotary buffer, because these products were also very popular among serious car enthusiasts in the car hobby that didn't use the rotary buffer but instead applied these products by hand or with traditional orbital buffers, we saw an increase in complaints by our customers when they applied our paint cleaners by hand or with an orbital buffer to clear coat finishes.

This was because these paints tended to be harder, dramatically more scratch-sensitive, and the nature of the clear coat itself was to highlight and make more visible, swirls and scratches. So sometime around 1992 or 1993, (I think), the labels were changed to remove the wording that these products could be used by hand, orbital buffer or D.A., and the recommendation for us only with a rotary buffer was implemented.

During this time, Meguiar's was developing new formulas based on new diminishing abrasive technology that Meguiar's again pioneered, only these formulas were being used at the OEM level, later this technology was changed and modified and then introduced for the re-finishing industry and we all know it today as the 80's Series, in other words,

M85 Diamond Cut Compound
M84 Compound Power Cleaner
M83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish
M82 Swirl Free Polish
M81 Hand Polish
M80 Speed Glaze

But that's another story...

[rusty bumper]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
As these new paint systems were adopted in the refinishing industries, besides having to learn how to apply these paint systems, the next thing that was discovered was a new way had to be designed to sand and buff on these new paint systems as the old system didn't work.

I bought my 1st car with bc/cc paint in 1988.

Hurricane Hugo came by a year later and caused a tree limb to fall and damage the top of it.

The body shop fixed the dent and repainted the area.......But later on, I began to notice where they had tried to blend in the clear coat.....It was ugly to say the least!

Now a days, they don't try to blend the clear coat anymore. They will paint the entire area, or until they reach the pinstripe or some other break in the paint.

Looks much better that way.

[Mike Phillips]

Just to add to this a little bit more...

The M01, M02 and M04, were originally, or historically formulated for single stage finishes, but as clear coats made their way into the mainstream, M02 and M04 were re-formulated for use on bc/cc systems. All three work and be be used on both single stage and bc/cc paint systems. There was a time when the direction allowed for application by hand or machine, this was changed to machine only, and now M02 has been tested and approved for application by hand, orbital buffer, or dual action polisher.

The most important thing to remember when choosing a product is to;

• * First evaluate the condition of the paint
  * Next, determine your goals
  * Then, choose the least aggressive product to get the job done

[rusty bumper]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
........and now M02 has been tested and approved for application by hand, orbital buffer, or dual action polisher.

That's good to know.

I was always a big fan of it anyway.