to make a long story short. i wanted to buff my own car. i asked to barrow a buffer from a local guy i don't know. he then adds that he will detail my car for free. he says he use to work at a body shop.

so me thinking this is great, i agree.

in the end hes a douche. i swear i thought this fool was practicing on my car. he burned through one area. couldn't handle the buffer and nicked my paint. in some areas...

i knew he didn't know what he was doing when he busted out the meguiars 3 step. i was like oh crap, took him two days.

anyway i want to buff my own car now. there swirl marks EVERYWHERE. even some sanding marks.




anyway this is what i am left with. you can't really see in the pics but my question is where do i start off???

i bought a rotary and i bought meguiars swirl remover 2.0 #9 and hit the hood with a foam pad.
some of the haze is gone but the swirls are still there, the panel is smooth....

i am guessing i need something more abbresive.. which product do i start out with?

speed glaze?
dual action cleaner polisher?

i wanted to use 3M but not for 40 bucks a bottle....

please help i will post pictures of the results when done.

 

Use a good buffing compound on a rotary w/ 3M white pad or yellow Lake country pad. I use 3M perfect it II mostly. Sounds like you need to really work the car over well. If I'm wet sanding, I finish w/ 2000 at least on small spots. The 3M perfectit II last time I bought it was around 20 bucks a qt.

After the buffing compound, I use 3M Final Finish Easy Clean Up polish 82878, on a 5" DA random orbit polisher w/ an orange pad, then a black or blue pad if necessary. The semi-abrasive polish is used to remove the swirl marks / haze left by the rotary and buffing compound. Menzerna makes some really good polish and buffing compunds also.

 

I use Menzerna polishes. Some SIP and 106ff to finish. I use orange LC pads with the SIP and white LC pad for the 106ff. Also I use a Porter Cable RO although if you are good with a rotary you can use that.

Is the car a honda? Honda clears are pretty soft from what I have read (I have only used my polish on honda so I have no experience with other clears). Depending on the hardness you might even move to a more aggressive pad/polish.

 

if you can't get it perfect with swirl remover, bump up the formula and use something more "heavy" cuts.

i use 3m perfect pad for finish and twisted wool for "cut"

 

this is a aftermarket paint job. its matrix paint and clear.... if that makes any differance.

i'll get a pad and some heavier compound and will post pictures.

 

Dont use compound! Compond is only used when you need to "cut" the paint. If your only problem is swirls all you need is a basic swirl remover, polishing pad and a random orbital. Set the orbital on speed 2 and work 2x2 sections then set to speed 4 and work the same section. Repeat over entire car untill swirls are removed...let me know how it goes.

 

i have been using swirl remover 2.0 #9 from meguiars. with a foam pad.

it will not take out the swirls. i spent around 10 minutes on a 2x2 section of the hood. i was scared i was going to burn through. the hood was hot t enough that you couldn't rest your hand on it.

i am going to buy another pad and meguiars medium cut cleaner #1 or fine cut cleaner #2

is that good enough?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHCrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dont use compound! </TD></TR></TABLE>

If you read his post he stated the car was hacked up by some retard and now he has nicks and sand scratches among other damage. He will most likely need more than just a basic polish.

OP: I've never used that line of product but make sure your careful since the retard probably removed a bit of clear. Make sure you use the right pads along with a good buffing compound and you should be all good.


Modified by powerflow at 10:33 AM 2/12/2008

 

usually wool pad has more "cutting" power to it, i use heavier stuff with wool pad and finer/finish with black foam(which actually works great but they get hot much much faster than wool)

don't get the cheapo pad, you'll end up spending more money and time wasting all the good compounds/polishes.

another good way to do buff job is to cut the pad well before moving up the compound, if you still have heavy cut still bedded in the pad, all you are doing is sanding the surface. a 50-50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water will work great for cleaning the surface between cuts

 

i recommend using a foam pad and 3M Perfect-it II,its like a blue cream and works great on swirl marks after finish sand and polish

 

Post some better pictures. If the scratches are fixable, then you need some compound and buff them out. If it's just swirls then you're gonna need something like a swirl mark remover and a foam pad.

 

Id bite the bullet and purchase a bottle of Menzerna SIP and an orange LC pad.

that should take car of soft honda paint. finish with 106ff on a grey pad or if you want, 3m ultrafina with the ultrafina blue pad.

 

Never N I mean Never let another man buff ur car, Thats just like letting some random person fk ur wife... Gzzzzzz.... Lol