Advice on produts and pads.

[Ancient1]

So far I have done about half the car with fg400 with a mf cutting pad, I also have 3d cut tom use and may try that on the other half of the car. My goal is to get it's paint as close to being jeweled with the products and equipment that I have. One of the plans is to keep with the menzerna products and follow 400 with 4000 with a polishing pad and for the final step 3800 with a finishing pad.


My second thought was to use adapt with a polishing pad after the compounding stage and follow with either aat 502 or finish+ on finishing pads.


The pads I have at my disposal are mostly LC. I have their HD polishing pads in both polish and finis also in both 6" and 7'. The pads I have been using most on this caR are the thinpros 5" which I have both polish and finish. For cut I use the Megs MF cut pads since the Audi paint is pretty hard.


I feel the biggest problem is being able to see the imperfections I did find that one set of lights would show some but barely and only on some sections.


Here are a couple pics I took of the hood before and after the fg400
http://www.autopia.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=30408&stc=1
http://www.autopia.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=30407&stc=1




I am asking advice since I experienced he 3d Compounds
and have heard many good things abut them on here.


I just figured with the German paint the Menzerna trio would be the way to go

[wing commander]

Most times you can go from FG400 to 4000 and never need 3800 (4500) I tried to get the result from 4000 to 4500 and could not tell the difference on hard clear. The combo you have planed with Menzerna will work very nice on your Audi paint.

[Ancient1]

the reason i thought i would see a little more clarity/ refinement would be from changing from a polishing pad with the 4000 to a finishing pad with the 3800. and maybe try the lc hd finish pad which does have a little cut with the 3800 also.

[GregC]

I don't have an answer but your question did remind me of something I have been wondering for a while now. When going more aggressive or less aggressive do you always change the product and the pad? That has been the case in all the videos I have seen and I was never able to find a post about it. However it seems to me like it would be perfectly reasonable to change one or the other.

[Ancient1]

The reason I am trying to get the paint as perfect and shinny as I can is that I plan to user WGUC ans the lsp and maybe do more than one layer if I know how soon after the 1st a second one would adhere without dissolving the 1st. If I have enough product I would like to put on 3 layers and coat the lights, windows and trim. I already did rims coated the tires with tuff shine. I really would like to get my silver gray to pop as much as possible.

Time and polishing steps don't bother me, it could take a month and I would be ok with that. I just want to do the very best I can possibly do.

This post is about getting peoples thoughts on what combination would give me the best final result before coating.

[vobro]

Sounds like you have plenty of options on hand, why not do some test spots? That is the only way to achieve the finish you like

[GSKR]

I picked up a used vette dealer 6 months ago with cars bought from him all over the us.I had to dial in a one step to turn and burn.Im not making a fortune on these cars but I get a minimum of 6 a month and is steady work.Altough I don't like product mixing ,I had to find a way of knocking out swirls and wash abrasions.fg 400 on a megs maroon foam cutting pad along with HD and some pressure applied the cars were very acceptable for a one step.2 pea size drops of fg and 5 drops of HD on pad at speed 5 work great and leaves no hazing top off with poxy then done.fg 400 and HD speed work great together .