Difficulty Polishing Single Stage Paint

[MNRyan]

Difficulty Polishing Single Stage Paint



Hi guys, first time poster but long time reader here. Fantastic website and store, I've learned so much on here - Thank you!

I deal mostly with single stage enamels on farm equipment. I recently have been working on a combine with some very oxidized paint. Parts of the paint job have been repainted.


My process after thoroughly cleaning is Megs 105 with the griots fast cutting microfiber pad on my griots DA.

I then go to megs 205 with griots microfiber fast fishing pad.

To follow it all up I add a layer of wax with a griots red waxing pad.


This system has worked well for me in the past and has been versatile on both dual stage and single stage paints I've done. With this project I have had a really bad time with my compound drying out and becoming unworkable. It seems like after only a pass or two the product will glaze and become difficult to work with.

The worst part is getting it off again, both 105 and 205 become like a layer of concrete on the paint. I realize 105 is known for being difficult to work with, but on other projects I haven't had that big of an issue. This project is a different story however. I tried skipping 105 because I know its downfall is drying out but the 205 will do the same thing on my first cutting pass.

I guess my questions are; is this normal?

What could I do differently?

Is the heavy oxidation causing this?

Is it something with my technique?

What are the next steps I should take?


Like I said I've had great results in the past but with this project I spend most of my time trying to get old dried compound off which is extremely time consuming. I should mention that I work in generally small zones and the paint was out of the sun and cool to the touch when I was working on it.

Any suggestions guys?

Thanks a lot!!
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:)

[Mike Phillips]

Welcome to AutogeekOnline! :welcome:


Hope you don't mind but I edited your post and broke up the huge chunk of text into smaller portions just to make it easier for me to read and the reply to.

It's end of day but I'll revisit this thread with some suggestions tomorrow...


Cool project. We don't do much in the way of farm machinery, but here's one project we did...


Pictures: 1947 John Deere Tractor - Show Tractor Makeover! (http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/pictures-autogeek-s-car-week/86314-pictures-1947-john-deere-tractor-show-tractor-makeover.html)


http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/watermark.php?file=83976


:)

[mwoywod]

I honestly believe this has nothing to do with your technique and everything to do with the polishing oils/lubricants Meguiars uses just not working well on porous single stage paints.

I love M205 when working on clear coated paints and even some single stage paints, but it can be virtually unusable when dealing with heavily oxidized single stage paint.

I work out of a classic car gallery and 70% of the cars I polish are unrestored single stage paints on old model A's and Model T's. Due to the more porous nature of single stage paints they get hot quicker and the oils and lubricant from some compounds and polishes dry up too fast causing it to turn into concrete upon removal. Oxidation will make it even worse. I have experienced this MANY times with the "trade secret oils" in Meguiars. They are just not capable of stay lubricated when trying to deal with a ton of residue clogging up the pad.

I PROMISE you that this ISN'T an issue with your technique.

Personally, I've had the same issue with the oils in Menzerna Compounds and polishes on Porous and highly oxidized single stage paints. I highly recommend picking up an 8oz. bottle of Menzerna Super Heavy Cut 300. It has enough oils and cut through a ton of oxidation without drying out. I find it to be too oily and have too much cut for modern clear coat, but it's a great tool to have in your arsenal for situations like this.

That said, if you only wanted to buy one product, HANDS DOWN the best would be HD Polish+. It is HEAVILY lubricated and the best product to use for cars with heavy oxidation. I promise you HD Polish+ is a freak of nature and even though it isn't oily at all, it is the only polish I have ever used that can stay lubricated and won't dry up into concrete on even the most oxidized single stage paint.

I wish I could tell you that working smaller sections or slowing down your machine speed would help, but I know for a fact that it won't. The only true a remedy for this situation is HD Polish+

3D should seriously hire me.lol

[dlc95]

I've had similar experiences with M105/M205 on single stage paint.

Especially it the paint is on the "thirsty" side.

Check out Mike's article on using M07 on single stage paints.

When I encounter this type of situation, I switch to my Menzerna polishes, and that had done the trick thus far. Their lubricant is a lot "stronger", and allows for longer work time, and easy wipe off.

As far as getting around the issue with the afore mentioned products, I try to stay with open cell foam pads (green and blue buff and shine), to scrub at the oxidation, and increase the amount of liquid on the pad.

[MNRyan]

Wow thanks guys, this is exactly the info I needed!

Mike thank you for breaking up the text, its easier for me to read as well :laughing: I look forward to reading your suggestions! That B is gorgeous, nothing runs like a Deere!

I am reading as much as I can about all the products mentioned, again thank you guys so much. Your expertise and experience are invaluable! :xyxthumbs:

Kind of off topic but another question I have is what wax/coating/sealant would you guys recommend as my final pass? I currently use whatever auto parts store liquid wax I have laying around.

Ag equipment paint obviously takes a beating so I would like to find something that offers a little more protection. On my vehicles I use Klasse Sealant Glaze which is great for cars and pickups. On a machine this big however I feel like I would be wiping off the excess Klasse forever (maybe my technique could be improved a little as well :laughing:).

Do any of you know of a sealant or wax that is easier to apply? This is farm equipment so it doesn't have to look perfect and will inevitably be filthy in short order, but I would like to find something better than auto store cleaner wax. Thanks again!

[mwoywod]

Optimum Car Wax. It's patented UVA & UVB inhibitors make it the perfect option. It smells amazing and it's easy to use. It can be used to protect painted surfaces, plastics, rubber, vinyl, and even glass. Plus a little goes a very long way. Just make you shake it up well and remember less is more.

[BillE]

Thinkin' way outside the box for a final finish...maybe take a look at Meguiar's Ultimate Finish.

Bill

[WillSports3]

To add to what mwoywod said, 205 and 105 are very oily and usually great but it's the residue that's clogging up your pad. You can use another compound and polish or if you want to just use M205 and make it work, you need compressed air. The reason I say that is you need a "sacrificial" pad of sorts primed well with a lot of M205 and you want that at the highest setting on the buffer and running across the paint a lot faster than if you were polishing. You're basically just removing excess paint residue from the surface. At the same time you want to use compressed air to blow out your pad. The other suggestion is what dlc said, M07. Slather that over the car and leave it for a day or so, letting the oils in there nourish the single stage paint before you polish, for less residue on your pads.

I'm not a huge fan of Optimum Car Wax only because it doesn't last nearly as long as they would like you to believe. I would suggest Mckee 37 Paint Sealant for something like this, or Wolfgang Deep Gloss Paint Sealant. Someone did a test on here a while back and the Wolfgang lasted the longest out of everything else they tried. I'm not sure how the Wolfgang stacks up against the Mckee 37 however.

[Mike Phillips]

I honestly believe this has nothing to do with your technique and everything to do with the polishing oils/lubricants Meguiars uses just not working well on porous single stage paints.

I have experienced this MANY times with the "trade secret oils" in Meguiars. They are just not capable of stay lubricated when trying to deal with a ton of residue clogging up the pad.




Just want to chime in on mwoywod's comments about TS oils in Megs products. I too work on a lot of single stage paint and have 5 articles on the topic of using #7

I just want to point out, that when I talk about using Meguiar's trade secret oils it only has to do with the #7 product, not Meguiar's modern products. I have know idea if their modern products use the same TS oils found in the #7 or something "modern", as #7 came out during the time of the Model T, the modern products/formulas are new to this age.

And I would point out that I have personally saved hundreds of cars with neglected, severly oxidized original and antique single stage paint using #7. I don't use their modern products for restoring these paints on classic cars. I've also helped hundreds and probably thousands of people restore antique single stage paint using #7.

In fact, it's only Tuesday of this week and as of today behind the scenes I have 3 people contacting me about saving the original paint on their cars with the #7. Go figure.


Here's the link to the articles (that I know of) that I've written...

All Mike Phillips #7 Show Car Glaze Articles in one place (http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/ask-mike-phillips-your-detailing-questions/103535-all-mike-phillips-7-show-car-glaze-articles-one-place.html)


And also just to point out, #7 was never originally formulated to be machine applied but hand applied and the reason was if you tried to machine apply it the product would become sticky. M03 Machine Glaze is a cousin of Meguiar's #7 and it was formulated to be like #7 AND be machine applied. I have not used #3 for years so I have no idea if the original formula has been updated, my guess is yes. And I have no idea how it would work on antique or modern paints. I'd have to go out into the garage and do some buffing with it to find out.

I wouldn't normally grab M105 or M205 for antique cars with antique paints or not even modern cars. I do like M100 and M101 but again, I don't normally use these products on antique paint.






Optimum Car Wax. It's patented UVA & UVB inhibitors make it the perfect option.

It smells amazing and it's easy to use. It can be used to protect painted surfaces, plastics, rubber, vinyl, and even glass. Plus a little goes a very long way. Just make you shake it up well and remember less is more.



I would agree with mwoywod for this recommendation. The Optimum Car Wax although it's a spray-on product is a top shelf paint protectant and it's really easy to use.


Here's a recent article I wrote about this product...


Patented UV Protection - Optimum Car Wax - by Dr. Ghodoussi at Autogeek.com (http://tinyurl.com/lwexs3t)



:)

[Mike Phillips]

Difficulty Polishing Single Stage Paint

My process after thoroughly cleaning is Megs 105 with the griots fast cutting microfiber pad on my griots DA.

I then go to megs 205 with griots microfiber fast fishing pad.

To follow it all up I add a layer of wax with a griots red waxing pad.


This system has worked well for me in the past and has been versatile on both dual stage and single stage paints I've done.

With this project I have had a really bad time with my compound drying out and becoming unworkable. It seems like after only a pass or two the product will glaze and become difficult to work with.

The worst part is getting it off again, both 105 and 205 become like a layer of concrete on the paint.


Based on what you shared above, I'll do my best to help out below...


[QUOTE=MNRyan;1508272]

I guess my questions are; is this normal?



A lot of people find M105 a tick on the difficult side to work on. It's not as wet as other compounds. I've only used 3D compounds for a few projects so I would cede to mwoywod's opinion since he works with them more often. I am a huge fan of the 3D HD Speed as it is a really nice performing one-step cleaner/wax.






What could I do differently?



I would suggest,

Try a different compound - SONAX CutMax

Try a different tool - FLEX PE14 Rotary Buffer for the first step

Try a different pad - A wool cutting pad and have a steel pad cleaning spur at your side

After cutting the oxidation off using a compound with a wool pad and a rotary buffer, come back with your Griot's Garage 6" DA orbital polisher and a foam pad and the SONAX EX 04-06 and remove the holograms. Then apply the Optimum Spray Wax.




[
Is the heavy oxidation causing this?



In part yes. The dead paint is being removed and soaking up the liquids in the products and creating a caked-up mess on the face of your microfiber pads. Then as you continiue to buff this is leaving a sticky film that tires you out to wipe off.

My experience with the SONAX CutMax compound is it is a very wet compound as is the EX 04-06 polish. I think using these wetter, water-based compounds and polishes together with a wool pad and a rotary buffer would enable you to do the heavy correction step faster and more effectively.

The abrasive technology used by SONAX is top shelf and the hologram swirls left by this process would mostly be from the fibers of the wool pad spinning against the paint.





Is it something with my technique?



It's less about your technique as it is the tool, the pad and the products.

Full disclosure - I'm not a huge fan of or user of microfiber pads on orbital polishers. If I want to cut fast I'll just step up to the big dog and get the job over with. (big dog = rotary buffer with wool pad and great compound)






What are the next steps I should take?




Send me your shipping address and I'll send you some products to try.


:)

[RSW]

In the most extreme case, here's what I did.

I'm not going to step by step this with pictures because I didn't take any so I'll just describe the process.

First, I started at 11AM - I drove the car by a shop where a friend of mine works to show him the car before I started. I'd been trying to make the case for learning how to use a rotary and thought this would be a good opportunity to make my points.

I washed the car with Dawn, rinsed it off, re-soaped it, and hit it with a pretty aggressive clay - I wanted the big chunks of contamination out of the way when I did the next step. Clay, then rinse, but no drying.

Then, I used Trizact on a soft interface pad to hand cut through the years of oxidation. I cut just till I could see the good paint peak through - it goes from pink to a bit redder when you hit good paint. I washed the car again and got the sanding residue off. Then I dried the car.

Then I used my rotary with Menzerna 400 and a lake country foamed wool pad and cut the last bit of oxidation off and the sandpaper scratch out - I left the car with a nice consistent swirl everywhere, but no oxidation or sanding scratches. There were a few scratches I thought were too deep to cut out without taking off too much paint so I left those.

Then I followed up with Menzerna 400 mixed with a bit of something else to mitigate the scratch a bit and the orange foam pad from Lake Country applied with a Makita BO6040. That killed the swirls and left the car good to go for the Menzerna Power Lock applied with a hydrophilic sponge. I let that sit while I packed up my gear and did the windows, wiped out door jams and treated the tires.

Then, I washed my hands, wiped off the residue from the Power lock and drove the car back by my friends shop. It's at the end of a row of shops - he works at one end, my client is on the other. All friends in between. That was 2PM. Three hours total. You can't beat a small car with easy paint - most of that was Mercedes original and the part that wasn't wasn't bad to work. So, the paint helped a lot.

I sanded because I wanted to be sure I'd gotten all the oxidation off and I didn't want to spend a lot of time cleaning pads or changing them.

https://goo.gl/photos/NnzxB3NsPvg6tMq19

The link shows the pictures before and after. It wasn't a show car but after I was done it was an easy driver. I worked as fast as I could on this because I really wanted to show my friend what was possible. After I left, I went home, took a nap, had dinner then went to bed.

RSW

[mwoywod]

Just want to chime in on mwoywod's comments about TS oils in Megs products. I too work on a lot of single stage paint and have 5 articles on the topic of using #7

I just want to point out, that when I talk about using Meguiar's trade secret oils it only has to do with the #7 product, not Meguiar's modern products. I have know idea if their modern products use the same TS oils found in the #7 or something "modern", as #7 came out during the time of the Model T, the modern products/formulas are new to this age.

And I would point out that I have personally saved hundreds of cars with neglected, severly oxidized original and antique single stage paint using #7. I don't use their modern products for restoring these paints on classic cars. I've also helped hundreds and probably thousands of people restore antique single stage paint using #7.

In fact, it's only Tuesday of this week and as of today behind the scenes I have 3 people contacting me about saving the original paint on their cars with the #7. Go figure.

Mike, thank you SO much for responding. I KNOW for a fact that you will forget more about products and detailing than the rest of us will ever know. I was basing my comments on all meguiars compounds and polishes containing "Trade secret oils" from an article you wrote on July 8th 2005 on the meguiars detailing forums.

The article you wrote was titled "Why Meguiar's recommends polishing paint"

I hope it's okay to include the link. It's a GREAT article!!!

Why Meguiar's recommends polishing paint (http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?7058-Why-Meguiar-s-recommends-polishing-paint)

Here is an excerpt from your article....

"When you apply a Meguiar's polish, the trade secret oils found in all Meguiar's polishes, (and even Meguiar's compounds, cleaner/polishes and even some waxes), penetrate into the paint and replace the original resins, (or oils), that have been broken-down, leached out and/or deteriorated. These trade secret oils then act to fill the empty microscopic pores, air pockets and surface imperfections thus preventing unwanted substances from entering into these areas.[/QUOTE]

[Mike Phillips]

Mike, thank you SO much for responding. I KNOW for a fact that you will forget more about products and detailing than the rest of us will ever know. I was basing my comments on all meguiars compounds and polishes containing "Trade secret oils" from an article you wrote on July 8th 2005 on the meguiars detailing forums.

The article you wrote was titled "Why Meguiar's recommends polishing paint"




Thanks for digging that up, I've written enough articles on both MOL and AGO that I simply cannot remember them all.


I took a few seconds to read that article and here's what I remember,


1: This article and the link it shares to a thread on CorvetteForum documents what I say when I say I'm a

Veteran of the Zaino vs. NXT Wax Wars



2: It reminds me of no matter how hostile others are towards me I keep my cool and reply and act in a professional manner. Mike Pennington was always there back in those days to remind me to take the high road.

And like the quote from George Bernard Shaw

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.


The article I wrote was crafted by me using information given to me by the head chemist at Meguiar's and approved by Mike Pennington and what I wrote is just as accurate today as when I wrote it.



4: If you read the thread linked to on CorvetteForum you'll see,


A: I've been a member there since 2002 - that's 15 years now which seems like 30 years in cyber dog years.

B: Sal Zaino himself chimed in on that thread and Sal and I have been friends ever since he attended my New Jersey Roadshow Class, somewhere I have pictures of us together at that class. (Car Detailing History).



5: The most likely way to start a flame war on a forum is to bring up,


Politics
Religion
Car Wax




:laughing:

[RippyD]

You are gentleman and a scholar.

[RSW]

Hey Mike,


We've both been around long enough to have done a lot of cars that were painted with lacquer. Some of the ways we worked then still work but I'm sure we've both abandoned a lot as systems changed and we've had to adapt.

I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet when left to our own devices - no commercial interests involved - just doing a car to the best of our abilities, there'd be almost no difference in the way we handled the job. Tell me you wouldn't have taken sandpaper to that Mercedes. If I were you, and people just did what I said, I sure wouldn't tell people to do that for the obvious reasons.

You have an array of products and I'm sure you have a hierarchy when it comes to your personal opinion. I have four or five products in every category where the difference is essentially nothing, either of us could get a great result with any of the five. You also have long standing relationships with people and companies and those relationships need to be respected and you do. I appreciate that, and there's no upside to you telling someone who's happy with the result they're getting to do anything differently.

When I post on this board it's not to say what I'm doing is better, it's just to say what I've arrived at after nearly 40 years of doing this. I read a lot of what other post and if I think there's something I can add I'll do but most the time I just read and move on. Sometimes I wonder how what their doing works because they're doing something I tried and it sure didn't work for me... But whatever.

The best thing that ever happens to me is to lose an argument, if someone has a better move than I do, that's my move the next time I need it.

RSW