beginer help

[turboneon26]

first ide like to introduce myself.. my name is chris i have been working at a dealership for 3 years washing cars. in the last year they have showed me how to use the buffer and i have moved up into doing more detailing work. i have a portercable random orbital and i bought the 5.5 inch LC pads. i bought m105, m205, meguires selent 2.0, meguires gold carnuba wasx. i also just got the PB ssr 2.5.( not sure what this does)

i started working on the hood of my white dodge srt neon it has some scratches, and swirls i have used

m105 with the yellow there were some deep scratches
m205 with the orange
M 2.0 with the Grey pad

all of them were used on the 5 setting on the random orbital.

when i pulled it out into the sun it looked like i had never touched the car. i was wondering what i did wrong, did i not use the right pad with the products. is there something els i should be using. i have read the forums to see what other people were using but like i said my work did nothing to my car. i can also bring home the buffer form work if this may help me any.

sorry for my noob questions. and any advice would be greatly appreciated

thanks
chris

[ziggo99]

How fast were you working each section? How many passes? How much pressure were you applying? Those three questions will allow us to help you out a lot.

[ROMEO]

How deep are those scratches? Remember that if they are too deep ( Pass the clear ) then all you can do is make them look better but not get rid of them.

Also, how bad was the paint? I would guess that 105 on yellow, and 205 on orange might be an over kill, I would have gone with orange, white grey... But them again, I'm just taking a guess here...

[turboneon26]

i used medium pressure for the 105 and 205 and little on the sealant. the paint isnt that bad a few deep scratches and the rest is swirls and little scratches. am i using the right products?

[BillE]

First off....WELCOME!!!

I'm not trying shun your question, so please don't read my reply as such.

Mike Phillips has posted MANY articles and videos on this sort of situation. Grab some free time and sit back and watch his techniques and methods.

Hope this helps ya some.

Bill

[PAR Detailing]

I would also suggest tha it is probably technique related. Just last night I was helping a friend on his technique. I have been gradually helping him polish out his black accord and I lent him my Megs DA and he was getting discouraged so he came over and we reviewed his technique... sure enough that was the culpret.

Here thumb through this:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/tricks-tips-techniques/20021-definitive-how-article-removing-swirls-scratches-water-spots-using-porter-cable-7424xp-g110v2-griot-s-garage-polisher.html

Dont get discouraged!

Try and take a few pics and post them here
Here is a link to help you: http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/how-do-different-types-things-ag-discussion-forum/21295-how-upload-photo-into-your-autogeek-photo-gallery.html

I would say make sure you are getting the correction you want out of the compounding step, then follow that up with polishing. You probably have marring if you are using a yellow pad, maybe you need to step down to 105/orange then step down to 205/black? Seal by hand? That is just a thought.

Keep us posted

Jon

[Mike Phillips]

when i pulled it out into the sun it looked like i had never touched the car. i was wondering what i did wrong, did i not use the right pad with the products. is there something els i should be using.

i have read the forums to see what other people were using but like i said my work did nothing to my car. i can also bring home the buffer form work if this may help me any.

sorry for my noob questions. and any advice would be greatly appreciated

thanks
chris

Hi Chris,

Sounds like we just need to tweak your technique a little,

Read through this to start with...


Tips & Techniques for using Dual Action Polishers

After teaching hundreds of classes here on machine polishing, there are some common mistakes most people make when trying to remove swirls and scratches with a dual action polisher. Most of them have to do with technique.

Here's a list of the most common problems

Trying to work too large of an area at one time.
Move the polisher too fast over the surface.
Too low of speed setting for removing swirls.
Too little pressure on the head of the unit.
Too much pressure on the head of the unit so the pad quits rotating.
Not keeping the pad flat while working your product.
Too much product, too little product.
Not cleaning the pad often enough.
Here's a list of the solutions in matching order,

Shrink your work area down, the harder the paint the smaller the area you can work. The average area should be and average of about 16" by 16" up to 20" by 20" or so. You have to do some experimenting, (called a Test Spot), to find out how easy or how hard the defects are coming out of your car's paint system and then adjust your work area to the results of your Test Spot.
For removing defects out of the paint you want to use what we call a Slow Arm Speed. It's really easy to move the polisher too quickly because the sound of the motor spinning fast has a psychological effect to for some reason want to make people move the polisher fast. Also the way most people think is that, "If I move the polisher quickly, I'll get done faster", but it doesn't work that way.
When first starting out many people are scared of burning or swirling their paint, so they take the safe route of running the polisher at too low of a speed setting, again... this won't work. The action of the polisher is already g-e-n-t-l-e, you need the speed and specifically the pad rotating over the paint as well as the combination of time, (slow arm speed), together with the diminishing abrasives, the foam type, and the pressure to remove small particles of paint which is how your remove below surface defects like swirls or scratches. It's a leveling process that's somewhat difficult because the tool is safe/gentle while in most cases, modern clear coat paints are harder than traditional single stage paints and this makes them hard to work on. This is also why people get frustrated, they don't understand paint technology, all they know is their paint swirls easy and getting the swirls out is difficult and thus frustrating.
For the same reason as stated in #3, people are scared, or perhaps a better word is apprehensive, to apply too much pressure and the result of too little pressure is no paint is removed thus no swirls are removed.
Just the opposite of item #4, people think that by pushing harder on the polisher they can work faster and be more aggressive, but the truth is the clutch in the tool is a safety mechanism to prevent burning and will cause the pad to stop rotating, thus less cleaning or abrading action and once in a while this will lead a person to then post on the forum something like this, "Hey my pad doesn't rotate". There needs to be a balance of enough pressure to remove defects and keep the pad rotating but yet not too much pressure as to stop the rotating action. This balance is affected by a lot of things, things like type of chemical, some chemicals provide more lubrication and the pad will spin easier, curved surfaces or any raise in body lines will tend to stop the pad from rotating. This is where experience on how to address these areas comes into play or you do the best you can and move on. It's not a perfect tool, nor a perfect system, but it's almost always better than working/cleaning by hand.
Applying pressure in such a way as to put too much pressure to one side of the pad will cause it to stop rotating and thus decrease cleaning ability.
Too much product over lubricates the surface and this won't allow the diminishing abrasives to do their job plus it will increase the potential for messy splatter as well as cause pad saturation. Too little product will keep the pad from rotating due to no lubrication and there won't be enough diminishing abrasives to do any work. Again it's a balance that comes with experience, or another way of saying this would be it's a balance that comes with hours of buffing out a car to learn what to do and what not to do. Information like what you're reading here is just an edge to decrease your learning curve. Hope this is helping.
Most people don't clean their pad often enough and most of the time the reason for this is because they don't know they're supposed to clean their pad often and they don't know how to clean their pad. Again, that's why this forum is here to help you with both of these things. You should clean your pad after every application of product or every other application of product, your choice, most of the time cleaning your pad after every other application of product works pretty well. It enables you to work clean and enables the foam pad, the polisher and the next application of fresh product too all work effectively. How to clean your pad will be addressed below sooner versus later, but not at the time of this posting. (Sorry, I'm behind a keyboard, not a video camera
The first 4 are the most common.

[Mike Phillips]

The key to getting great results with a DA Polisher is just a matter of slicing a car up into small sections and then polishing each section to perfection.

After you buff out one section, move onto a new section and be sure to overlap a little into the previous section for good UMR or Uniform Material Removal.

One of the most common mistakes people make is trying to tackle to large of an area at one time. Most people that write out directions or techniques for using a DA polisher will instruct you to work a section about 2 feet square and while that can work on some paints it's usually too large a section to tackle AND effectively remove enough paint to remove the swirls and scratches.

So make sure you're not tackling too large of a section at a time.

I'll post the entire article on doing a section pass next... once you master how to do section passes that's all there really is to getting great results.


:)

[Mike Phillips]

Show Car Garage Video: How-To do a "Section Pass" when Machine Polishing with a DA Polisher (http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/how-videos/24074-video-how-do-section-pass-when-machine-buffing.html)


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Here's how to do a "Section Pass" when trying to remove swirls, scratches and other below surface paint defects.


How to do a Section Pass

- How to do a "Section Pass" with a Porter Cable 7424XP



Visit Autogeek's YouTube Channel for more YouTube Videos (http://www.youtube.com/autogeek)



When talking about machine polishing on discussion forums or even in detailing classes, the below questions always comes up,

What's a pass?
How many passes do I make?
What's a section pass?



The definition of a pass
There are two definitions of the word pass as it relates to machine polishing with any type of machine.


Single Pass
A single pass is just that. It's when you move the polisher from one side of the section you're buffing to the other side of the section you're buffing. That's a single pass.


Section Pass
A section pass is when you move the polisher back and forth, or front to back with enough single overlapping passes to cover the entire section one time. That's a section pass.

In most cases if you're removing any substantial below surface defects you're going to make 6-8 section passes to the section you’re working before you either feel comfortable you've removed the defects or you're at the end of the buffing cycle for the product you're using.


Buffing Cycle
The buffing cycle is the amount of time you are able to work the product before the abrasives have broken down, (if you’re using a product that uses diminishing abrasives), and/or the product begins to dry and you lose the lubricating features of the product. Different products have different buffing cycles depending upon the type of abrasives used in the formula and the different ingredients used to suspend the abrasives and provide lubrication.


Factors that affect the buffing cycle include,

Ambient temperature
Surface temperature
Size of work area
Type of machine
Type of pad material
Humidity
Wind or air flow surrounding the car
Amount of product used
Technique



Wet buffing technique
Most compounds and polishes should be used so that there is enough product on the surface to maintain a wet film while the product is being worked. The wetness of the product is lubricating the paint as the abrasives abrade the paint and cushion or buffer the abrading action so the abrasives don’t simply scour the finish leaving behind swirls and scratches.


Dry Buffing Technique - Buffing to a dry buff
There are some products on the market where the manufacture recommends buffing the product until it dries. As the product dries you’ll tend to see some dusting as the product residue becomes a powder and the paint will have a hard, dry shine to it.

Although some manufactures recommend this, it’s important to understand what’s taking place at the surface level as you buff to a dry buff. As the product dries, in essence you are losing the lubricating features of the product and as this happens friction and heat will increase. As friction and heat increases, so does the risk of micro-marring the paint or instilling swirls either by the product residue or the pad material and/or a combination of both.

While we trust that the manufacture knows their products best, when we take a close look at what it means to buff on a delicate surface like an automotive clear coat, it doesn’t make sense to run a buffing pad on top of the paint without some kind of wet film to lubricate the paint at the same time. We always recommend that you follow the manufacturer's recommendations and use your own judgment.

Everyone new to buffing wants to be told some easily identifiable sign that they can use to tell when it's time to stop buffing and it's not that simple, so here's an indicator I've always used and taught to others,

Wet film behind your path-of-travel
As you're making a single pass with the polisher, the paint behind the path of travel of the buffer should have a visible wet film on it. If the paint behind the pad is dry and shiny, you've run out of lubrication and you're dry buffing. Turn the polisher off. Wipe the residue off and inspect using a Swirl Finder Light to make sure you didn't dull or mar the paint, you usually won't cause any harm, but pay attention when your running the polisher and don't buff to a dry buff. If you do, you can quickly re-polish that section by cleaning your pad and adding a little fresh product and making a few new section passes.


UMR
Remember, in most cases the goal is UMR or Uniform Material Removal. The reason for this is so that you remove an equal amount of paint over each section and in turn over the entire car. In order to do this you need a method that you can control and duplicate and for most people following a back and forth, side-to-side pattern works because it’s easy to remember, easy to do and easy to duplicate.


Resources
The above video segment is a 4 minute clip filmed during the extended version of How To Remove Swirls using any Dual Action Polisher like the Meguair's G110v2 (http://www.autogeek.net/meguiars-dual-action-polisher-g110.html) and the Griot's Garage ROP (http://www.autogeek.net/griots-random-orbital-polisher.html) and all models of he Porter Cable Dual Action Polisher, including the PC7424XP (http://www.autogeek.net/dual-action-polishers.html), PC7424, PC7336, G100


How to Remove Swirls using the Porter Cable 7424XP or any D.A. Polisher (http://www.palmbeachmotoring.net/ascg-videos/porter-2-20-10.html)


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[turboneon26]

i wanted to thank you for all the help and the great info. it has really helped me. i did a friends car this weekend after applying all the things you wrote his car turned out really nice. he was very happy with it. thanks again for all your help

[ROMEO]

i wanted to thank you for all the help and the great info. it has really helped me. i did a friends car this weekend after applying all the things you wrote his car turned out really nice. he was very happy with it. thanks again for all your help

Well, this is the right place to learn!!! Lots of good people here!!!

Oh, and most important:

:postpics:...