How to avoid haze and scratching when working on soft paint?

[Mike Phillips]

How to avoid haze and scratching when working on soft paint?



Anytime I get questions via e-mail, a PM or a FB message I prefer to invest my typing time where

A: It's easier for me to share links, pictures and videos.

B: More people can read and thus benefit from the information. (no just one set of eyeballs


So I get an e-mail asking,



Hi Mike, I'm so sorry to bother you as I know you'd be extremely busy and probably have hundreds of messages but I am at wits end with a job I've got.

A lot of searching keeps coming back to your advice.

I seem to have a car with really soft paint. Soft to the point that even wiping away residue can cause marking. I can't refine the finish to an acceptable level and no matter what I've tried I'm left with haze.

I've tried different pads, speeds and products. I'm out of my mind with this one. I've tried scholl s30 on different pads, menzerna fg500 (initial correction) and po85rd even some water polishing with no avail.

Would you have any advice mate?



Here's my answer...

The Cheater Technique

Sometimes you need to cheat. Here's how... use a high quality cleaner/wax also called an AIO.


After any and all correction and polishing work - finish out with a quality cleaner/wax that dries and apply a thin coat using a simple 8mm orbital polisher with a soft foam waxing pad on speed setting that maintains pad rotation but doesn't go too much over that. Also choose a one-step cleaner/wax that leaves a slick/slippery finish.

Why?


A quality cleaner/wax uses great abrasive technology so you have that working for you to perfect the paint after the last polishing step or at least to maintain the results created by the last polishing step.

Wax is a type of lubricant, a bad analogy would be Surfboard Wax or Snow Ski Wax, or how as a kid your mom would give you a piece of wax paper and you would rub this over the steel slide at the park and then when you went down the slide you would go 100 miles per hour.

The dried THIN layer of wax on the paint lubricates the process as you wipe it off. The wax can also fill any marring before and during wipe-off, that's the cheating aspect.

The results are a flawless finish assuming you do everything correctly.


Here's a real-world example of when I cheated to reach perfection.


Audi Soft Paint - Making Generalizations about Hardness and Softness







In the above article, I quote myself after a long-time forum world guy by the name of Accumulator asked me a question, here is my reply, note the portion I'm going to code in BLUE text.


My reply

Factory paint, I don't remember the make and year, I do remember spending a lot of time dialing in a system for the owner to use to achieve a flawless finish, his expectations are very high and the finish on his car was actually very, very nice, but not perfect.

We ended up finding the combination of M09 with a W-9006 finishing pad on a rotary buffer followed by M66 on the G100 with a finishing pad to produce optimum results.


End of reply


The paint was so soft that wiping it left scratches. I thought about it... and then chose to apply a one-step cleaner/wax by machine, that's what Meguiar's M66 is - a one-step cleaner/wax.

It worked. We were able to wipe off the wax and leave a perfect finish.

Now days I would choose a different cleaner/wax. Nothing wrong with M66 but it only comes in gallons and I think there are better options that wipe off easier.

• McKee's 360
• SONAX Paint Cleaner - This is actually a LIGHT one-step cleaner/wax and not an actual "paint cleaner".
• Meguiar's M20 Polymer Sealant

Any of the above are light in cleaning (you don't need an aggressive cleaner/wax for this type of process), and can be left to dry to a haze. A thin application wipes-off easy and leaves a hard bright shine.


The above is off the top of my head but I'm sure there are other great light cutting one-step cleaner/waxes. I don't think I would use 3D HD Speed even though I really like this product or McKee's Jewelling wax as they tend to be very wet products that don't tend to dry and wipe off super easy.

Anyone that's used Meguiar's M20 Polymer Sealant knows what I'm talking about when I say IT WIPES OFF EASY.



Anyway, that's what I would do... I'd cheat. Then to maintain the paint I'd keep on using the same product. Always wash careful and when needed, buzz around the car using the product of choice, let it dry, wipe it off and then move forward with life.



Hope that helps...

[Audios S6]

Anyway, that's what I would do... I'd cheat.

That's called working smarter, not harder...some guy named Mike taught me that.

[Justin at Final Inspection]

Very funny you mentioned this. Just did this approach on a soft black Nissan Pathfinder. Cut with Boss Fast correcting cream and finished off with 3D 505 which is the body shop safe version of HD Speed then topped with Mckees high def paint sealant.

[dlc95]

Another home run article!

[k20trick]

Hi Mike great write-up, does Meguiars M20 have any abrasives in it? I could've sworn it was chemical cleaners? Reason I ask is that I use that product quite often and it would be good to know.

Thanks,

James

[Mike@ShineStruck]

for instances like this thats a real problem, ill use carpro essence as last step.. otherwise id get my highest rated GSM towel and make it damp with waterless?rinseless wash prior to removing polish

[Eric@CherryOnTop]

for instances like this thats a real problem, ill use carpro essence as last step.. otherwise id get my highest rated GSM towel and make it damp with waterless?rinseless wash prior to removing polish

I do this as well. I find something like a blue "woobie" towel that is damp but not soaking wet with rinse less wash solution helps prevent towel induced marring on soft paint.

[LSNAutoDetailing]

another trick is to lightly prime a polishing (not cutting) pad with 205... then soak the pad in water and ring it out... essentially watered down 205... Use a spray bottle with water and prime the section you're about to buff. Slow speed on the machine and fewer section passes... again wipe with a high gsm mf pre treated with either erasure or a good qd with wax... or N914 (rinseless wash). Something high in lubricity.

Or default to Mike's response which is tried and true...

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Easy wipe off of product is extremely important when dealing with soft paint. Also, too soft of a pad can actually cause micro-marring when finishing soft paint. The Rupes/Uro-Tec yellow pads and BnS white polishing pad are my favorite for finishing soft paint. Even an orange uro-cell works great. As a matter of fact, Rupes does not recommend using their white pad on soft paint.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Mike great write-up, does Meguiars M20 have any abrasives in it?

I could've sworn it was chemical cleaners?

Reason I ask is that I use that product quite often and it would be good to know.

Thanks,

James

Yes the M20 offers some very light cleaning/abrading ability. I would say very light.

A few years ago I was tasked with washing and buffing out the Meguiar's Special Events Truck and Trailer, it's not the kind of work I like to do but I never mind helping others out.


To keep the project simple but remove some of the swirls and scratches that had built-up and also inflicted by a subpar Truck Wash, I chose to use the Meguiar's M20 Polymer Sealant with foam pads and orbital poishers and it worked great.


Here's the write-up for this projext...


Meguiar's Big Rig Extreme Makeover - Pictures & Videos!

After talking with Jason Rose about our approach, we both agreed taking a one-step approach using a one-step cleaner/sealant should be tired first. IF this works, we'll be able to,

1. Clean up the paint - remove road film and staining
2. Reduce the swirls and scratches
3. Do the paint polishing in one step (very important)
4. Save our arms with a product that is known to wipe off easy even when used outside in direct sun.

Here's I'm using the Rupes Bigfoot 21 with a W9006 foam finishing pad and the M20 on about speed setting 5





I made 6-7 slow section passes over the letter "C" and surrounding paint for about a 2' by 2' area.




Soft, careful wipe-off after allowing the M20 to dry to a haze....







Inspection time....




Looks good.

1000 Times better than before in one-step using VERY non-aggressive products.




Here's a cropped out section from the above picture and as you can see the results are not perfect but we're not aiming for perfection with swirls this bad in a project this big that we only want to do ONE STEP to.







This was a big job...







And it came out great!





All the pictures here including washing it with a foam gun...


Meguiar's Big Rig Extreme Makeover - Pictures & Videos!