Swirl marks

[bag3lbit3s]

Hello everyone!

So I'm new here and just got myself a new PC7424XP kit from autogeek and so far am loving it. My first project was yesterday on my mom's car and so far the results look great. But they're not perfect. The car has been neglected for years and she never took care of it.

So here's what I did for her:

Wash
Mothers Clay Bar kit
Meguiars 105 compound on a Cyan Flat Pad
Meguiars 205 Finishing polish on a White Flat Pad
Meguiars NXT on a Crimson Finishing pad

Now the finish looks great compared to before but there are still some light swirl marks left in the paint. So I was wondering should I go back to the 105 and Cyan pad and hit it again or should I keep at it with 205 and the white pad in hopes it will come out?

I also have an Orange pad that I can use with Meguiars #9 swirl remover. Or should I try something else?

Thanks for the help!

[tuscarora dave]

Welcome to AG.

I would suggest going back to the 105 and cyan pad and keep checking your work by wiping the section clean with a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol (IPA) and water to wash away any polishing oils that are hiding any leftover swirls. Then when you've gotten rid of the swirls, go over it with the 205 and white pad to get the max. amount of gloss out of it. Be sure to work in small 2 foot squared sections at a time.

[dougaross]

Welcome to AG.

I would suggest going back to the 105 and cyan pad and keep checking your work by wiping the section clean with a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol (IPA) and water to wash away any polishing oils that are hiding any leftover swirls. Then when you've gotten rid of the swirls, go over it with the 205 and white pad to get the max. amount of gloss out of it. Be sure to work in small 2 foot squared sections at a time.

First of all it would help to know what type of vehicle (hardness of paint)
I believe that 2 x2 is too large 16" square would probably give better results.
You may want to check your technique. I've pasted some stuff from Mike Phillips below:
Here's a list of the most common problems

1. Trying to work too large of an area at one time.
2. Move the polisher too fast over the surface.
3. Too low of speed setting for removing swirls.
4. Too little pressure on the head of the unit.
5. Too much pressure on the head of the unit so the pad quits rotating.
6. Not keeping the pad flat while working your product.
7. Too much product, too little product.
8. Not cleaning the pad often enough.

Here's a list of the solutions in matching order,

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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. Can't tell you how many times we hear a comment like this from someone in the garage after demonstrating the correct technique

"That's what I'm doing wrong"


The dual action polisher is a gentle tool, that's why people like it. People are afraid of machines because they're worried they're going to either instill swirls or burn through the paint. When they learn that this is pretty hard to do with this machine, so after enough research or after watching a demonstration they learn to trust it and try it.

Summary: People like the dual action polisher because it's oscillating action is safe and gentle to the surface.

Now follow me on this...
For the same reason people love the dual action polisher, (it's safe and gentle), a segment of people get frustrated with it because it won't remove all defects all the time. It won't tackle serious or deep defects quickly and easily. It won't always work on really hard paints. So for the same reason people love this tool, they also hate it, they just don't know why. Maybe after reading this post they will understand.

I hope this helps

[bag3lbit3s]

The car is a 2003 Acura TL Type S, not sure how that ranks for paint hardness.

As for my section sizes, I was doing too large of sections...next time around I'll shrink them down. I think I was spot on with the amount of pressure and armspeed used and keeping the pad rotating. I've watched the video by Mike Phillips on the included DVD that came with my PC. I guess the thing that I missed was the size of sections and cleaning between applications.

Overall the paint looks MUCH better than it did before, but there are still some light swirl marks that need to be removed. Mom is happy as it is but I want to get it as close to perfect as I can. After Christmas I'll give it a second go and get things cleaned up.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

[dougaross]

The car is a 2003 Acura TL Type S, not sure how that ranks for paint hardness.

Try Googling Acura paint hardness and draw your own conclusions

[Laura]

Overall the paint looks MUCH better than it did before, but there are still some light swirl marks that need to be removed. Mom is happy as it is but I want to get it as close to perfect as I can. After Christmas I'll give it a second go and get things cleaned up.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

If paint "as close to perfect" is your goal, then you've come to the right place!

Another thing that Mike says all the time is "Find something you like and use it often," because you learn something new every time you're out there trying. (...or maybe he says that because we'll run out of "stuff" and need to buy more )

Just be patient; keep practicing and posting your successes and questions.

[dad07]

is that orange pad you have actually a tangerine ht? and the white pad is it the one that came with the pc?

[slickooz]

Welcome!

[dougaross]

is that orange pad you have actually a tangerine ht? and the white pad is it the one that came with the pc?

The white pad that came with the pc is pretty useless. You will get better results using the tangerine pad with 205

[bag3lbit3s]

I'll get pics probably tomorrow...the gardeners made a mess of my mom's car so it needs to be cleaned again.

Truth be told when buying the PC kit I wasn't sure exactly what pads I wanted but that I wanted flat pads over the CCS. Wasn't too sure about the little pocket idea in the pads. I'm not using the screw on white pad that came with the PC (probably will get a MF bonnet for it to buff off wax/sealant). All the pads I have are Lake County Flat Pads.

These are the pads I have:
2- crimson
2- orange
1- grey
1- cyan HT
1- white

I figure I'll probably buy some more and experiment with different pads and products till I find something I really like. One other issue I ran across with the Meguiars 105 was the working time was terrible. Maybe it was just me but I could not get the stuff to last very long at all. It would dry up pretty quick and dust A LOT. This has got to be the worst dusting product I've ever used. That's not to say it's a bad product, it's just the working time is not even 30 seconds. I preconditioned the pads with the Pinnacle XMT pad conditioner before using them and tried adding a little bit more during use but it still didn't give me much working time. Any recommendations?

Thanks for all the help!