Just curious since iv'e never used one, how would a PTG help? Would it just guide pad and product selection ?
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If it were me wanting to remove swirls, get the gloss up and then coat it. Id be looking at HyperPolish or Essence and would coat with Cquartz UK3.0. Almost guarantee that with a yellow Rupes pad, you’d get enough correction and refinement prior to coating.
Here is a very quick and sloppy example of how they come in handy and tell you a lot about what's going on.....
I see most here measure in mills, I myself prefer microns for it's a more precise measurement.
1 mill = .001"
25.4 microns = .001"
25.4 microns = 1 mill
So what I do is take measurements from the door jams and underneath the hood where the bare minimum of paint is put down and on most American vehicles they don't even clear under the hood.
So in the first picture below you can see it's reading 35.5 microns under the hood of my Trans Am. That 35 microns is primer and base combined.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...7625e6b63a.jpg
Then going to my rear quarter panel I'm getting readings of 99.8, we will just call it 100 microns. So 100 - 35 = 65 microns of clear roughly or around .0025" which is thin but relatively speaking it's healthy clear especially for a 22 year old car that is currently flawless.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...b6ed999d8a.jpg
Now if it jumps to say 320 microns on a certain panel or area you know something is up and inspect closer.
If it drops to say 50-70 microns, again inspect closely and tread lightly.
Hope that helps a bit....
On other Japanese cars with soft paint I've successfully used Meguiar's Ultimate Polish, DP Polish, Optimum Hyper Polish, Sonax 04-06, and Blackfire's Polish.
The Meguiars is OK, but the others produce a better shine. The DP product is really nice, but has a short work time and is a bit hard to remove in high humidity. I tend to go with the Hyper Polish because I think it has a touch more correction than the others and is nice to use.
For folks new to polishing starting with a full 'system' maybe the easier way to go - something like the Griot's Boss 3 pad/polish system, or the new Rupes DA 2 pad/polish system. The 'system' approach will get you good results, without the guess work of pad & polish choices. If you continue to do paint corrections down the road, you can buy other pads & polishes to work with and go down that rabbit hole like the rest of us!
Thank you to everyone for the replies, the information you guys are giving me is awesome! @98CayenneT thank you for that write up and pictures, makes sense what you and @Sizzle Chest are saying.
I'm leaning towards the Pinnacle Swirl Removal Combo with an Orange Pad for the swirl removal and a blue pad for the finishing polish. That or the Wolfgang Swirl combo with same pads.
They Hyperpolish is intriguing, is that basically an AIO or would I need other product with that?
Also, is chemical decontamination something I should be doing prior to clay bar? It seems there's a lot of mixed opinions on that.