First Time DA Polishing: Advice?

[MilesTeg]

So, I bought a brand new Mustang last year with a gorgeous Deep Impact Blue finish. It's perhaps the single most beautiful paint color I have ever seen on a car (I love blues).

Not mine, but a nice representative pic:



Unfortunately, the vehicle came with a ton of dealer supplied swirl marks (actually less swirl marks and more just random spider webs and light scratches) despite the fact that it had only been on the lot for a couple weeks. I even requested (politely) that they refrain from any further washing/waxing/etc. when I bought it.

That blue, as awesome as it is, seems to be as bad, if not worse, than a black for showing swirls.

Anyway, I've resolved to rid that beautiful finish of those blemishes. To that end, I've been going through this (and other) forums and have settled on starting with a Dual Action polisher and following the advice to start with the least aggressive approach possible. What I have right now is (from this site) the:

* Porter Cable DA with 3x of each of orange, white and blue Lake County CCS
* Wolfgang total swirl remover and finishing glaze

I'm going to start by learning/honing my skill on my daily driver -- a 10 year old car with neglected paint. That vehicle, however, despite having a dark finish (dark grey metallic) has exactly zero swirl marks that are visible to me in even very bright sunlight. The paint color is bleh, but wow does it hide the imperfections! I bough a swirl finder so hopefully it will help me to easily find them to learn.

Anyway, the plan for the Mustang is to (on a test patch):

1) start with the blue pad (no cut) and just the finishing glaze,
2) if necessary, step up to the white pad (very light cut) with finishing glaze
3) if necessary, step up to the white pad (very light cut) with total swirl remover
4) if necessary, step up to the orange pad (light cut) with finishing glaze
5) if necessary, step up to the orange pad (light cut) with the total swirl remover
6) if necessary, step up more (but given videos/etc.) I would be astounded if I had to step up more for my problem

The question I have is, is step 4 (orange + finishing glaze) actually more aggressive than step 3 (white + swirl remover) or is it the other way around? Is the above overly obsessive in terms of managing how aggressive I need to be?

I'll post pics of before/after if anyone is actually interested.

[MarkD51]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.
Well, it sounds to me like you got the right products on hand, as the chemicals, and the pads you have should help you achieve a show car finish, just like the pic you've shown. BTW, that is a beautiful color, I agree.

I wouldn't say you're being overly obsessive, just smart, and you're observing one good important rule, do the least amount of work to the paint, to achieve the desired results. And as you mention, the test spot, and good lighting will help.

I would say save the blue Pads for waxes-sealants, and that although none of us can witness the condition of your paint firsthand, you'll most likely find that the white pads will be the best choice for both TSR, and FG.

I doubt you'll be needing the orange pads on a vehicle that new, unless you have some fairly deep RIDS.

About all I can add at this point, is do familiarize yourself with many of the Mike Phillip's vids, mimic Mike, as you go, think of Mike looking over your shoulder, work clean, work in shade on cool paint. Take your time, enjoy the processes. Rome wasn't built in a day, and there's no rule saying such work has to be done in one go.

When one gets tired, one can start to cut corners, and my advice might be to break up the processes into parts. If you have a garage, this especially helps. Then a couple processes such as thorough washing, drying, and claying can be done one day, and perhaps end that day with needed masking, then the next day, you start fresh with the polishing.

You'll then only need to do a prior wipe down on each panel with a clean damp towel prior to polishing.

About the only other product I can recommend using, which you haven't mentioned, is a good Iron Remover, such as CarPro Iron-X. This can be used either before, of after claying, it's a personal choice actually.. If such a product is used, the car should then be fully washed-rinsed again.

What product are you planning to use as a protectant?
Mark

[MilesTeg]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Hi Mark, thanks! Lots of good advice I didn't think of.

You just reminded me, really my first step is to get my garage ready as a work area. Needs to be swept out and washed down as I've got a lot of dirt, grass clippings and other junk from the summer season already that will just end up on the paint causing more swirls instead of removing them.

Never heard of iron removers. I do clay around once a year. Since I'm going to all the trouble, I might as well do it right. I actually enjoy detailing work -- I just have little time to do it.

I'm not sure what protectant(s) I'm going to use. On my daily driver I just use a hand applied synthentic wax since I'm mostly concerned about protection (particularly from mag chloride that gets used a lot around here) rather than that show room shine.

For this car, I've been using just Meguiar's carnuba wax since it's not a daily driver and is garaged most of the time. I've read about Klasse being something that will last a lot longer and can be layered with another wax. Does it really last as long as is claimed? I like the idea of a long lasting sealant for protection and a Carnuba or maybe a "black" wax on top.

[MarkD51]

Hi again.
There is this site, AutoGeek, and there is its sister site, Autopia, both of which the parent company is Palm Beach Motoring Group. (Just wanted to mention that in case you didn't know?)

Both sites have forums, and stores. Both sites carry much of the exact same products, and both sites pretty much have many of the exact same members.

There are provisions here for signing up for both regular sales, discounts, VIP Sales, where you get email notification of such. Great feature IMO.

If you haven't noticed already, the vast amount of car care products, tools, and as well knowledge shared and archived in the forums seem almost virtually unlimited, and diverse.

Like the old commercial, saying "Ace is the Place", you've certainly arrived, and landed at the very best places a car detailing enthusiast, collector, or professional could be.

Experience of course is often the best teacher, but reading, studying and absorbing knowledge, and understanding of products, how and why they work certainly never hurts!

I feel in the short 1/2 dozen or so months that I have been a member of both sites-forums, my knowledge has grown considerably by leaps, and bounds.

There's quite a bit of cutting edge products on the market, just mind boggling, and the members of both forums are all truly great people to enjoy this hobby, and "art" with.

Again welcome, and have fun! Mark

PS: yep, those Iron removers like Iron-X are very impressive at what they do! Not only for paint, but also for wheels, as brake dust, and rotors shed iron on them constantly.

[MilesTeg]

Just a quick update for anyone that cares.

Due to time, I decided to dive right in to the mustang paint correction. I chose to do the trunk first as it is the easiest spot on the car for me to reach, and has swirl marks and a slightly heavier scratch that I want to buff out. I did a test spot on the passenger half of the trunk using painter's tape to mask off like the videos show.

Anyway, the pictures I took didn't show it (camera phone is no bueno), but so far I am very pleased. In order to remove the swirl marks/holograms/spiders, I only had to use a white pad + wolfgang finishing glaze. To get out the deeper scratch I had to step up to an orange pad + finishing glaze (tried a white pad + swirl remover but it did not work).

I'm not sure I let the polisher run long enough on my first test spot (was very hard to keep moving slowly while doing passes), so I am going to try again from the beginning on the left side, making sure to allow the polishing goop to turn "clear" before stopping.

It's actually pretty scary how much improvement there is considering how new the finish is. The dealer must have used sand paper to wash the damn thing.

[af90]

That's awesome, keeping it slow when you want to speed up is difficult but keeping slow will ensure you don't have to go back over areas as much.

Nice color though! DIB is awesome. Do you have the Brembo package or Track Pack?

[BillE]

Thanx for coming back with some results.

It's always good to see how things work out. In your case, sounds like it is working out well!

Bill

[vet]

Welcome, and congrats on the Mustang.

[Setec Astronomy]

It's actually pretty scary how much improvement there is considering how new the finish is. The dealer must have used sand paper to wash the damn thing.

Well, in a way, they did. They probably carelessly washed the car when it had grit (sand) on it, or used dirty wash media that had that grit from someone else's car. And yes, it is pretty scary how dealer mess up all those expensive cars on their lot almost as soon as they get them.

[Mike Phillips]

The question I have is, is step 4 (orange + finishing glaze) actually more aggressive than step 3 (white + swirl remover) or is it the other way around?

I'd say you're probably still more aggressive using the Total Swirl Remover with the white pad than the Finishing Glaze with the Orange Pad. See if this helps...

Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover = Medium Cut Polish
Wolfgang Finishing Glaze = Fine Cut Polish

There's really guide on most product that tells you how aggressive or non-aggressive the products are especially relative to all the other products in the same category but that's where this forum helps out.

If you have swirls you're trying to remove you'll have better luck starting with the Medium Cut Polish no matter what the pad as you'll have a lot more abrasive power working for you to remove the swirls.


Then follow the TSR with the Finishing Glaze and either a white polishing pad or a black finishing pad.