Hiding vs Removing Scratches - Removing Dried Compound

[Jazee]

Recently detailed my "new" used car for the first time. Has quite a few scratches in the clear coat (Acura MDX). I used Meguiars m105 with a yellow foam pad on a drill - first time I used a rotary. I was quite surprised how fast I could run the drill (full speed) with decent pressure without putting nasty swirl marks in the clear coat or burning it - although I was careful to never run the pad while holding it steady in the same place. My suspicion is that many of the "how to" guides were written using the LCD (lowest common denominator" regarding finishing which would be paint with little to no clear coat or very thin clearcoat. I am guessing many of the modern cars these days have a pretty thick/hard clearcoat that is difficult to damage with a rotary or maybe the m105 is just that good as far as working but is safe. I did notice in certain light I could still see surface scratches but they were about 75% less noticeable than before the 105. I used a cheap craftsman orbital (3800 RPM) with m205 on microfiber bonnett to polish even though the m105 didn't appear to leave any significant swirls. Finished with Klasse AIO. Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent...

I still have a few scratches in the clear coat I can feel with my fingernail but they are definitely only in the clear coat. I understand the proper way to fix them is probably to wet sand them (2000 to 2500 to 3000 grit) then compound, then polish. This is going to remove a lot of the clear coat though even though I'm using a 4" pad.

A couple of questions. First, it appears I've got some dried compound in the scratches making them whiter than normal. I've found the m105 residue is a ##### to get off in some places. I've had to use my finger nail to scratch it off! Using some Sonus Acrylic Glaze seemed to help remove it but some of that residue is really stubborn. What would be good to clean out the 105 residue out of the deeper scratches? Denatured alcohol? I have no clue.

Second, if I'd prefer not to wet sand and polish, what would be the second best option as far as minimizing the scratch appearance. It seems if I could fill them somehow with clear so they don't accumulate dirt and polish/wax residue, that would be more than half the battle. In the past using the Klasse Sealant Glaze hid scratches pretty well but it's pretty thin - My gut is multiple layers of the Klasse SG is my best bet maybe as far as hiding?

Embarassingly though, I'm curous about this cheezy product which I know is going to get flamed here. Probably not a better long-term fix than wet sand and polish but a more permanent fix (if you do it correctly) than repeating the Klasse SG? (My car is silver metalic BTW)

http://www.amazon.com/Simoniz-S13-Cl...scratch+eraser

[allenk4]

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