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I am looking for some advice on product and technique on how to get our minor love marks.
I am new as a DYI and don’t want my first attempt to go wrong.
I have the Rupes 15 mark II, mini and irbid as well as a cyclo polisher as my available tools.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2013C6GS
Pretty nice tool selection for being a new do-it-yourselfer!
Welcome to AutogeekOnline!
:welcome:
Couple of questions...
What do you have for compounds, polishes or cleaner/waxes right now in your arsenal?
What direction do you want to go for "protection"?
There's three categories of protection. The first two are simple Simon. The third category will require the chemical stripping step. How you answer this questions tells me how to answer the compound and polish question.
3-Categories: Waxes, Paint Sealants and Coatings
In an effort to help standardize terms used in the detailing industry, now that CQuartz and Opti-Coat 2.0 are mainstream, there are three general categories in the "Protection" category
- Waxes
- Paint Sealants
- Coatings
More info in the actual article.
3-Categories: Waxes, Paint Sealants and Coatings
:)
Thanks for the response Mike,
The Rupes was bought as the deluxe kits so I have all those,
Also have HD Speed, the full range of the Adams polishes, all the Chemical Guys, Griots correcting compound and paint sealant, Meguiars D300 and D301, the Optimum line, Scholl S3 and S20, Sonax perfect finish and max cut. As you can tell I am a little obsessive all I need is time to play. Also Mike along with the corvette I als have a Black 2010 equinox could you suggest what would be good to use on that vehicle as well?
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Mike I was thinking of using Adams pain sealant then a wax on top for the Vette as it rarely gets out but for a Sunday drive or show.
As for the equinox really looking for your advice, it is a daily driver that will be semi retiring to a winter driver next year. If it matters I live near Toronto Ontario so that might give an indication of the weather.
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Copy that... :xyxthumbs:Quote:
Originally Posted by 2013C6GS
That's quite a Heinz 57 selection of great brand name products.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2013C6GS
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2013C6GS
First - I'm great friends with the owners and employees of all of the above companies except for Scholl. I may have met people from Scholl over the years perhaps at SEMA or Automechanika, but I can't think of anyone off the top of my head. Regardless, I'm sure they are great people and we used to carry their line. I also have at least one full blown write-up with their polishes and I'll include it later.
Here's the deal...
If you or ANYONE and this can be a member of this forum or a lurker, if anyone reads enough of my posts on this forum they will see a PATTERN in the topics I often write about and here are two of those topics,
- Abrasive technology
- Touching the paint
The reason I talk about these two topics the most is because I'm first and foremost a paint polisher and second a detailer. To me, it's all about the paint. This leads to having invested as a full time job, all my time since 2002 --> typing out how-to information and education on discussion forums. I'm pretty sure I have more articles and the largest word count of anyone in the detailing world when it comes to original, first person generated content.
And when it comes to this content the majority of it is answering questions like you have asked for guys like you that want to machine polish their toys and daily drivers.
Now let me circle this back around to the two topics above.
1: Abrasive Technology
When it comes to removing defects out of any paint system, the most important factor is the abrasive technology. And simply put it either works or it micro-mars the paint. If it micro-mars the paint I won't use it and I won't tell others how to use it and theirs a number of reasons why but one of the most basic is because the factory paint on a new car is already incredibly thin and I won't use or tell someone else to use a product that my remove defects but at the same time leaves it's own defects.
For the above list of products I have NOT used them all on black paint or I have not used them all recently on black paint so I can't say if they all use great abrasive technology or not. And another HUGE factor is the paint itself, some paint polish easy with anything you throw at them while others are simply finicky.
So what I would do is I would use the BLACK Equinox as my "Test Panel" and test the various products on the hood using one of your orbital polishers and CLEAN foam polishing pads. This means you need a collection of clean foam polishing pads. In the RUPES line, their yellow pad is considered a "polishing" pad. The blue is coarse cutting, the green is light cutting or heavy polishing, and the white foam pad is ULTRA soft finishing.
So when I say use a "polishing" pad that is a specific word to mean a specific type of pad.
I'm also assuming you purchased RUPES pads with your RUPES tools. If you purchased NON-RUPES pads then everything changes, read and perform the Air Test as I describe here,
The Air Test - Using NON RUPES pads on RUPES Polishers by Mike Phillips
Anyway, clean and clay the paint on the hood of the Equinox and then do a simple crosshatch pattern for 6-8 section passes then wipe off the residue and inspect using a strong swirl finder light like the SCANGRIP Sunmatch or even the sun on a sunny day. Consider using a strip of tape and buffing on just one side of the tape so your eyes can quickly and easily identify visual differences and imperfections from one side to the other.
You can also chemically strip the paint to really see what's going on. I cover that in my how-to book "The Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine" and there's an article on how to mix IPA to chemically strip paint somewhere on this forum.
Big Picture = Find a product that removes defects without leaving it's own defect at the same time. (micro-marring when using any orbital).
And remember, if a product is micro-marring black paint it's micro-marring every color it's just your eyes cannot see micro-marring on lighter colors. The problem with micro-marring is it clouds the clearcoat making it more difficult to see the beautiful color under it. And it makes the paint more "opened up" which is never a good thing for something as thin as factory clear. See this article here, which I probably share more than any other article I've ever written as it "educates" people and brings them up to speed with the "stuff they are working on".
Clearcoats are thin by Mike Phillips
2: Touching the paint
The reason I'm always talking about touching the paint is because after a person goes through the above situation, that is learning how to machine polish their paint to perfection, (which is the norm in my experience working with others on this forum), then the next question or quest is to learn how not to put swirls and scratches back into the paint and that all comes down to how you touch the paint.
Here's when you touch paint, when you,
- Wash the car
- Dry the car
- Wipe the car with any products and a towel
That captures most of the ways we "touch" our car and thus the reason I have so many articles on how to wash car and all the cool tools for washing cars.
One thing for sure, out of all the product you listed above, I'd say the 3D HD Speed is bubba-proof as are the SONAX products except from my understanding, technically, Perfect Finish is for use with foam pads on rotary buffers, not orbitals but my guess is it still works great. SONAX MaxCut is a great compound and it can be used with rotary or orbital. (I use this a lot when I have heavy cutting), here's an example of Max Cut with a rotary buffer.
Battery Time - FLEX Cordless Polishers - Real World Detail by Mike Phillips at Autogeek
http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...y_Life_014.JPG
http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...y_Life_034.JPG
http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...y_Life_035.JPG
And of course, I remove the holograms with a SONAX polish to create paint perfection...
http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...y_Life_080.JPG
So do some testing or just blast around both cars with the 3D HD Speed and use foam polishing pads with your orbital polishers.
After you buff out both cars to the point you're happy, reflect back, (no pun intended), on your journey and you'll see the evolution you will have gone through from polishing the paint to figuring out how to touch the paint moving forward into the future without scratching it.
:)
I just posted this for another guy, please take some time to read the article and watch the video then put what I share into practice.
How, why & when to inspect your microfiber towels when detailing cars
And while you're using RUPES tools, there's a great video in post #2 of this article that I highly recommend you read.... it shows doing a test spot, using a tape-line and a swirl finder light.
Here's what you need to get into machine polishing - Recommendations for a beginner by Mike Phillips
:)