[WIP] My first correction! - 2011 Mazda 3 (Black)

[Peter182]

After getting some much needed assistant from Mr. Phillips on this forum, I've went ahead and completed the hood (well, nearly complete... waiting on my 3" plate & pads to finish the dropped sides) on my own car.

I decided to compound twice, skipping the polishing step. I originally planned on doing a test spot with the polish but decided I was satisfied with the result after compound x2... The reflection is far from mirror-finish, but the clarity was greatly improved after two compounds. Main goal was to get rid of the swirls & scratches, and I'm really satisfied with the outcome so far!

What I did:

1. Wash + Clay (Mother's kit)
2. IPA'd before compounding with Meg's UC + LC orange CCS 5.5" pad on the PC 7424XP
3. 2nd compound using same product & pad
4. IPA'd before 1st coat of wax (Meg's Ultimate liquid wax - applied w/ machine & LC black CCS 5.5" pad)
5. 2nd coat of wax

Any suggestions or comments before I move on to the rest of the car would be greatly appreciated!
I do have a white CCS pad along with Meg's ultimate polish so if you think I should definitely give that a go, then I'll do so in a couple months' time when the wax wears off.

Pics:






Showing uncorrected side panel before the finished hood in this clip... Surprised me to see how deeper the colour looked!
https://youtu.be/UEOUHjqPasw

[TMQ]

Hummm...Looks great!

If you did a compound step---you have to finish off with a polish.

The compound will look awesome for about a couple of weeks and then hazing will start to show up once the wax wears off after few cycles of heat, weather etc...

If you start to see that paint doesn't look too good---just hit it with a fine polish the next time you wash the car or even a month later whichever works out schedule wise.

Tom

[Peter182]

Hummm...Looks great!

If you did a compound step---you have to finish off with a polish.

The compound will look awesome for about a couple of weeks and then hazing will start to show up once the wax wears off after few cycles of heat, weather etc...

If you start to see that paint doesn't look too good---just hit it with a fine polish the next time you wash the car or even a month later whichever works out schedule wise.

Tom

OK! I had a feeling I'd have to polish. I'll definitely keep an eye open in Aug/Sept. I think I mostly skipped polish step since it was getting dark and I just wanted to get the wax on there since I've been having terrible luck with bird droppings this summer

[TMQ]

Super...

May suggest something? Only if you're up to it.

If you have 30 min or so...Tape off half of your hood, clean the half and do a polish on that half, then wax.
That way you have something visual to compare between both halves of the hood for later on in Aug or sept.

Then you can share with us what a compounded only hood looks like against the other half that has been compound and polished.

Anyway---let us know what you've discovered in Aug or Sept.

Tom

[Peter182]

That's a great experiment. I will definitely need to try that out.

[DMiglio]

Car turned out great for your first time, I know mine wasn't as good! Rock hard VW paint..

I would definitely do a polishing step when you can. The results you've got from the compounding step are exactly what you want, removal of swirls/scratches. There looks to be noticeable haze though which is common and expected from the compounding.

Switching to the white pad and Meg's UP should clear that up for you and provide more gloss! Would love to see your results from the experiment.

[Peter182]

Super...

May suggest something? Only if you're up to it.

If you have 30 min or so...Tape off half of your hood, clean the half and do a polish on that half, then wax.
That way you have something visual to compare between both halves of the hood for later on in Aug or sept.

Then you can share with us what a compounded only hood looks like against the other half that has been compound and polished.

Anyway---let us know what you've discovered in Aug or Sept.

Tom

So I drove my car into my dad's workshop and was able to bang out ~3 hours of compounding. Man, are those lower panels a pain in the back !

I also taped off a small area on the hood and decided to see if the ultimate polish made any noticeable difference. I first washed the area with Dawn, rinsed, then sprayed IPA to be sure there was no more wax remaining.

RESULTS:

Well, it got rid of this small strange set of holograms (?) from my very first test spot... Not even sure how that happened, I thought holograms only occurred from improper rotary use. Must have been some pretty poor DA technique
Here's a short 9 second clip of that spot - (bottom half of screen) https://youtu.be/vyEgNp0OYSY

Besides removing that defect - I don't see any discernible difference. Definitely no noticeable change on the tape line, and I tried a few different lights and angles.

I'll have to test another spot with the polish. I forgot my canon powershot so my phone pictures & video were of poor quality.