Can I remove swirl marks by hand some say yea.

[Rival]

buy the cheap POS harbor freight DA. it still works, and compared to your hand it will be 20x faster.

if you have a full detail arnsenal of products you could do a 105/205 or 3m perfect III and than a glaze. Both of those methods use a heavy cutting compound with a polish to clean up anything that may be left behind from the heavy cut stuff.


So buy quite a bit of different products and tackle it by hand or invest in a tool instead of products and do the job with the stuff you have.

[MyFirstES300]

I personally have never had any luck removing scratches or swirls by hand. Could be from my lack of patience or just not doing the right thing. I gave up, but others on here will have better advice. While reluctant, I am considering a DA but just can't justify it since I normally only hang on to a car for no more than 2 years and I am careful what I use on my vehicles, where they are parked, etc.

[c8n]

Once you start working on your paint, the bug will hit you. If this bug does hit.... you will wonder to yourself why the hell you didn't buy a DA in the first place.

Don't know your personality.... but suffice it to say, many of us weekend warriors started out as you are doing now and have been hit by this bug.... some of us harder than others.

I shiver every time there is a sale on AG. Til this day, I am not sure if this shivering is out of excitement or fear.

[Mike Phillips]

If you can remove sanding marks by hand you can remove swirls by hand...


How to remove wetsanding scratches by hand - FG 400

Of course when working by hand your hand needs to look like this...


Note: The blue line you see in the pictures below is vinyl tape applied over the top of a body lines on the hood of this 1969 El Camino to make it easier to see and protect them. You can also do this with the edges of a panel.







AND you can only work a small area at a time, about 12" squarish or so... think about dividing all the panels of your car up into small section and then only working a small section at a time and when you move onto a new section overlapping into the previous section.

The old days...
I used to teach hand polishing techniques for exactly your question but here's the deal...

Once a person realizes how much work and much time it will take to completely buff out an entire car by hand, and then they see how much faster and easier it is to work by machine PLUS how much better the results look, (the hand can never outperform the machine), then figure out how much their time is worth, the only option is to step up to machine polishing.


Click this link and look at the little boy, the young girl and the seasoned member of our society... all machine polishing...

It's not that hard...

[margallar]

You should try the meguiars DA power system, i got mine two weeks back and the moment i first used it, i was feeling 'this isn't as hard as i thought'

i had earlier deswirled a car by hand and this let me do the same in much less time and with much less effort

[nycbluelancer]

the problem is i dont have a outside outlet for a machine buffer . where i wash my car theres no place to plug in an outlet for the DA machine .. so my only hope is by hand. how long did it took u to deswirl a car by hand ?? my car is pretty small

[swanicyouth]

the problem is i dont have a outside outlet for a machine buffer . where i wash my car theres no place to plug in an outlet for the DA machine .. so my only hope is by hand. how long did it took u to deswirl a car by hand ?? my car is pretty small

You could use a generator, or your car battery with a DC to AC converter. The later method does work with a PC - I've done it. You will need to idle the car frequently though, as not to run the battery down.

Polishing a car by hand is like cutting the lawn with a pair of scissors - maybe harder. Some people are just bent on trying it though, no matter what people say who have actually tried it. I think most that try it eventually get a DA or give up.

I feel half of the "polish by hand" crowd just doesn't want to spend the $$$ for the machine polishing items. Half if them maybe afraid to use a buffer for fear of causing damage.

Can you polish a car by hand? Yes you sure can. A complete multi step paint correction with a machine possibly could take up to 30-40 hours. By, hand, it could possibly take many months of work. It would be like trying to fill a swimming pool with a thimble of water running back and forth from the sink.

Also, something that is often overlooked is polishing by hand not only takes a lot of time - but, it takes a lot of skill and experience to get great results. You have to use perfect technique 100 % of the time.

Go try it and see for yourself. Let is know how it works out.

[MarkD51]

the problem is i dont have a outside outlet for a machine buffer . where i wash my car theres no place to plug in an outlet for the DA machine .. so my only hope is by hand. how long did it took u to deswirl a car by hand ?? my car is pretty small

I now see the issues you face.

So, the next important question I'll ask, is do you have access to a shaded area?

I feel one very important aspect of doing any process on any paint, is to do so on cool paint in the shade. That of all the detailing processes one can do to a vehicle, there's only one I might do out in the direct sun, and that is shampooing either carpeting, or cloth interior. Otherwise, it's still usually more comfortable doing in the shade in summertime.

For sure, the bright sun can aid faster drying of interiors-carpeting.

I think the points that Mike Phillips brings up hold many truths, but one factor that I think will determine the quality of final finish, and whether or not you will be as successful by hand, versus a machine process (either DA or Rotary), will be the degree of damage present? (scratching, or swirling)

So what he has said I can only say I might agree, and might disagree. It's going to depend largely on the actual condition of your paint.

If the paint is relatively new, and the swirling is mild, just produced from normal hand washing, and not nothing as crazy as like somebody washing the car with a Scotchbrite Pad, then you should be able to get quite spectacular results by hand.

As with any machine, the same rule will apply, in that you wish to use the least agressive methods, and products to get the job done, period.

This hypothetically means that a product let's say like Meguiars 205 Finishing Polish may be perfect, and do the trick for you, without the need of resorting to a more agressive cut product like Meguiars 105. It probably would not hurt having both on hand though.

Meg's 105 may come in handy one day for a deeper scratch, or for some other little polishing project that comes your way?

The Meg's 205 product is IMO a really great product to have on hand, truly a first rate world class product IMO.

Glazes as well are good products to have on hand, they can amp up gloss, feed-enrich the paint, hide light swirling, but keep in mind that Glazes generally only hide-mask such swirling, and such minor paint damage, and don't permanently remove them from the paint.

Hope this again helps.
Mark

[margallar]

the problem is i dont have a outside outlet for a machine buffer . where i wash my car theres no place to plug in an outlet for the DA machine .. so my only hope is by hand. how long did it took u to deswirl a car by hand ?? my car is pretty small

well i was working with meguiars foam pads and m80, the paint itself was very dry single stage, it took about 3 days, why not use an extension cable from the nearest wall socket, you can never get as good results by hand as you would by machine