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Well....it started ok....but then....

2K views 16 replies 10 participants last post by  Walkinshaw 
#1 ·
Hello all

Decided to do my fairmont a favour today, and give it a proper polish. Lobbed on down to my local bunnings, bought a low RPM 180mm sander polisher, went to super cheap and bought some Meguiars medium cut polish, swirl remover and scratch x, came home and started polishing away.......

So after 3 hours, my arms are sore, my back hurts, and my car looks shit. It all started out ok, but then i got tired and a little impatient. What ended up happening was my lambswool pad got a bit too much polish on it, and as a result wanted to leave my arms. The result? some HUGE marks all over my roof of where the pad dug in. I did manage to get some of it out, by slowing the speeds down and just working at it, but my roof and my polisher are not tolerating each other.

Can someone give me the right clue about how to go about it? it seems pretty stupid now i think about it, my paintwork is pretty average up close, but i want to see how pretty i can make it look...

so whoever buffs their car, please let me know! If i get the shits tomorrow, im going to have to go and buy some terry towelling and do it all by hand....
 
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#2 ·
if you use too high of an rpm, press too hard and focus on the one spot for too long you will "burn" the paint
best to give it a light buff and hand polish it to remove the swirl marks

I hand polished my EF today, started out well then i got too tired and left the roof and ass end lol I will finish it one day
 
#4 ·
I have heard from several detailers that the foam pads are the better way to go with buffing. I have been using the buff a bit lately to fix up my slack attempt at painting my bonnet and I've found you really don't need to put alot of pressure on it and aslong as you keep the pad relatively clean it's pretty hard to bugger up. I also wouldnt use any sort of cutting compound if it the paint is still glossy.

If the paint isnt that bad I would just do it by hand, atleast you know theres no chance of stuffing up the paint.
 
#6 ·
nah Ed, my paint wasnt so glossy

The parts where i got it right look sensational, its just the bits where the sander went walkies that look rooted

tomorrow i'll just go low speed, one section at a time. Dunno how im going to do the roof, but i'll suss out something

oh yeah

i totally got stuck into my yellow headlights with the thing, full speed, huge pressure and it did SFA. Im needing new headlights lol.
 
#7 ·
Well i went at it again tonight, by hand

come up really well. Used some pretty decent cutting compoud (meguiars) and thought it was all over for me, my microfibre cloth just wouldnt get the dry polish off (the buff would have but i was too lazy to find a extension lead). Eventually i figured out that by applying some swirl remover (again meguiars) over the top allowed the cloth to get everything off, leaving a really nice finish

Only thing is, it took me 3 hours just to do the bonnet, one half of the roof, one quarter panel and make a start on the bootlid...

One thing i did notice, if im staring directly at the paint, the shine on the paint is awesome. If i look at the car on a angle and under fluroescent light, you could see some swirl marks where I had been a little lazy. Im thinking that you would more than likely get that on a lot of cars in sunlight, fluro light just really makes imperfections stand out???

But anyway, the areas i did properly look awesome now...should really look good in the sun. And one thing I hate about polishing, apart from the effort, is how well stone chips and deep scratches stand out! Is there any product i can use to touch them up a little? My car is regency red...and i dunno how well I'd go touch up with a pressure pack

Cheers.
 
#8 ·
You could try a paint pen or one of them small nail polish botles with a brush. Most spray cans also come with a little touch up brush. I've bought a pen in that colour before at repco.
 
#10 ·
The pens are really good for stone chips cos you can just keep going back to em and filling the hole up with paint till its level again.

You really need to know what you're doing if you're going to attempt to use a pressure pack cos you'll need to blend the whole area in which is quite hard and also fill in the scratch/chip before hand.

The mobile paint dude that comes out to our work only uses a paint pen/brush to do minor touch ups, like chips and scratches. If you really want the chips and scratches fixed up properly try a mobile paint guy, they charge at my work on average $200-250 to fix every scratch and chip on a car. They rub back, fill and then paint and blend all the imperfections and at the end you can't tell there had ever been a scratch or chip there before let alone tell that it's been resprayed.
 
#11 ·
well, my whole bonnet has lots of really little chips...the whole damn thing needs a respray, but i might experiment with the paint pen first

And my mudflaps ruined the paint on the sills...I may need some professional help there, but again, i'll try the paint pen

thanks Ed!
 
#12 ·
just a bit about buffing, lambs wool pads are the harshest out of foam and synthetic and will remove more paint. If your using a lambs wool pad and combining that with a medium cut compound it's gonna take off a fair bit of paint. And this will be the reason why you have swirl marks.

If your just starting out, it's probably much better to use a waffle pad (foam) and some fine cut compound. Try Autoglym No.3 Fine, it's water based and easy to use. Best of all it will bring up your old paint beautifully and it's hard to f*ck up panels with it. You can also get away with using a higher speed (infact it's better) just keep the buffer moving so it doesn't create heat on the panel, and watch the edges of panels, it's easy to buff through to the primer on the edges.
 
#13 ·
Yes you're right, fluro lights bring out imperfections in paint.

It makes you appreciate the paint jobs on showcars.
 
#15 ·
Why are people using buffers?
That would be because they're cutting the paint back first using a cutting compound (grit) on the buffer. I don't know if you can cut paint back by hand but i'd think it'd be hard to do consistently.
 
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