The results...
Some overspray on the front bumper, on both sides.
The lower half of this car was very bad... Thank God I had a lift to take care of those spots. I know, I know I'm spoiled
Here's my poor attempt at a 50/50. This is after about 4 passes with a Riwax cutting pad and InstaFinish #15. This left me with almost 0 marring. This picture reminds me a bit of
Close Encounters...
Sneak peek
All taped up... I also taped some places that I thought may be subject to damage...
So on to the polishing.
Since I didn't get the chance to wash the car myself I did a thorough walk around and well, the car was still filthy (in my eyes anyway). Therefore I had to QD the entire car with OQD before claying. After the QD dirty ho bath I stuck with OQD as a lube for claying. The car was relatively contaminant-free other than the overspray. After claying a couple of panels I felt the clay starting to become tacky, like as if I was using a soap and water mix to clay with, so I switched to my ONR/water mix after tossing that piece of clay. It was new :-/.
For the polishing I decided to use a method I've been using for the past few weeks. I like to refer to this method as "The Sniper Drive-by Method" as it's much more civilized and targets the enemies (RIDS) specifically. I think it's much safer for the paint than the usual "Rambo kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" method of leveling everything and then starting from there. Basically what I do is find a good pad/polish combination that has enough cut to take out swirls and small scratches and I start with that. For this car, as I said above, InstaFinish 15 and a cutting pad worked very well on this ceramic finish. I spread out the polish at 600 with only the weight of the Maki and then with about 25-30 lbs. Of pressure went about 3-4 more passes. By then, all of the swirls and smaller scratches were cleared leaving me with a clearer view (but still a bit hazy from the polish) of where Charlie was.
After the initial passes I still had a bit of cut left in the diminishing polish (InstaFinish 15 has about a 3 out of 5 cut), which was about 1/2 of what it originally was. Then with the edge of the pad, using a sort of "waving" motion (like as if I was revving the throttle of a motorcycle) with my wrist, I focused on the deep scratches giving about 4-5 quick waves then leveling the pad back out to clear up the marring. After the polish had diminished, I added a pea-sized drop to the outer edge of the pad and started on the next scratch using the same technique. I had to change pads after about each panel because they became a bit saturated doing this. There were also some places where I used an 80mm wool pad and IF 15 though, as the scratches were really deep. I did a lot of pad changing using this method because really every panel is accessed one at a time. Sometimes I even changed pad and polish combos but the first combo I had was the only thing that would cut this paint without cutting it too much. There was also a lot of wear on the outer edges of my pads after this, but I guess that’s the price of saving paint. Does anyone else polish like this?
As I've said, I used some 80mm polishing pads for the tight areas and for the deep scratches. When using the 80mm foam pads, I noticed that I was leveling the scratches, but at the same time inducing new ones. I thought that the pads were faulty at first so I sprayed them with APC and rinsed them with hot water immediately. This actually softened them up a bit, but they were still causing deep scratches. So I took a lunch break and went to have my favorite szechuan chicken, and pondered... I then realized that the scratches were being caused by the abrasives not being evenly spread. Basically they, the abrasives, were clumping together forming a larger abrasive (like a piece of sand if you will) and causing RIDS. Also, I realized that the smaller pad meant more power/cut. By that I mean that a smaller point of contact can inflict more pain...just like in Ninjutsu. Now, using a smaller pad means that I'm causing more damage, therefore, to reduce the damage I need to reduce the cut so I stepped down to a lower cut polish and achieved the same results. BUT, I also changed the way I applied the polish. Instead of just blotting a couple drops of polish on the pad, I lightly saturated the entire pad with polish and then rubbed it into the pad with my fingers in order to give it a more consistent cut. I think people have referred to this as the KB method, but the difference is that I don’t add more polish to it after saturating it. After I did this, the RIDS disappeared and the cut was even !
I'll be honest and say that I've never used a PTG to date. I plan on buying one soon as my family's economic situation gets better, but until then I'll have to rely on instinct as I have done thus far. I know it's risky, but what can I do? Taking that into consideration, I don't know how much paint I removed, but I'm sure it was minimal, judging by the depth of the scratches and I also calculated the fact that the car has already been polished at least once by Ferrari. This is another reason why I decided not to "Rambo" the whole car.
OK so here's some shots after the cutting pad and IF #15, then finished with a finishing pad and IF #15 with some jeweling. Also I'd like to add that all of the polishing was done at 900 RPM, with 25-30 lbs. pressure, then I let up on the pressure to about the weight of the Maki
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Linear Mode
