Now onto the challenge - machine polishing. Under the Sun Gun you could see the extent of the swirls and paintwork damage...
Under the strip lighting you could see the severity of the deeper marks as well...
Correction was a challenge - the paint was sticky, resisting attempts at rotary polishing with many polishes that were trialled - the panels heating up very quickly, despite varied techniques and combos, and the polish drying out...
Menzerna was the worst offender, GlossIt was little better, 3M was better, but the products of choice I went for for the correction was
Meguiars #95 Speed Cut. Now the paint is soft, and this was an aggressive choice, but I used it quickly, simply spreading and working at 1500 - 1800rpm (keeping temps low, with slow speed compounding) until the marks removed. The heavy cut kept a quick work time and low panel temp, removed the marks, was not severe on paint thickness. It did, as you would expect, leave some hologramming!
First stage refining was another challenge... again, many polishes were sticky and biting, with very careful coaxing required to get
Menzerna to play ball (light pressure by lifting machine, then slowly up the work speeds to coax into life...). Trialling
Menzerna,
Meguiars, 3M, GlossIt and Chemical Guys Diamond Cut I finally settled on a polish that isn't much talked about
: 3M Polish Ultrafine, 60168 (white top). This spread and was the smoothest in use of the lot but still raised panel temps during its work time higher than normal. It did a good job of removing severe hologramming,
but the finish was still not 100% perfect in terms of refining with
very slight trails only noticeable under the Sun Gun. Still not good enough though, so I carried out a second refine stage, Menzerna PO85RD Final Finish this time, slow speeds and build to 1500rpm coaxing the polish to life, and then down slowly through the speeds. Long work time, varying speeds, weight and machine movement the whole time to ensure the panel temps remained as cool as possible and the polisher was not allowed to drag. In the end, the quality of the finish I was happy with...
It was a challenge, especially compared to Sunday's S-Max where the rotary glided and cruised on the paint like a boat on a mill pond. Today we had a force 10 gale
:, but sometimes you get a car that makes you search through your toolbox of skills for a solution and this was one such car. The results were worth it in terms of clarity restored though. Before:
After:
While up front, we dealt with the dull
headlights...
Intensive Polish on a polishing pad delivered this (masked back up to protect rubber as bonnet edges were polished by 4" pad):
Rear lights, before and after:
Onto the sides, and back to the fun of the paint! Swirls galore before...
Deeper round the door handle...
The correction and first refining stage delivered the required defect removal, and as you can see under the halogen light, the finish also looks well refined and LSP ready...
Ensuring correction around the details as well, deeper scratches shifted...
and on the door handle...
Behind door handle with PO91L
Intensive Polish by hand...
Back to the finish quality though, and the Sun Gun tells a different story here - look very carefully at the bright light sources and you will see faint tails renderring the finish below par at this stage, and certainly not ready for a wax (never rely on halogens alone!):
After very careful and time consuming refining with Final Finish, the tails are removed and the finish has the clarity that it should have...
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