First weekend with a PC - Did I miss a step ?

[rigor]

Hello all,



After reading this forum and a few others for several weeks, I went ahead and ordered a bunch of stuff to get my going on detailing. Here is the list of products I bought so far.



Sheepskin Wash Mitts (2)

Grit Guard Insert

Waffle Weave MF Towels (2)



Porter Cable 7424 & Pad Kit

** Included in Kit **

PC 7424 with wrench & counterweight

Dual Action 5 Inch HD Hook & Loop Backing Plate

Pinnacle XMT Polishing Foam Pad Conditioner

Pinnacle XMT Polishing Foam Pad Cleaner

2 CCS White 6.5 inch Polishing Foam Pads

2 CCS Gray 6.5 inch Finishing Foam Pads

1 CCS Blue 6.5 inch Finessing Foam Pad

2 Cobra Indigo Edgeless Microfiber Polishing Cloths

2 5.5 Orange Low Profile Foam pads



CCS 6.5" Yellow Cutting Pad (3)

CCS 6.5" Orange Light Cutting Pad (2)

Menzerna Super Intensive Polish

Optimum Polish

Meguiars #21 Synthetic Sealant

P21S Total Auto Wash Spray

5 gallon Buckets (2)

Meguiars Gold Class Car Wash

Westleys Bleche White Tire Cleaner

Scrub Brush for Tires

Meguiars Clay Bar Kit

Stoner Invisible Glass Pump Spray



Saturday when I was working with the yellow pad and SIP, the sun was out and I was able to check my results. That combo (3 passes needed on my hard VW clearcoat) got all my swirls out - YAY!



Sunday when I finally got to doing my finishing polish and sealant, it was getting dark, and I wasn`t able to see my results until this afternoon when the sun came out.



The car looks great and feels like glass. There doesn`t appear to really be any haze, but maybe there is, ever so slightly (?) The reason I`m saying that is the paint isn`t as deep or clear as I thought it would have been. Not certain if it`s just the Deep Blue Pearl color of my car, or if I possibly didn`t break down the Optimum polish enough before sealing it ? Here are the steps I took.



Saturday:

Wash and clayed

3 passes with yellow CCS pad and Menzerna SIP, speed 6 on the PC. Was able to keep checking results in the sun, was amazed and very pleased with the results.



Sunday:

1 pass with white CCS pad and regular Optimum polish, speed 5 on the PC. Wiped down with clean MF towel dampened with Megs QD.

Applied Megs 21 sealant mostly by hand, and smoothed it out a bit with a gray CCS pad on speed 3. Let it dry for about 30 minutes, and then removed it with a blue CCS pad, speed 4.



Did I miss something ? Again, the car looks great, but I`m not seeing any more "wow factor" than after the SIP. I was thinking the Optimum and/or Megs 21 would give things a deeper and more wet look to the finish.



Thanks for any help! I hope to get my car looking even better very soon. Hopefully the sun is out tomorrow still and I can get some pics.

[SuperBee364]

I can see that you definitely did your homework. Your process looks very good. A couple suggestions...



You might want to try smaller pads. 4" pads will give your PC more effectiveness in every step of the process (whether you`re compounding or polishing).



Try doing multiple applications of the Optimum Polish, like you did with the SIP. The more time and applications you put into your finishing polish step, the more gloss you`re gonna get (up to a certain point, of course). One application is just not enough to really get the full shine out of OP.



You might also want to get a black or red 4" LC foam pad. These pads have zero bite to them, and allow the polish to finish down to it`s best potential. White foam still has some bite to it.

[rigor]

Thanks for the reply.



I think due to losing daylight and time, I rushed the final polish with the Optimum a little bit. I`ll have to go back this weekend and go at it with another 1-2 passes of the Optimum with plenty of time to do a really good job.



I have a couple more questions that came to mind as I was learning this weekend.



I watched and followed the video guides of using the PC over at AutoGeek. The video explains I should be working polishes for about 3-5 minutes to completely break them down. I`ve read that Menzerna SIP breaks down quicker than usual. They were a few times where only after maybe 1-2 minutes, it seemed like the polish had already broken down, as it was dusting. Did I need to keep going at that point ? Or was I more than likely just polishing with a more dry pad ? Either way, didn`t do anything but make my car look great, but considering I had to make 3 passes on my hard VW clearcoat with SIP, it would have been nice to shave off any unesscessary time here.



You mentioned my PC would have been more effective with 4" pads. Would this have reduced the time needed to break down the polish ? Also, is it likely that I wouldn`t have needed to do as many passes with a smaller pad ?



In between the passes of SIP, I was wiping down the panel being worked on with a MF towel and some QD. Again, for the sake of time and product, could I (or should I) have just not wiped down, and just applied my next coat of polish ?



I used painters tape to tape off where most of the panels meet, around the windows and sunroof, etc. I wasn`t sure where in the process I was supposed to remove the tape, so I didn`t so until after I was entirely done removing the sealant. When I stripped the tape off, there was a little residue left on some edges. I just simply took a clean MF towel damped with some QD and got it off. It was a bit of work and I had to rub some of it a little harder than I would have liked. Thankfully I knew the surface was perfectly clean and wasn`t too worried of doing any damage. It was more just mess control than anything else, as I didn`t want to get polish residue all over my nice shiny car! Was I supposed to take the tape off earlier so I could have used the PC to remove it ?



Thanks again, and I appreciate as much input from everyone as possible!

[SuperBee364]

I watched and followed the video guides of using the PC over at AutoGeek. The video explains I should be working polishes for about 3-5 minutes to completely break them down. I`ve read that Menzerna SIP breaks down quicker than usual. They were a few times where only after maybe 1-2 minutes, it seemed like the polish had already broken down, as it was dusting. Did I need to keep going at that point ? Nope, you`re definitely done. SIP can be a bit tricky to tell when it`s time to stop. Most polishes go completely clear and then stay wet enough to work a little bit more. In my dry desert air environment, SIP doesn`t go clear before it starts to dry, so you have to stop buffing at the first sign of it getting dry, rather than going by when it goes clear. Or was I more than likely just polishing with a more dry pad ? Either way, didn`t do anything but make my car look great, but considering I had to make 3 passes on my hard VW clearcoat with SIP, it would have been nice to shave off any unesscessary time here.



You mentioned my PC would have been more effective with 4" pads. Would this have reduced the time needed to break down the polish ? A little, but probably not much. Also, is it likely that I wouldn`t have needed to do as many passes with a smaller pad ? You`ll probably still end up doing the same number of passes, but you`ll get more total correcting/polishing done per application.



In between the passes of SIP, I was wiping down the panel being worked on with a MF towel and some QD. Again, for the sake of time and product, could I (or should I) have just not wiped down, and just applied my next coat of polish ? You should always wipe down the panel after each application.



I used painters tape to tape off where most of the panels meet, around the windows and sunroof, etc. I wasn`t sure where in the process I was supposed to remove the tape, so I didn`t so until after I was entirely done removing the sealant. When I stripped the tape off, there was a little residue left on some edges. I just simply took a clean MF towel damped with some QD and got it off. It was a bit of work and I had to rub some of it a little harder than I would have liked. Thankfully I knew the surface was perfectly clean and wasn`t too worried of doing any damage. It was more just mess control than anything else, as I didn`t want to get polish residue all over my nice shiny car! Was I supposed to take the tape off earlier so I could have used the PC to remove it ? I`ve never used a PC to take off the tape. Try to just "tack" the tape down, don`t really secure it down firmly. 3M blue tape is really expensive, but I`ve never had any problems with it leaving adhesive residue behind.



Thanks again, and I appreciate as much input from everyone as possible!



You`re asking all the right questions...A bit more work with the OP and one of your finessing pads (which I see you already have in your list of pads), and that car is gonna look sharp.

[haper]

Applied Megs 21 sealant mostly by hand, and smoothed it out a bit with a gray CCS pad on speed 3. Let it dry for about 30 minutes, and then removed it with a blue CCS pad, speed 4.



you used a blue CCS pad to remove the sealant, never really heard of that b4. must just use a MF towel as sealant is usually very easy to remove, especially when spread thinly w/ a machine buffer.



how many blue pads did you use, to get all the product off i would think you`d need 4 or 5? i`m wondering if you didn`t get all the sealant off.

[SuperBee364]

you used a blue CCS pad to remove the sealant, never really heard of that b4. must just use a MF towel as sealant is usually very easy to remove, especially when spread thinly w/ a machine buffer.



how many blue pads did you use, to get all the product off i would think you`d need 4 or 5? i`m wondering if you didn`t get all the sealant off.



Oh man, I missed that part. Yeah, you probably shouldn`t be removing your sealant with a LC foam pad. If you have an MF bonnet to put on, that would work, but don`t use a foam pad to remove sealant residue. Best bet is a clean soft MF.

[rigor]

Thanks for the replies Haper and SuperBee.



The blue CCS pad packaging said it could be used to remove waxes/sealants, so I thought that was all I needed to do. I only have 1 blue CCS as of now, so I used that on the entire car to remove my sealant - or so I thought, it sounds like :)



Am I correct that I can fill a spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of water and rubbing alcohol and use it and a MF towel to remove my sealant ? I want to go back and do another pass or 2 of the Optimum, then seal it again, and remove the sealant residual correctly.



In regards to taking the tape off, I didn`t mean literally taking it off with the PC, but rather should I had removed the tape before wiping off the final polish ? This way I would have had perfect edges before applying the sealant. The way I did things, I removed the tape at the very end and I then had to go back and clean up the edges as they had polish residue.



Thanks again for all who can help provide the correct answers!

[SuperBee364]

If you want to remove *all* the sealant, then yes, a 50/50 isopropyl alcohol/water wipedown will strip your paint bare. But if you are talking about just removing the residue from an application of sealant, then just use a clean soft MF.



I usually remove the tape after polishing and before applying LSP.