Feeling a little discouraged

A little frustrated and disappointed. Just came to vent really.
I started my big detailing project yesterday. I got a coating for my birthday that I wanted to try out. I worked hard on the prep, decontaminating, washing, claying, removing old wax etc. because I wanted to coating to look and work its best. It was getting late so I decided to polish the trunk lid and try the sealant. I have a DA orbital polisher as I don`t trust myself with a rotary. I was using m205 with lake country pads. I tried several different pads, different pressure etc. When looking under my garage lights (led`s that show all the defects) I could see some scratches and a lot of "pitting" as I call it. It is difficult to capture on camera.

When I bought the car, (2002 accord) It was 2 years old and had 12k miles. However the glass and the paint had what looked like hard water marks. However they were actually etched into the paint and glass. I believe the previous owners lived near a beach. (After many years of trying products I finally removed them from the glass with cerium oxide) So i knew the paint was bad if looked at under the light. I guess I just though the polishing would make it look better. It really just seemed to clean the paint. The car is white and it looked much brighter...which is good, but I also wanted some correction. However If I did correct the scratches and pits, the paint would still look wavy and slightly orange peely, as they dont wet sand a factory painted car. So it will never look like glass unless I wet sand myself. More on that later...

Now I know a DA is going to be harder to correct with, and a more aggressive compound is probably needed. I like 205 because Hondas paint is generally soft, or so I`m told. However I dont know how deep the scratches go. I plan on keeping this car for a quite a while, as I only have 60k miles on it now, so I don`t want to eat through all the clear coat. There have been a few instances where I had to wet sand some spots on the car. I have used 3000 grit in the past, and after polishing it, only some faint scratches from the sandpaper appear, the pitting is gone and it nearly looks like glass. But that would be a very risky solution in my opinion.

So I put the coating on the trunk lid, (pleased with its application, as it is my first panel with my first coating ever) locking in the defected paint. Don`t know how to even get it off now, in case I did find a fairly easy and safe way to correct the paint, but that`s neither here nor there. Dont get me wrong tho, It looks beautiful when your not looking at it under direct lighting or the sun. It is my daily driver so I expect some defects, chips etc. I guess what I see in my mind doesn`t always come out from my hands onto the project.

If anyone took the time to read this, thank you. I know I am just going on and on but I feel its been eating away at me for a little while now.:unsure:

It`s all about knowing your skill level. Where I am at is I like to polish my paint back to shiny but I am not comfortable with chasing any real scratches in fear of doing more harm then good. I am ok with 50-70 percent correction and removing all the embedded dirt and old wax every other year so my daily driver looks better than 99.8541678356 % of the worlds cars. You can not compare your self to what you see on here from the pro`s and semi pro`s those guys have a real talent and most them have spent thousands (or 10`s of thousands) of hours with a polisher in there hands learning.

Maybe chase the better looks first, then step up your detailing game little by little.

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1. Can likely polish off the coating on the trunk w the M205.

2. Just did a Honda yesterday, thought Sonax Perfect Finish was gonna do it but hadda move up to Menz 2400 to get most of the swirls out.

What brand coating did you apply? I know Mckee`s 37 Hydro Blue can be removed by polishing. Have confidence in the skills you have. Build on them and experiment. My white Ram is my test vehicle. Was covered in swirls, rids, marring a mess. But some M105 and M205 with wool pads and foams pads and 98 percent of my truck is defect free. A good way to build experience is to find some panels at a salvage yard and practice practice.

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A 2002 Honda?

White?

First things first - make sure it actually is clear coat paint you are working on. Second, for a car of that vintage & make - I`d check the paint thickness on several of the horizontal panels. Especially, since you bought it used. You can get an inexpensive thickness gauge on eBay.

Let`s assume you have clear coat paint of decent thickness (say; > 100 microns all over). Your going to want to use a compound to remove the defects with the appropriate pad before you polish.

Quite frankly, I wouldn`t recommend Megs Mxxx polish for someone new to polishing paint. I`d go with something a bit more friendly - like the Wolfgang line of polishes.

Honda paint doesn`t have the reputation for being the most durable - especially if it`s 15 years old. So, tread lightly & do your homework. You may only get 1 chance to do it right.

And any polish with abrasives will remove most coatings after a few passes.

agtjamesb007- IMO the big thing here is to have realistic expectations. It sounds to me like that vehicle already had some serious cosmetic issues, quite possibly too severe to be safely rectified without a paintgun.

I will note that significant correction, even on presumably soft paint, is often *MUCH* more difficult that people expect. And if you see sanding marks from 3K then IMO you`re not being aggressive enough, at least not for the correction that follows wetsanding (which I myself wouldn`t do on that car).

With the right products/approach, IMO you can do any correction that`s safe to do on that car with a RO and *without* wetsanding. I`ve done extreme correction on much harder paints without resorting to my sanding disks/papers, just takes a while.

While some people use/advocate M205 for significant correction, *it`s a Finishing Polish* designed to be used after a more aggressive approach has done the heavy lifting. (Yeah yeah...I`ve talked with KB and IMO his opinions regarding correction via M205 have been taken out of context at the very least.)

I can`t help but think "it`s a 15YO white daily driver from a company that`s known for thin paint that was purchased used with discernible issues". I`d try to stifle your Inner Autopian and be content with "best looking 15YO car in the parking lot."

Thanks for the points everyone. I feel better today. I usually am always happy with the results after I`m not inspecting it under lights. It really does look great under normal conditions.

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What brand coating did you apply?

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I did go with Mckee`s 37 but not the hydro blue. Just the Mckee`s 37 Coating.

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First things first - make sure it actually is clear coat paint you are working on.

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Good point, I forgot about that. Many documents show this paint to be a single stage paint. The Taffeta white and Mariano red I believe before a certain year are supposedly single stage. A while back I tried my darnedest to get an answer from Honda. They put little effort into finding out an answer. I refuse to believe they don`t have documentation on a vehicle they made 15 years ago. Once you purchase a vehicle and are no longer a customer, they couldn`t care less about you.

Thanks again everybody.

Don`t be discouraged, I was once where you are. Its not hard once your shown the technique, then you can practice.

Where in NY are you located? If you close, I can give you some pointers in person? If not Ill try to help you if I can. PM me a number I can call you on tomorrow night.

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Originally Posted by agtjamesb007

A little frustrated and disappointed. Just came to vent really.
I started my big detailing project yesterday. I got a coating for my birthday that I wanted to try out. I worked hard on the prep, decontaminating, washing, claying, removing old wax etc. because I wanted to coating to look and work its best. It was getting late so I decided to polish the trunk lid and try the sealant. I have a DA orbital polisher as I don`t trust myself with a rotary. I was using m205 with lake country pads. I tried several different pads, different pressure etc. When looking under my garage lights (led`s that show all the defects) I could see some scratches and a lot of "pitting" as I call it. It is difficult to capture on camera.

When I bought the car, (2002 accord) It was 2 years old and had 12k miles. However the glass and the paint had what looked like hard water marks. However they were actually etched into the paint and glass. I believe the previous owners lived near a beach. (After many years of trying products I finally removed them from the glass with cerium oxide) So i knew the paint was bad if looked at under the light. I guess I just though the polishing would make it look better. It really just seemed to clean the paint. The car is white and it looked much brighter...which is good, but I also wanted some correction. However If I did correct the scratches and pits, the paint would still look wavy and slightly orange peely, as they dont wet sand a factory painted car. So it will never look like glass unless I wet sand myself. More on that later...

Now I know a DA is going to be harder to correct with, and a more aggressive compound is probably needed. I like 205 because Hondas paint is generally soft, or so I`m told. However I dont know how deep the scratches go. I plan on keeping this car for a quite a while, as I only have 60k miles on it now, so I don`t want to eat through all the clear coat. There have been a few instances where I had to wet sand some spots on the car. I have used 3000 grit in the past, and after polishing it, only some faint scratches from the sandpaper appear, the pitting is gone and it nearly looks like glass. But that would be a very risky solution in my opinion.

So I put the coating on the trunk lid, (pleased with its application, as it is my first panel with my first coating ever) locking in the defected paint. Don`t know how to even get it off now, in case I did find a fairly easy and safe way to correct the paint, but that`s neither here nor there. Dont get me wrong tho, It looks beautiful when your not looking at it under direct lighting or the sun. It is my daily driver so I expect some defects, chips etc. I guess what I see in my mind doesn`t always come out from my hands onto the project.

If anyone took the time to read this, thank you. I know I am just going on and on but I feel its been eating away at me for a little while now.:unsure:

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