Hardness of clear coat?

I

imported_RDUB

New member
I am in the process of detailing my 2001 silver VW Jetta.

I have the UDM and I'm using the white pad that came with it, it's the scratch buster pad. I am also using Mequires Professional Fine Cut Cleaner, which is a #5 on their cutting compound scale.

The problem I'm running into is it's not completely removing the scratches. It does a decent job on some of the scratches.

The scratches I can't get rid of are deep enough to catch your finger nail on but it is not into the paint.



So what am I doing wrong?

What product/pad should I be using?



:thx
 
First off what speeds are you working the polishes in at??



Secondly, a general rule of thumb is, if you can catch a scratch with your finger nail that means it's probably through the clear and can not be polished out. Even some scratches won't come out after wetsanding so don't beat yourself up too much.



It's probably just too deep.



Josh
 
As an owner of an '01 (matchstick red) GTI, I'll tell you that the clear is pretty hard. I used a PC with #83 and 6.5" orange pads and it didn't really completely remove all my swirling after two passes on speed 6. I then stepped up ("down?") to 4" pads, applied a good amount of downward pressure, and that did the trick. Not a fair comparison though because on my second attempt I used SIP instead of #83.
 
Yep- switch to 4" pads (or better yet, 3.5" Purple Foamed Wool for the initial correction).



And settle for "better" on anything remotely deep enough to catch a nail. Remember that taking off 0.0005" can precipitate clearcoat failure, and that's not much.
 
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