Having trouble.

M

mjpowers728

New member
I was polishing the trunk lid on my cousin's white Sebring last night and I seemed to get nowhere. The paint got an occasional wax, other than that not maintained at all.

Anyways, the surface looked dull and cloudy, I assumed it was oxidation or contamination but didn't have a clay bar at hand so went straight to buffing. I tried OC on an LC wool pad and after a while I removed the cloudiness. The paint was smoother and had a pretty decent shine, but none of the marring would come out. I worked at it a little more and still couldn't even reduce the scratches.

I gave up after about 30-45 minutes of working repeated applications on one half of the hood and called it a night. Now my question....why am I not cutting the paint?
 
Is this with a PC or a rotary?



Any chance that the Sebring is painted with single stage? SS white is about as hard as paint gets.
 
It's with a rotary. I'm not sure it's SS, it may be. I know one quarter panel I had no luck with was recently resprayed with single stage, but I'm not sure about the rest of the car. Any recommendations of a good-cutting compound? I was thinking of picking up a bottle of Meg's Diamond Cut, but wasn't sure if it'd be worth it.
 
mjpowers728- Yeah, it does sound like you need something more aggressive. I can't really recommend anything as I use the discontinued 3M PI-III Extra Cut when I need something really harsh.
 
I can't tell whats going on w/o seeing the paint in person but try going less agressive before you go any further. Since you used a wool pad and got a shine you may want to try removing the haze that the wool pad left behind and evaluating the finish then. Sounds like you may just be looking at the marring left behind by the pad.
 
Well you could be cutting just fine, but the marks you see are deeper scratches, not swirls. I had that problem. I thought I was getting nowhere, but in fact it was just that the scratches were pretty deep. You might just have to dull them down if that's the case. Or wetsand. But maybe you aren't cutting and need a heavier polish. Although I agree with MichaelM, you could just see hazing or marring left from the wool pad.
 
mjpowers728 said:
I was polishing the trunk lid on my cousin's white Sebring last night and I seemed to get nowhere. The paint got an occasional wax, other than that not maintained at all.

Anyways, the surface looked dull and cloudy, I assumed it was oxidation or contamination but didn't have a clay bar at hand so went straight to buffing. I tried OC on an LC wool pad and after a while I removed the cloudiness. The paint was smoother and had a pretty decent shine, but none of the marring would come out. I worked at it a little more and still couldn't even reduce the scratches.

I gave up after about 30-45 minutes of working repeated applications on one half of the hood and called it a night. Now my question....why am I not cutting the paint?
Click to expand...



Some pics would help, to see how bad the swirls/scratches are.



I have never used OC. But something doesn't sound right.



You are using a pretty aggressive setup! I don't understand.



I have been able to remove swirls completely, or at least put a dent in them.

and I use PC with polishing pads (megs,3m,edge) megs #84 DACP or PB's SSR2.5 are some of my most aggressive polishes.



Rotary/Wool pad/OC, and no scratch removal? :think:



May be they are marks left from wool buffing, try foam polishing pad and OP, maybe this would take care of the rest.
 
cheapshot said:
Rotary/Wool pad/OC, and no scratch removal? :think:
Click to expand...



I agree that the wool pad almost certainly left some marks that need removed via foam. But Mike Phillips has run into white single stage that he couldn't correct with his rotary/wool/etc. It's just one of those things that you do come across now and then.
 
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