How do I know when enough is enough?

B

brownj218

New member
So my boss is bugging me to detail his car. It's a black Pontiac G6 with some random deep*ish* scratches right in the middle of the hood... probably from buttons on someones jeans or something. You can *just* feel them with your fingernail...but barely.



My plan of action is to go with 3.5" PFW pads and m105 on my UDM. Reason for this combo is because I tried to tackle some similar scratches on my protege with 6" orange pads and m105...but no luck.



Anyways, my real question is how do I know when it is time to stop working on the scratches, so as not to go through the clear coat? I have read other members saying that this combo worked so well that they were tempted to keep going, but stopped because they didn't want to over-thin the clear. I definitely want to get the scratches out as best I can, so how do I know when to stop?
 
Without a paint thickness gauge, it's really hard to say "yup, I'm at the limit. I should stop now." Without a gauge, it's all a crap shoot. Experience does help, but it's not fool proof. Especially since you don't know what kind of polishing history the car has.



With a rotary, I would really hesitate to do more than three applications of M105. Some are going to say that's really conservative, others would say that it's reckless, but that's just me. Todd has shown that you can really remove alot of clear with a DA when going after RIDS, so be careful. If it were me, I'd hit it twice with M105 (then SIP, then UF) then fill in anything that remained with a good glaze and cover it with a nuba. Pretty good compromise between being aggressive/conservative. Just make sure that he knows the scratches will be visible again once the LSP/glaze wears off. :)
 
Superbee's process is good. Just tell your boss that you'll be able to make the scratches less noticable but not completely remove them unless he wants to risk cc failure.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Todd has shown that you can really remove alot of clear with a DA when going after RIDS, so be careful.
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Forgive me, but RIDS? Also, M105 has a fast working time right? If you were using a PC/UDM with it, all that you should really need assuming good conditions, not in hot sun, cool surface, etc... M105 should be ready to come off after 1 or 2 up/downs and side to side passes right?



I'm going to try M105 on my moms swirled up 2002 Suburban, and I don't want to remove to much clear, my only solace is that GM clear is so rediculously hard that I hope M105 wont remove MORE than I need to take care of the swirls, and that it'll remove just enough.
 
Chris223 said:
I'm going to try M105 on my moms swirled up 2002 Suburban, and I don't want to remove to much clear, my only solace is that GM clear is so rediculously hard that I hope M105 wont remove MORE than I need to take care of the swirls, and that it'll remove just enough.
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While some GM clears may very well be hard (Corvettes from what I hear), if the Suburban clear is anything like that found on a Yukon I would say it isn't very hard at all. My sister has a Yukon that I did a full correction on and I found the paint to be very workable.
 
GM *METALLICS* seem to be generally very hard.. I wouldn't necessarily say the same for their solids.



EDIT: And RIDS is Random Isolated Deep Scratches
 
Chris223 said:
Forgive me, but RIDS? Also, M105 has a fast working time right? If you were using a PC/UDM with it, all that you should really need assuming good conditions, not in hot sun, cool surface, etc... M105 should be ready to come off after 1 or 2 up/downs and side to side passes right? Yeah, if that much. You'll have somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds of working time. M95 is easier to use, has almost the same cut, finishes nicer, and costs much less. Might want to pick up a bottle. ;)



I'm going to try M105 on my moms swirled up 2002 Suburban, and I don't want to remove to much clear, my only solace is that GM clear is so rediculously hard that I hope M105 wont remove MORE than I need to take care of the swirls, and that it'll remove just enough.
Click to expand...



drew.haynes said:
GM *METALLICS* seem to be generally very hard.. I wouldn't necessarily say the same for their solids.



EDIT: And RIDS is Random Isolated Deep Scratches
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Yeah, I did an 02 Suburban a few months ago that was metallic silver. OMG, it had hard paint. Yet as clnfrk mentions, GM paints aren't *all* hard. It really seems to vary between colors and product lines.
 
Mindflux said:
Gee Bee,



Tell us how you really feel about M95 ;)
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Nah... I don't have the voice for it. I'd have to rent the guy.. oh, what's his name??? the guy from the OxyClean ads that yells the whole time... Billy something... Yeah, well, he's the *only* one capable of adequately expressing my passion for M95. Well, him and possibly Robin Leech.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Nah... I don't have the voice for it. I'd have to rent the guy.. oh, what's his name??? the guy from the OxyClean ads that yells the whole time... Billy something... Yeah, well, he's the *only* one capable of adequately expressing my passion for M95. Well, him and possibly Robin Leech.
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Oh Cmon now. You're just being modest. All you'd need is a beard or English accent.
 
Mindflux said:
Oh Cmon now. You're just being modest. All you'd need is a beard or English accent.
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Hey, we could get Bigpikle for the English Accent part! "Right then.... Mahgwyah's Em Ninety and Five. Good show."
 
brownj218 said:
...Anyways, my real question is how do I know when it is time to stop working on the scratches, so as not to go through the clear coat?
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Note that it's not a matter of going through the clear, but rather of not taking off more than 0.3-0.5 mils (that's 0.0003-0.0005") which sure isn't much. Take off too much and it'll look fine...for a while.. and then it'll start to have serious issues that'll require repainting.



drew.haynes said:
..GM *METALLICS* seem to be generally very hard.. I wouldn't necessarily say the same for their solids...
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Yeah, that's what I've found. The solid black rent-a-Suburban wasn't that bad, but my old pewter metallic Blazer and my current Carbon Metallic Denali XL are both quite hard (not like the Audis, but not soft by any means).
 
Yea my moms suburban is the pewter metallic I think. It's that metallic light gold, they also had it on Camaro's IIRC. My GP is Galaxy silver which is like a metallic silver, and all I know is SSR2.5/orange did hardly anything last year. I plan to be as careful as possible with the 105. And try it in a small test area first. I'm going to do it with a white pad on my PC, probably a 5.5" LC CCS pad.
 
Chris223 said:
.. I plan to be as careful as possible with the 105. And try it in a small test area first. I'm going to do it with a white pad on my PC, probably a 5.5" LC CCS pad.
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I'd probably go with a 4" pad myself. Smaller is better when it comes to harsh stuff .
 
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