I think I'm installing holograms on my car - what am I doing wrong?

S

someidiot

New member
My wife's car was recently repaired, and the body shop was kind enough to hologram the side of her car for me.



I took my GG with HD Uno on an orange pad to it. I'd say I initially had an 80-90% improvement in the holograms and most small swirls that I could see with my flashlight. I was hoping to get rid of some of the bigger holograms left, so I did a second pass in the same area and noticed about 3-4x worse holograms than after the first pass.



I hadn't changed my technique. The machine and pad were obviously a little bit warmer since I had been polishing around.



Is there anything in particular that causes the holograms? Too much polish? Dirty pad? Not enough polish? Poor technique/moving too fast?
 
Dirty pad, wrong pad, and moving too fast are certainly strong possibilities. That said, you either have to have very soft paint or be doing something pretty wrong to get them with a DA. Whose orange pad are you using?
 
seemingly unlikely to induce swirl marks (halograms) with a D.A.. Can you please post some pictures so we can see exactly what is happening?
 
Dan said:
Dirty pad, wrong pad, and moving too fast are certainly strong possibilities. That said, you either have to have very soft paint or be doing something pretty wrong to get them with a DA. Whose orange pad are you using?
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it's from HD. 3D International, LLC :: Buffing Pads and DA Polisher :: Foam Pad Cutting Orange 5.5"



it's also the area that was repainted. the rest of the car's holograms cleared up pretty well.



I ended up going over the area again with much less polish and it cleared a lot of the problem up. Unfortunately I can't capture what I had done to the paint now.
 
Yep, a cutting pad is for cutting, not polishing or finishing. UNO is great stuff, but it is pad dependent.
 
Plus, Uno just doesn't always finish out that great, at least not for me. No, not even with finishing pads, not even on hard clear. Sure, "user error!" but I'm not the dullest tool in the shed ;) so I just finish up with something else.
 
Accumulator said:
Plus, Uno just doesn't always finish out that great, at least not for me. No, not even with finishing pads, not even on hard clear. Sure, "user error!" but I'm not the dullest tool in the shed ;) so I just finish up with something else.
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Can't get UNO to work for me either. Doesn't matter anyway because HD Cut and HD Polish are both really good.
 
Hmm, thanks for the opinions. Good to know it's not just because I'm a beginner, though I suspect that is playing a role.



Maybe I'll have to rethink the products I'm using.
 
with a different pad?



I think I just need to figure out what I'm going for. If I want to do full correction I need something more aggressive than what I'm using. I get a nice improvement but it's not as swirl-free as I'd like. Then I need to finish it better as well.



Should I be getting an aggressive correction with that orange pad and Uno? With 1 pass I was getting ~60% correction on a hammered flat black Nissan
 
someidiot- Yeah, I think you need both more and less aggressive products.



I wouldn't extrapolate *too* much from how things went on the Nissan...just different.



And for the Speed or Polish, it oughta finish out a lot better as long as you use a polishing or finishing pad. I *never* expect an Orange Light Cut pad to finish out very well.
 
Accumulator said:
Plus, Uno just doesn't always finish out that great, at least not for me. No, not even with finishing pads, not even on hard clear. Sure, "user error!" but I'm not the dullest tool in the shed ;) so I just finish up with something else.
Click to expand...



I'll admit that UNO doesn't finish out as well as a good finishing polish BUT it also doesn't install holograms. OP is expecting a flawless finish with a cutting pad and UNO. That's asking for a lot.
 
Dan- Yeah, I failed to address that in my first reply (kinda covered it in my last one).



People do say that they can finish out OK with aggressive pads and/or products, but it never works out that great for me.



Those "holograms" do make me :think: a bit as I consider holograms to be a rotary-induced phenomenon, but I'm guessing that lots of "imperfect finishes" can get described as "holograms".
 
Dan said:
I'll admit that UNO doesn't finish out as well as a good finishing polish BUT it also doesn't install holograms. OP is expecting a flawless finish with a cutting pad and UNO. That's asking for a lot.
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Part of the reason I went with UNO was so many people were saying you could get aggressive cut but it also finished down well. I think I just didn't realize I wasn't using the right pad for it. Really the concern here was that I had corrected holograms but then installed a bunch, so I was curious where it is I went wrong between the two passes.



I also have big dusting issues with UNO that it seems few other people have. I'm sure I have a lot to learn still about how much product to use and how to properly care for my pads.
 
Accumulator said:
Dan- Yeah, I failed to address that in my first reply (kinda covered it in my last one).



People do say that they can finish out OK with aggressive pads and/or products, but it never works out that great for me.



Those "holograms" do make me :think: a bit as I consider holograms to be a rotary-induced phenomenon, but I'm guessing that lots of "imperfect finishes" can get described as "holograms".
Click to expand...



There's definitely a chance that these aren't really holograms and I just don't know how to describe them. Basically when I shined my flashlight on it, I could see "trails" to either side of the reflection. Does that make any sense?
 
someidiot- Yeah, that makes *perfect* sense and it sounds like that product/pad combo is just too aggressive for a final finish. I bet you'll be able to clear that up pretty easily with a finishing polish on a less aggressive pad.



I usually call such issues "pseudo-holograms" for lack of a better term, for exactly the reason you said "holograms". Heh heh, getting too wrapped up in the semantics makes me come across as even more pedantic than I usually am :o So I'd kinda backed off on it for this thread.
 
OP: I can't attest for halograms or DA-swirl-induced problems but having used HDspeed and my HD DA for the first time a few days ago, I can say that dusting (and I can only speak for HDspeed but would imagine this extrapolates to HD line of pdcts) was an issue for me on day 1. However, day 2 went much better as I reduced the size of my "pea sizes drops" and overall quantity. I was also 'cleaning on the fly' more often with a white terry cloth. I didn't 'see' any significant residue transferred on the cloth coming from my pad (compared to the autogeek video abt the technique), but i imagined it helped. I can't say I was "100% dust free" and I would see a couple of 'dust lines' on the outside of my patterns now and again, but certainly much less than on day1!
 
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