Single stage aged paint. Tried my products with little success. Advice appreciated.

W

wolfe

New member
The car is a 1989 porsche with (I believe) single-stage alpine white paint. As far as I know the paint is original. I'm most curious to know what the issue I'm seeing with the paint is called. Lots of photos I've seen show fuzzy reflections due to all the fine scratching, but this is almost that the surface looks 'lumpy'.



I tried to get a couple of pictures without too much luck. The first one shows the slight haziness of the paint. I had to put that water bottle cap on the hood to get it to focus.



http://i.imgur.com/KW4zxQX.jpg



The second one is a reflection of the light fixture in my garage. It has a knockdown ceiling texture which doesn't help here unfortunately, but hopefully this picture shows that the haze isn't quite as bad as the first one.



http://i.imgur.com/ZnNSMdn.jpg



I've clayed the hood and got next to no dirt on the clay.



Next I tried a few passes with Menzerna power finish polish with a white lake country flat pad (on a griot's DA polisher). It didn't look any different after this so I then tried Menzerna super intensive polish with an orange lake country flat pad. This also didn't have much effect. When I removed the tape, I noticed the paint seemed a little darker in the area I'd polished, but the surface quality/reflection was unchanged.



Am I going about this in completely the wrong way, or is this just not something that can likely be corrected very easily? The car looks clean enough and ok, but if I can get a clearer reflection in the paint that would be very nice.



Since the polish and car are both white, I'm a bit worried that I can't easily tell how much or how little paint I'm removing with the pads.



Any advice would be much appreciated.
 
Sounds like you are seeing orange peel. Normal, can be reduced with sanding or a denim pad.



As far as noticing a difference, it is hard to see in a white car. You might need something stronger, even orange pads struggle on harder paints. Are you working it enough? Is your pressure adequate? Do you have any other polishes or pads to try out?
 
Thank you. It sounds like perhaps I went too cautious with my choices of pad/polish then?



I'm probably going to do a horrible job of explaining what I'm seeing but here goes.



On my other white car (clear coated white BMW) I definitely see the orange peel texture, but the 'edges' of the items in the reflection are still sharp (just distorted). On this one, I see the texture and the edges are blurry/hazy.



So far I've tried the super intensive polish on an orange pad (speed 4) with very light pressure only.



I've tried power finish on a white pad with moderate then light pressure.



(the white pad looked quite dirty and yellow afterwards, and both pads had a lot of white on them - could be polish though).



I also tried the super finish fine polish with a black pad, and light pressure.



I made probably 10 passes of the 'grid' or so each time.



I also tried some Meguiar's scratch-x but that was by hand with a foam pad.
 
It could be you are too conservative, but without seeing oreasuring the paint I can't say "go hard core". I usually apply significant pressure and 4-5 full passes (fully working the polish and wiping off) during compounding. I also use significantly stronger pads like surbuf or microfiber, and significantly more aggresive polishes like m101 or m105.



On an ossi blue '68 i did dozens of passes with mf pads and d300 (less dust, but less cut), measurig between every few passes (did not see much removal, moderate paint).



You will be pulling out a lot of oxidized paint, so clean your pad after each pass, and change the pad after each panel (pressure wash, dump in bucket, or other thorough cleaning method).
 
Try the sip/orange with more pressure, feel the machine bog down but not to make it stop. Kick it up to 5, maybe even 6 if you feel the pressure is holding down the speed. Do 2 passes like this with tape and compare sides against the lighter passes side.
 
I just did a white single stage Toyota, and after several combo's I found that M101, LC Orange pad worked best. You'll have to do a 2x2 or so section, stop, clean the pad (compressed air works best) and start again. Tips - a little Megs Final Inspection (light mist) on the pad helped, and be prepared to go through some pads!

And that was with a PCXP.
 
Thank you guys. It does sound like I was being way too easy on it. Which would make sense given that the 'after' results were not really any different.



When you say 2 passes, do you mean do the up/down/left/right grid motion with the polisher two full times, or do it multiple times, clean everything, and do it multiple times again?



The only other thing that might be worth mentioning is that I do see a definite line where the tape was. I'm guessing that's somewhat normal but thought I'd mention it in case it's an indicator that I was taking off a lot of material.



Really appreciate the advice here, thank you all again.
 
To me a "pass" is one full breakdown of the polish, taking as many arm movements up/down/side to side as it takes to work the polish through.



The tape line should be noticeable, but it does mean you are removing material. In some cases I like to move the tape line or not use tape. Going too deep could mean the tape line will always be visible, although probably not an issue in this case. The "tape line ghosting" usually happens when people try too hard to get an insane 50/50 shot ;)
 
Thank you again.



Is there an easy way to tell when the polish is broken down? I get the impression this is something that experience and feel will tell you, but if there's any signs or tricks to look out for I'd appreciate any tips.
 
wolfe said:
Thank you again.



Is there an easy way to tell when the polish is broken down? I get the impression this is something that experience and feel will tell you, but if there's any signs or tricks to look out for I'd appreciate any tips.
Click to expand...



A non-linear abrasive that require kinetic friction and applied pressure, while the majority of polishes on the market use a form of diminishing (non- linear) abrasive, which you polish until it turns translucent; when a polish "flashes" from a liquid paste to a light semi-dry haze, much like a coating of Vaseline® the diminishing polish has then broken down and is ready for removal.
 
I've found that Optimum's spray paint levelers (Hyper Polish and Hyper Compound) along with microfiber pads are very effective in removing oxidation even though neither was designed with single stage paint in mind.



You can see on this guard's red 1989 Porsche how red the pad was getting (and that was running it over a nylon brush and a dampened MF towel after each pass) from one section:







Wasn't the most oxidized one I've worked on but turned out pretty good:







 
wolfe- FWIW, generally speaking single stage white is the hardest paint that there is.



And I wouldn't give any thought to the orangepeel unless you notice that it's going away, which would indicate that you're taking off a whole lot of paint (but orangepeel reduction via Random Orbital is a fairly rare occurrence).
 
Accumulator said:
wolfe- FWIW, generally speaking single stage white is the hardest paint that there is.
Click to expand...





Didn't Mike Phillips say that if you have single stage white paint, learn to love swirls? :lol
 
Scottwax said:
Didn't Mike Phillips say that if you have single stage white paint, learn to love swirls? :lol
Click to expand...



Yeah, I remember that!



It shouldn't be all *that* hard to work with given todays products, but back before the days of b/c it was a serious challenge.
 
Sounds like you are seeing orange peel. Normal, can be reduced with sanding or a denim pad.



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