Swirl/scratch removal on single stage paint?

[clnfrk]

I am currently working on a 1980 Mercedes 450SL that is part of my household. I am pretty sure that the paint is original. I have tried a multitude of different products/pad combos with the rotary and PC. I would say the most aggressive polishes that I have are 3M Perfect It rubbing compound, Sonus SFX1, Optimum compound and Poorboys SSR 2.5. I have tried all of these and it seems that I have the most success with the 3M with a yellow LC Pad. But, even with this combo whether by rotary or PC the process seems to take forever and quite a bit of pressure and speed is required.



The improvement is definitely there and in some spots the swirls are virtually gone, but I need to find something that works alot quicker. Should I be using a wool pad on this type of paint? I would have to try and find someone who sells these locally since all I have ever needed up to this point are of the foam variety.



Also, on the sections of the car that I have already buffed, I noticed a bunch of small raised bumps. Anyone know what this could be?

 

[Accumulator]

My mother had a '80 450SL, its factory paint was kinda hard for ss. What color is the one you're working on?



The raised bumps make we wonder if that area was repainted, never saw that on factory MB finishes of that era :nixweiss



Noting that I err on the side of caution and place a high value on keeping things original, the 3M/yellow/rotary is as aggressive as *I* would get. Sometimes it just takes a while; my '97 M3 is taking many passes with the rotary/cutting pad/H-T EC.



Actually, I'd give serious thought to how perfect you oughta shoot for with the Benz, I'd rather have thick but imperfect paint on it.

 

[clnfrk]

The car is brown. I actually got it looking alot better than it did. I don't think the car has ever been detailed before. Although nowhere near perfect, the car shines now more than it ever did and I swear that it ran better than it ever did afterwards also. It was kept outdoors for a long period of time almost never seeing a wash or wax, but now stays in the garage.



What I finally ended up going with is Optimum Compound via rotary/yellow pad~2200-2300rpm followed by FPII via rotary/white pad ~1500rpm. I then topped with S100.



I took some quick pics of the finished product...

If you look at the last pic of the hood, you can see the bumps in the reflection from the light that I mentioned earlier.



And one pic of my car...

 

[Accumulator]

clnfrk- Seeing that pic of your BMW makes me feel guilty for not working on mine lately



The Benz intrigues me...the tape stripes are non-factory, and I don't see the factory, painted stripes The factory stripes are really pretty tough, not like somebody would've just wetsanded them off to put on the current stripes. The texture really *does* show on the hood, and I've never seen that kind of texture on a Benz of that vintage. Between the striping and the texture, IMO (and we're just guessing here...I'd have to see it in person) it's probably a repaint.



Also, it's a brown *metallic*. Did you get any pigment transfer to your pads? MB first stared using clear on their metallic paints right around that time, it was just two very light coats of clear lacquer and it was pretty fragile stuff (you don't see too many metallic Benzes from those years with the original paint). True *single stage* Benzes in the 80s were the nonmetallic colors (they didn't stick with ss metallics like some other makers did) but I forget exactly which year they started clearing them (before '83 though).



Anyhow, I bet it *is* looking a lot better and yeah, they even seem to *run* better once they're looking nice And I commend you on your rotary skills, doing it at those speeds without it biting you (or rather biting the Benz's paint ) is good work.