What polishing method do you use???

B

breakneckvtec

New member
When polishing with your PC do you just follow the direction of the airflow over the car or do you go in a crosshatch, what?



Also I have alot of buffer swirls, how I got them I wont say, but it wasnt from me. I need these damn things OUT!!! My plan is this for swirls:

FI II yellow pad, repeat if necessary until swirls are gone

3M SMR, yellow pad



For shine:

Blackfire

P21S/S100



Is my method for attacking my swirls good, or flawed, any advice for a novice before I go out and do this? Any tips, tricks, things to watch out for? Feel free to share anything you can to help me get the damn things OUT!!!
 
For your final polishing I would use a white polishing pad, not the yellow cutting pad. The cutting pad isn't really intended for finishing work and won't leave the surface as fine as a polishing pad would.



Good Luck!
 
I had a lot of buffer swirls on my car from me experimenting with a neighbours rotary. For the most part they came out with my PC and some meg's scratch-X. I still have some minor ones that were there before the rotary but they're not noticable. I have the same car as you too. If you could, make a post or message me with the results.



thanx
 
I will most definetly get back to you with my results. Anybody else here have some comments to help me out....please. Any experiences with FI II that may ease me a bit about its ability to take out some minor swirls and buffer swirls?



A question about swirls while we are at it. In direct sunlight I need to look for them to see them. Is it ever possible to get it to the point where you look down on it and dont see swirls, I know you cant get all of them, but for the most part I mean. Or at certain angles with certain light you will always be able to see something no matter what?
 
As far as the direction, I go front to back and also side to side. It's not like hand polishing because the pad is going its own way. So following the airflow only doesn't really have any benefit I can see.
 
FI-II was very easy when I used it. It seems to break down faster than SMR also, so you don't have to keep going over the area as much. As Showroom said, use a polishing pad after the FI-II with a cutting pad.



I used just FI-II on our old Infiniti G20t (99) which had all kinds of awful scratches and deep swirls on the hood. I just did one coat of FI-II with the speed of 4 on the PC, and 90% of them came right out. I didn't apply any SMR cause I didn't have any for light colored cars. :p



I think you should be fine with FI-II, SMR, and then some wax.



Good luck!



- Anthony
 
The wait for the products is killing me, I am trying not to worry but my biggest fear is that the swirls just wont come out. They appear light to medium. Thanks for the help, I cant wait to get out there and do this, my next posts hopefully wont be..."the swirls didnt come out"
 
Im not sure if it matters at all what direction you go in because the pad is moving in all directions anyway. But I do back and forth, side to side, as seen in Davids buffer video.
 
Where can I get Davids buffer video?



Now that you guys put it to me like that, it makes sense, I will stick to a pattern like this #
 
Thanks, I am DL it now. I appreciate all this great advice and help. To those who suggested to use the polishing pad after the FI II I will be doing that too, thanks.
 
I watched the video, it was very informitive and answered alot of my questions, as well as put some fears to rest. The only thing that bothers me is I wish he did it on a car that didnt look great to begin with, I would have loved to have seen some before with swirls and after without swirls.
 
breakneckvtec said:
I watched the video, it was very informitive and answered alot of my questions, as well as put some fears to rest. The only thing that bothers me is I wish he did it on a car that didnt look great to begin with, I would have loved to have seen some before with swirls and after without swirls.
Click to expand...
Actually, the car just seemed to look good. David said he went maximum strength on the first pad (wool) because the paint was badly pitted and needed some serious cutting action to fix it. This is discussed in Alboston's PC swirl removal article on the left side of the main page....
 
I find SMR a litle too fine for most situations and go straight for something a little more coarse.



If you fancy, finish up with SMR before you start to finish the paint, but youll prolly find it doesnt need it.



Any small marks left that are too deep to polish out will be filled in somewhat with the topping.



O yeah ... dont forget to clay!!!
 
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