Nothihng else to do today, so I played around with
the Optimum polish on my dad's daily driver. The car is
on it's last legs, so now I have a ready available
guinea pig almost whenever I need it
I started off with a decon of car. As the
car has never really been paint cleaned (almost 10
years), I knew this was going to be a job. Surprisingly,
the decon kit did manage to do short work of the main
sticky grime, but it did not get all of it off.
The biggest claim about the Decon kit was that it
removed claying from the process. This is not quite true.
The FK1 decon does work, but......
to get optimum finish, a clay job is still recommended,
even if you already deconed. The big advantages
I've found is that the clay lasts longer because a lot of the
grime is washed off during the decon step, and the
surface always feels slicker when both methods are used
as opposed to just doing either one alone. This is especially
true on cars that are in very poor shape like my dad's car.
When the decon is done as the inital wash, the addtional
time to clay, or spot clay, should only add about 15-20 mins.
To me, sacrificing the time to these steps, helps me
recoupe time in the later stages like polishing, and waxing.
Now the pictures...
First is the unfinished trunk after the decon and clay.
Next, I applied a stripe of polish to work half the trunk.
The polish has a semi-thick consistency, but it does not
feel oily or gritty.
I then used an Edge 2000 green pad on my Mak Rotary.
I smeared the polish around the section, then ran the
machine @ 600 rpm to prime the pad. Ramped up the
machine to just under 1500 rpm applying medium pressure
during the initial passes, the lightening up to let the
weight of the machine do the rest.
Anthony was right about this polish, it does have a long
work time. In fact, I really have no idea how many passes
I did make. I really wanted to see how long I could run
before the product started to powder. 3m, PB SSRs',
Menzerna (excluding MicroPolish) , and Hi-Temp, would
powder a lot quicker than this stuff did, using the same
amount of product. Also, after running the machine on
the paint for such a good while, I touched the paint, and
felt it to be warm. If I used any of the other above
mentioned products, I am sure the panel would have been
hot.
Next pic shows how well the polished managed to knock
down the haze and swirling. Unfortunately, I could not
do much for some of the deeper scratches. I'm convinced,
however that if I had a yellow pad, I could have made short
work of a lot more scratches, and cleared up the reflection
more.
Final pic shows a "final polish" with an Edge 2k blue pad.
This time, I applied 2 stripes per section, smeared, and
ran the machine @ 1300rpm. Like before, I applied med
pressure for the inital passes, then let the machine weight
do the rest. Once again, I continued making passes until
I felt heat. However, the heat wasn't from the paint, but
the buffer, so I stopped. Obviously, it looks a lot better than
before.
As already mentioned, the pad dictates the cut. With
just the 2 pads, i was able to reduce the swirls, and improve
the appearance. Using softer pads like Meguiar's polishing
and finishing pads, would definitely up the gloss factor.
Something else that I did not think about until after,
was the need to really prime the pad good. The first
pass I think was just ok, because there was product
on the pad, but the pad was not quite primed up yet.
However, in the "final polish" step, you can see that there
is big difference on how the panel looks. Maintaining a layer
of product betwen the pad and the panel is the key.
Have yet to try it with a PC, so that will be my next
experiment.
I still need some more time to really learn this stuff. But as of
now, Optimum polish looks like a keeper:xyxthumbs
the Optimum polish on my dad's daily driver. The car is
on it's last legs, so now I have a ready available
guinea pig almost whenever I need it
I started off with a decon of car. As the
car has never really been paint cleaned (almost 10
years), I knew this was going to be a job. Surprisingly,
the decon kit did manage to do short work of the main
sticky grime, but it did not get all of it off.
The biggest claim about the Decon kit was that it
removed claying from the process. This is not quite true.
The FK1 decon does work, but......
to get optimum finish, a clay job is still recommended,
even if you already deconed. The big advantages
I've found is that the clay lasts longer because a lot of the
grime is washed off during the decon step, and the
surface always feels slicker when both methods are used
as opposed to just doing either one alone. This is especially
true on cars that are in very poor shape like my dad's car.
When the decon is done as the inital wash, the addtional
time to clay, or spot clay, should only add about 15-20 mins.
To me, sacrificing the time to these steps, helps me
recoupe time in the later stages like polishing, and waxing.
Now the pictures...
First is the unfinished trunk after the decon and clay.
Next, I applied a stripe of polish to work half the trunk.
The polish has a semi-thick consistency, but it does not
feel oily or gritty.
I then used an Edge 2000 green pad on my Mak Rotary.
I smeared the polish around the section, then ran the
machine @ 600 rpm to prime the pad. Ramped up the
machine to just under 1500 rpm applying medium pressure
during the initial passes, the lightening up to let the
weight of the machine do the rest.
Anthony was right about this polish, it does have a long
work time. In fact, I really have no idea how many passes
I did make. I really wanted to see how long I could run
before the product started to powder. 3m, PB SSRs',
Menzerna (excluding MicroPolish) , and Hi-Temp, would
powder a lot quicker than this stuff did, using the same
amount of product. Also, after running the machine on
the paint for such a good while, I touched the paint, and
felt it to be warm. If I used any of the other above
mentioned products, I am sure the panel would have been
hot.
Next pic shows how well the polished managed to knock
down the haze and swirling. Unfortunately, I could not
do much for some of the deeper scratches. I'm convinced,
however that if I had a yellow pad, I could have made short
work of a lot more scratches, and cleared up the reflection
more.
Final pic shows a "final polish" with an Edge 2k blue pad.
This time, I applied 2 stripes per section, smeared, and
ran the machine @ 1300rpm. Like before, I applied med
pressure for the inital passes, then let the machine weight
do the rest. Once again, I continued making passes until
I felt heat. However, the heat wasn't from the paint, but
the buffer, so I stopped. Obviously, it looks a lot better than
before.
As already mentioned, the pad dictates the cut. With
just the 2 pads, i was able to reduce the swirls, and improve
the appearance. Using softer pads like Meguiar's polishing
and finishing pads, would definitely up the gloss factor.
Something else that I did not think about until after,
was the need to really prime the pad good. The first
pass I think was just ok, because there was product
on the pad, but the pad was not quite primed up yet.
However, in the "final polish" step, you can see that there
is big difference on how the panel looks. Maintaining a layer
of product betwen the pad and the panel is the key.
Have yet to try it with a PC, so that will be my next
experiment.
I still need some more time to really learn this stuff. But as of
now, Optimum polish looks like a keeper:xyxthumbs