How to Get Deep Gloss

[bravozulu]

1994 Toyota Camry. Repainted white (same color) in December.
painted on a cool day.

1-Day did the job. Their medium grade Sinclair Polyurethane. They advised letting the coat cure for 90 days. I've restored cars, and had them painted. This painter earned a B+ in my opinion.

Good flow out. Few areas with minor orange peel. Mostly, the finish looks like molded plastic. The car is always kept covered. Southern California beach town. Blasting heat late in the day , fog in mornings.

This morning I clayed the car. Then rubbed out the paint with Cobra pads and Griot's #4 polish. Festool DA buffer. In some areas, the #4 wasn't making a difference, so I backed down to a #3 for the areas with light orange peel. Done under shade. I'm not happy.

Even on the hood, the paint doesn't have that depth that I want. The visual impression is a little 'south' of a new Detroit car. When I sprayed antique cars with lacquer, the paint "talked" to me. It signaled for wet sanding, or courser/finer rubbing compound.

What is my next step? (I took some digital photos but they don't clearly an unacceptable finish --- maybe early evening light would be good). I plan to seal the finish with that German product (black and red bottle).

Unhappy in Santa Monica (and worn out, too)

 

[Blackthorn One]

Urethane is a lot tougher than lacquer. Its less hard, though. Have you worked on urethane before? I'm guessing that you sanded out the orange peel already. The fact that it is white makes it hard to see your progress. Did you do a test spot first of a 12 inch by 12 inch area? That helps you determine what will work on a car without doing the whole thing and failing and getting too frustrated. Sounds like you need to try a test spot and use a swirl remover and see how it goes, and then go coarser if need be until you get it smooth enough and then go finer.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Did you do a test spot first of a 12 inch by 12 inch area? That helps you determine what will work on a car without doing the whole thing and failing and getting too frustrated.

Well spoken. Test the pads, products and process to one small area first. Make sure you can make one small area look GREAT before going over the entire car.

This morning I clayed the car. Then rubbed out the paint with,

• Cobra pads.
• Griot's #4 polish.
• Festool DA buffer.
• In some areas, the #4 wasn't making a difference, so I backed down to a #3 for the areas with light orange peel.

I haven't used the Griot's line of polishes since I was doing Test Spots on cars in the local wrecking yard for the chapter on How to do a Test Spot for my how-to book.

Looking at this page,

Griot's Garage Set of 4 Machine Polishes


The #3 and #4 are Fine Cut and Ultra Fine Cut polishes. You're not going to get a lot of abrading power out of these.

Also, the Cobra pads are kind of on the thick side, I've never used a Festool DA Polisher so here's a question,

Could you easily see that the pad was rotating when you were doing your buffing work?
Also,

Is this a single stage white or did you clear over it?

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Video: Mark your backing plate to make it easy to see pad rotation

Here's a quick video that show how and why to mark your backing plate to see and monitor pad rotation while doing any correction or polishing steps.

[video=youtube_share;QM8PnDooZP8&hd=1"]How To Check Pad Rotation on a DA Polisher -...[/video]​

Anytime you're abrading the paint with any type of DA Polisher that uses the free floating spindle bearing design it's important that the pad is both oscillating AND rotating.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

You might have to hit this paint with a true compound and a wool pad on a rotary buffer to smooth it over and amp up the gloss. Then re-polish to remove any swirls and then wax.

 

[glen e]

You might have to hit this paint with a true compound and a wool pad on a rotary buffer to smooth it over and amp up the gloss. Then re-polish to remove any swirls and then wax.

This is exactly what I had to do when I had a spoiler repainted with urethane. I started with a da and light polish to no real avail. So I wnt nuclear with wool, rotary and compound and 5 min later it was perfect gloss.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

This is exactly what I had to do when I had a spoiler repainted with urethane. I started with a da and light polish to no real avail. So I wnt nuclear with wool, rotary and compound and 5 min later it was perfect gloss.

You went nuclear!


Love it...


:laughing:

 

[bravozulu]

Thanks for all the advice. It's real late here in California and I just got in. I made a few errors in my posting. The pads were Lake Country, not Cobra.

I asked the same question on the Festool Forum and learned that my machine is not a DA device in the sense that American equipment is. The Festool has a lever on the side to determine the mode. It is either Rotating. Or it oscillates (ROS). Not both.

So I began in the oscillating mode, which was too fine for my purposes. I should have abraded more paint, and then, as I sensed the Griots compound was breaking down, switched to the ROS mode to finish it off. If my understanding is correct, the Porter Cable and other models transition from one mode to the other depending on the downward pressure exerted.

I was merely bouncing along on the surface and not really having much affect on the paint. I looked at the paint this afternoon after shadows starting falling. The areas not touched by me had more gloss than the ones I'd worked on.

There's nothing like knowing your equipment!!!!! It doesn't help that the instructions for all Festool equipment typify German products. Lots of warnings from lawyers about avoiding electrocution or dropping the machine on your foot. You know, to avoid lawsuits.

But very few words about how the tool works or how to operated it. Stick figures and drawings. Crazy. So DA in European terminology is not quite the same as in North American terms. If I had only known.

Time to buff the car again.

Thanks.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

The Festool has a lever on the side to determine the mode. It is either Rotating. Or it oscillates (ROS). Not both.


Time to buff the car again.

Thanks.

Put it on the rotating mode and compound the paint to a high gloss, you'll probably want something more aggressive than the #3 and #4, if you can get some Meguiar's M105, Ultimate Compound or Optimum Compound II, all three of these are exceptionally good compounds that finish out as though they were polishes.

Then after the compounding on the rotary side, "TRY" to polish using the oscillating option, mark your backing plate. If you cannot keep the pad rotating and oscillating at the same time with downward pressure then you're not doing anything and you might as well rub the paint out by hand to remove any swirls left by the compounding step in rotary mode on your tool.


If the Festool doesn't have enough power to maintain pad rotation under pressure in the oscillating mode then simply finish out in the rotary buffer mode with a soft foam finishing pad and a light polish.