Bill,
There have been some great suggestions and links for info that'll help. This looks like arm speed more than anything. You mentioned "5" as your buffer speed and that should be OK, might even be able to bump it up to 5½. Didn't catch the pads and size you are using in the thread. If they are 6½'s it's gonna' take higher speeds on the PC to keep the pad moving.
Your paint can come out flawless with the pads and material you have, just slow down and work on technique.
For priming the pad make sure to wear gloves. Start by giving it a whirl and start on the outside with a slow constant stream making a spiral all the way to about ½" from the center. Lay your index finger across the pad and take your other hand and slowly turn it, forcing the material into the pores. Once it's all worked in check it for any dry spots and apply in every place you see one. For that matter, you can give it a whirl in the opposite direction and again put a spiral on it. Working it all in with your thumbs till you see a nice even distribution a good ½" down throughout the pad.
Working with 105 is tricky (as you've noticed) and if it's not working for you
just grab a bottle of Ultimate Compound. It'll cut almost as good and work what feels like forever. If you still want to work with 105 one trick I've found that if you prime the pad with UC you'll get much improved workability from the beginning. AFTER IT IS PRIMED you don't need anything more than 3 pea sized drops about ½" to ¾" in from the outside edge to start on your panel.
Turn the speed down to 2 and do a really quick pass over your area, making sure it's all covered. If it's not covered by your "pea primers" then your area is too large. Do not use more 105, just reduce the size of your working area.
When looking at the revolution speed you need a MINIMUM of 2 ~ 3 revolutions per second. Then with arm speed you should move s-l-o-w-l-y as little as 1" per second all the while keeping the revolution count up. Notice how the pad feels when you first start working the area you've pre-spread. Notice how it spins, how it drags across the surface. What'll happen with 105 is you will feel the pad start to 'catch' or 'jump' rather than keep moving at the speed you started at. Adding more just makes it worse as far as clumping up! You might need to literally work an area only 12" ~ 15" square at most until you get the 'feel' of it.
Another tool that REALLY works in your favor is a pad spur and a good brush. After every couple of section passes, hit it with the spur. After a section completion grab some pad cleaner (like XMT), give it a few pumps and work it in with your thumbs then turn the speed up to 3½~ 4 and give it a good whirl with the spur. Do the "clean on the fly" with a CLEAN THICK towel then adjust the speed where when you hit it with the brush you see it getting cleaner. If you do it right it'll almost look like new.
Turn it on again and grab it with your towel. It needs to be cleaned between sections!
From there it's back to the 3 pea sized drops with every section you start. Count your section passes and repeat it exactly each time. What you might try is only doing 2 slow section passes and see how it wipes off. Then 3 and check it. Same thing for 4, 5, etc. At some point it'll get where it just doesn't want to come off. That's where it's gone too far.
Another thing is not only cleaning the pad(s) but changing them, a LOT. That's the bad news.... If you didn't change your pad often that may be where your problem is. Of course I'm just guessing here.
Looking at the swirls you have you're gonna' be putting them to work and the stuff they pick up will induce marring. Use 1 on the trunk, period and throw it in your Snappy clean bucket. Then 2~3 on the hood, 2~3 (or more) on the roof, and probably 2 or more on each side. The good news is once you get the heavy lifting done and move to 205 you can make the pads go further. Now not where you can get the entire car done with 3~4 but at least it doesn't take 8~10~12.
I know you're thinking "this dude is crazy if he thinks I'm going to change pads that often" and I don't blame ya'. It is a lot but I've found out the hard way. I honestly do NOT think it's possible to do buffing and polishing without at least half a dozen of each color pad you might need. Not that the car, any car, can be done with only 6 pads! But at least it can be broken up into smaller sections that allow you to stay busy all day
and get the area you are working on completed, from start to finish.
That being said; one way to get by with say half a dozen of each color/cut/use is just break the thing up into sections that you can do with the pads on hand. Take the horizontal sections for instance, or the front or rear (hood and fenders or trunk and quarter panels) perhaps. Plan out your work for the day, use up whatever pads you have and throw them in your cleaner as you go. Once you're done with the compounding stage take a break and go rinse out all those pads and pat them down between some big ol' soft towels and lay them out to dry. Then go ahead with the polishing stage. Same thing afterwards, like washing hair, rinse, lather, repeat. :laughing: The good thing is the next day (if you got them pre-dried good enough the day/night before) all of them will be ready to go the next morning. :xyxthumbs:
rops:
