Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
1969 Camaro - New Paint - Loaded with Swirls - Can this be fixed by hand?
While I was out of town last week I received an e-mail from Rick telling me he just had is 1969 Camaro painted. He picked it up on Thanksgiving day and discovered the paint was filled with swirls. Here's a pictures of the car.
Rick reached out to me and asked me if the swirls can be removed by hand? He also asked if the paint can be polished now or if some time needs to go by before polishing.
The answers to the above questions are,
Can the swirls be removed by hand?
Yes but it requires MORE skill and technique to hand apply a compound or polish than it does to guide a simple dual action polisher over the paint and let the machine do the work for you. Modern clearcoats are hard in the context of car paint history. (I cover this in my how-to books in the first chapter). The human hand is simply too wimpy to RUB paint for HOURS.
I used to teach hand compounding for Meguiar's from 2002 to 2009. EVERY TIME I would demonstrate the proper technique for hand applying a compound and then would show how to use a SIMPLE and SAFE dual action polisher to do the same thing NO ONE wanted to try to rub their car out by hand. It's really a no brainer. Modern dual action polishers are so safe ANYONE can use one their very first time and professional results.
Can the paint be polished now?
For those reading this that might not understand this question, the reason for the question is because the paint is BRAND NEW. As in freshly sprayed. There's always some confusion in the car hobby about what you can and what you cannot do to fresh paint as it relates to specific products and procedures.
The short answer to the question is "yes". Yes you can polish it now.
The technical answer is some painters, this would be the people that are very knowledgeable about the specific brand of paint they are spraying and how they are mixing it and spraying it, they might wait and they might recommend their customers to wait until a few weeks and even a few months go by to allow the paint to fully set-up and harden. Then any shifting or shrinking that is going to take place will have taken place and thus any sanding, compounding and polishing work that will be performed will be performed to completely stable paint. I have seen fresh paint jobs that have been cut and buffed, (terms used to describe paint that is sanded, compounded and polished), change after some time goes by. By this I mean, after a new paint job was sanded, compounded and polished it looked GREAT! Then after a few weeks go by you see splotchy areas or places where it looks like sanding marks were not removed.
So there can be a case made to allow the paint to fully set-up before doing anything to it. If it were my paint job I would choose this option. In the "production" world, a fresh paint job is usually cut and buffed fairly quickly so the car can be returned to the owner. Some shops will return a car to an owner and say bring it back in a few weeks or a month and then they will do the cut and buff, it just depends on the shop and what's being charged for the paint job.
So to my friend Rick, here's what I suggest....
The swirls you see in the paint job are probably holograms instilled by the shop when they buffed the paint. This is NORMAL. This is the type of work most shops turn out, that is after they paint a cool car like yours they wet sand it to remove any orange peel and then they compound it with a wool pad and a compound and then they use either another wool pad and a polish or a foam pad and a polish to polish the paint. The results look shiny but in good light you can see a scratch pattern inflicted by the single rotating action of a rotary buffer.
At this point you can try to remove the swirls by hand and I will be happy to show you how. Or you can purchase a simple dual action polisher and myself and our forum are more than happy to show you how to use it to remove the swirls.
Since it's already swirled out and I'm assuming the shop cut and buffed the paint there's no harm in proceeding now but if you want you can also wait a few more weeks to allow any changes in the paint to take place and then remove the swirls.
Then after all the swirls are removed we can show you how to keep this wicked looking Camaro looking great all the time.
Just let us know...
While I was out of town last week I received an e-mail from Rick telling me he just had is 1969 Camaro painted. He picked it up on Thanksgiving day and discovered the paint was filled with swirls. Here's a pictures of the car.
Rick reached out to me and asked me if the swirls can be removed by hand? He also asked if the paint can be polished now or if some time needs to go by before polishing.
The answers to the above questions are,
Can the swirls be removed by hand?
Yes but it requires MORE skill and technique to hand apply a compound or polish than it does to guide a simple dual action polisher over the paint and let the machine do the work for you. Modern clearcoats are hard in the context of car paint history. (I cover this in my how-to books in the first chapter). The human hand is simply too wimpy to RUB paint for HOURS.
I used to teach hand compounding for Meguiar's from 2002 to 2009. EVERY TIME I would demonstrate the proper technique for hand applying a compound and then would show how to use a SIMPLE and SAFE dual action polisher to do the same thing NO ONE wanted to try to rub their car out by hand. It's really a no brainer. Modern dual action polishers are so safe ANYONE can use one their very first time and professional results.
Can the paint be polished now?
For those reading this that might not understand this question, the reason for the question is because the paint is BRAND NEW. As in freshly sprayed. There's always some confusion in the car hobby about what you can and what you cannot do to fresh paint as it relates to specific products and procedures.
The short answer to the question is "yes". Yes you can polish it now.
The technical answer is some painters, this would be the people that are very knowledgeable about the specific brand of paint they are spraying and how they are mixing it and spraying it, they might wait and they might recommend their customers to wait until a few weeks and even a few months go by to allow the paint to fully set-up and harden. Then any shifting or shrinking that is going to take place will have taken place and thus any sanding, compounding and polishing work that will be performed will be performed to completely stable paint. I have seen fresh paint jobs that have been cut and buffed, (terms used to describe paint that is sanded, compounded and polished), change after some time goes by. By this I mean, after a new paint job was sanded, compounded and polished it looked GREAT! Then after a few weeks go by you see splotchy areas or places where it looks like sanding marks were not removed.
So there can be a case made to allow the paint to fully set-up before doing anything to it. If it were my paint job I would choose this option. In the "production" world, a fresh paint job is usually cut and buffed fairly quickly so the car can be returned to the owner. Some shops will return a car to an owner and say bring it back in a few weeks or a month and then they will do the cut and buff, it just depends on the shop and what's being charged for the paint job.
So to my friend Rick, here's what I suggest....
The swirls you see in the paint job are probably holograms instilled by the shop when they buffed the paint. This is NORMAL. This is the type of work most shops turn out, that is after they paint a cool car like yours they wet sand it to remove any orange peel and then they compound it with a wool pad and a compound and then they use either another wool pad and a polish or a foam pad and a polish to polish the paint. The results look shiny but in good light you can see a scratch pattern inflicted by the single rotating action of a rotary buffer.
At this point you can try to remove the swirls by hand and I will be happy to show you how. Or you can purchase a simple dual action polisher and myself and our forum are more than happy to show you how to use it to remove the swirls.
Since it's already swirled out and I'm assuming the shop cut and buffed the paint there's no harm in proceeding now but if you want you can also wait a few more weeks to allow any changes in the paint to take place and then remove the swirls.
Then after all the swirls are removed we can show you how to keep this wicked looking Camaro looking great all the time.
Just let us know...
