HARD Audi Clear & SEVERE Swirls

kdubski

kdubski

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Hey AG,

Did a brilliant black Audi A5 for a friend this weekend. Car was severely neglected to say the least. I was using Menz FG400 on a Sonax Lambskin Wool Pad on a Rotary. Needless to say, I did not get anywhere near good correction. In fact, most areas remained looking horrible. I am wondering if this lack of correction is due to not enough product or too short working time? I Usually use 4 drops of compound on a primed pad and work it at 1,800-2,000 RPM until it flashes/dries.

Here are some Before:



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Look close, you can see the dullness of the paint!


And one after + a 50/50 of the best looking panel:


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Feed back please
 
How large are your work sections and how many passes are you getting before the product starts to dry up? I've dealt with some pretty hard clears but a rotary and a wool pad usually works out for me as long as I take my time and work in small sections.
 
haris300 said:
How large are your work sections and how many passes are you getting before the product starts to dry up? I've dealt with some pretty hard clears but a rotary and a wool pad usually works out for me as long as I take my time and work in small sections.
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So as you can see in the picture, I split the quarter panel into 3: top, front of wheel, rear of wheel.

Hood I split into 6: main panel into 4 sections and 2 sides.
 
First off, cut that speed back to 900-1200rpm. The bottle of FG400 sates this.

Also, do you have other wool pads to try?
 
Mike@DedicatedPerfection said:
First off, cut that speed back to 900-1200rpm. The bottle of FG400 sates this.

Also, do you have other wool pads to try?
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I try to follow this technique that I found on another forum:

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Is it all that necessary to break down compounds/polish during cutting stage if it will be followed up with a polish?

This is my only wool pad. Usually LC Orange is my go to for cutting but I bought this for emergencies as shown above.
 
Mike@DedicatedPerfection said:
First off, cut that speed back to 900-1200rpm. The bottle of FG400 sates this.

Also, do you have other wool pads to try?
Click to expand...

Good advice. Totally overlooked this. Keep it at a low speed and you should be able to work the product longer without generating as much heat. It might take a little bit of patience but it can be done! I had a similar issue with some Corvette paint but my PE14 with an LC foamed wool pad and FG400 made quick work of the defects after around 6 passes on each work section. Oh and make sure you keep the wool fibers clean and fluffed up with a pad spur or brush. Caked up product in the pad can cause issues when correcting.
 
haris300 said:
Good advice. Totally overlooked this. Keep it at a low speed and you should be able to work the product longer without generating as much heat. It might take a little bit of patience but it can be done! I had a similar issue with some Corvette paint but my PE14 with an LC foamed wool pad and FG400 made quick work of the defects after around 6 passes on each work section. Oh and make sure you keep the wool fibers clean and fluffed up with a pad spur or brush. Caked up product in the pad can cause issues when correcting.
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I will take the speed into consideration for my next job in a few hours! It's a black Chevy Avalanche with an equally as hard clear coat.

Does blowing the pad with compressed air work as well as a spur/brush?

Also, how much product should I apply per panel when using wool? Usually on a foam pad I use 4 pea size drops, haven't had much practice with a wool yet though.

Thanks again for the advice, especially at this hour! You guys are life savers, especially because I've got a picky client coming in a few hours for a similar job!
 
Rotary and wool had never worked well for me on that hard Audi paint. You just trade swirls for heavy holograms that take just as long to correct. We've been using a lot of m100 on MF cutting pads to level moderate to severe defects on this harder clear. Sometimes switching to cutting with m205 performs miracles as well.
 
Compressed air is great for cleaning and fluffing up wool pads!

Nicholas@Autowerx said:
Rotary and wool had never worked well for me on that hard Audi paint. You just trade swirls for heavy holograms that take just as long to correct. We've been using a lot of m100 on MF cutting pads to level moderate to severe defects on this harder clear. Sometimes switching to cutting with m205 performs miracles as well.
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Sounds like a worthy approach considering that you've had good luck with it. Are you using Meguiar's MF discs? Interesting about the cutting pad with M205 too. I'd like to give that a shot some time.
 
Did you stop after the FG400 and rotary or did you further refine the finish? You can expect the rotary and wool to leave some of it's own swirls or holograms depending on the paint. Rotary is faster, but it's not instant gratification.

As for amount of product, follow MP's advice with a bead of product about the size of a pencil.

I have never found Audi Brilliant black to be that hard (and I work almost exclusively on audi paint). On the audi paint spectrum it is on the softer side, which is still substantially harder than japanese paint. Of course there are always some anomalies, maybe you got the hard one. I'll get mild to moderate defects out with M205 and rupes yellow. Heavy defects come out with fg400 and MF pads on a 21. For the severe condition you showed, I would jump right to a rotary, but for what you had left afterward m205 and rupes yellow should have no problem.
 
My wife has a 2012 Audi A4 with ROCK HARD clear as well. I too was having troubles getting it perfect. My best results came by way of LC Orange CCS pads and Pinnacle XMT Intermediate Swirl Remover #3 for pass one, followed by XMT Ultra Fine #1 as pass two, finished off with XMT Glaze. All with a DA (no rotary).

ScottH
 
I agree with others, unless fluent in Rotary, I would tend to lean towards foam pads on a DA and longer working time at a slower speed in smaller sections. It will take longer, but the results will be brilliant.

I have an Audi scheduled, and custy doesn't want full paint correction package, I'm curious as to how HD Speed w/ G-15 on LC CCS Orange test spot will yield.
 
I used M205 on a rotary recently and was blown away at the correction ability. What would have needed M105 on a DA only needed 205 on a rotary.
 
4 drops of compound on a large wool pad is probably not enough

You should be using a line of compound about the dimension of a pencil on an average working section

You absolutely need to spur your pad
 
Nicholas@Autowerx said:
Rotary and wool had never worked well for me on that hard Audi paint. You just trade swirls for heavy holograms that take just as long to correct. We've been using a lot of m100 on MF cutting pads to level moderate to severe defects on this harder clear. Sometimes switching to cutting with m205 performs miracles as well.
Click to expand...

This! M205 and a few other compound cut very well on these paints with the large throw polishers and MF pads. With M205 you need to make sure you're using ample amounts of product though. :dblthumb2:
 
As the others have said cut speed down for sure when using menz FG400. I recommend the saying:

'slow down to speed up'

With menz FG400 by simply slowing down machine speed and working smaller areas when heavy correction is needed you'll be able to have more uniform results. To me it looks as if buffer speed could have been a factor in the dullness issues and not going over to refine. When you pull out the rotary and wool pads especially with the speeds you corrected at you'll always need to refine.

Back to the basics cut, polish, finish, LSP.

If you simply don't have time to invest, or not getting paid enough for a job I wouldn't recommend rotary and wool. Whenever you pull that out your dedicating some time into a job!

Hope this helps!

Like the others also said long throws with MF pads work wonders and take less to refine then rotary and wool.
 
Consider that the paint may not like the wool pad at all and that foam could be a much better choice. I did a non metallic black car a few years with the single hardest paint I'd ever encountered in my life - the DA microfiber system with M101 got maybe 10% correction with a long cycle pass! - so I moved to wool on a rotary and it just tore the paint up something awful. Moving to a foam cutting pad on the rotary was like a gift from above - a single pass and the paint was glorious! Crazy paint on this car, to be sure, and unlike any other paint I've encountered before or since.

2008 3 Series BMW with Jet Black paint. Shocking, huh? I can think of 3 specific Jet Black BMWs I've done in the past few years with vastly different characteristics - from this insanely, stupidly hard 3 Series to a 1 Series with the expected Jet Black super soft/touch sensitive paint, to an M3 coupe that every single product would stick to like glue no matter how I worked it.

3 Jet Black BMWs. 3 distinctly different characteristics.
 
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