Here's why you need to polish paint...

POWERMAN_ said:
How many times can one polish their ride before having to reapply clearcoat again?
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This probably directed more towards me but IMO, with what I use on my car, I'm not even close to wearing down my clearcoat with all the layering I do. This comes into play even more when you factor in I haven't use my GG 6" RO on my car and actually hope to have to never do so.

Sent from my SPH-M930 using AG Online
 
erichaley said:
Are these upcoming products? If so, is there anything you can tell us? :coolgleam:
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Yes and no. Have another car coming in today for more testing. Have not see the car yet but I've been told it's in bad shape.


Bunky said:
It is all about clarity. Even a paint cleaner can do wonders.
Click to expand...


Exactly.

When working on a clear coat finish, the goal is to restore and maximize clarity by,

  • Removing as many above surface bonded contaminants as possible.
  • Removing as many below surface defects as possible.

Always surprises me when I clay a muscle car or hot rod like this 1932 Ford Phaeton and remove this kind of contamination.


1932 Ford Phaeton - Show Car Makeover


I don't know what was on the paint but it's now on the clay. I clayed JUST half the hood and Eric clayed just the other half and look how much junk we were removing off the paint.

1932_Ford_Phaeton_054.jpg






Related Article: Even show cars might need to be clayed...




:xyxthumbs:
 
What a phenomenal post as always, Mike! Great Job and thank you for taking the time to put it together!


-Beach
 
BeachZone said:
What a phenomenal post as always, Mike! Great Job and thank you for taking the time to put it together!


-Beach
Click to expand...



Thank you...

The focus of this article was to use the condition of the paint to educate people about the importance of periodically cleaning and/or polishing their car's paint especially if the car is a daily driver, parked outside for periods of time.


Besides that it was a lot of fun to work on....



:xyxthumbs:
 
Hi Mike,

Those results speak for themselves! I was just curious, being the paint polishing newbie that I am, how many times can you polish a daily driver before you risk damaging the clear? If you polished your paint twice a year, could you eventually wear through the clear coat?

I just picked up the Porter Cable DA for this very purpose.
 
eff said:
Hi Mike,

Those results speak for themselves! I was just curious, being the paint polishing newbie that I am, how many times can you polish a daily driver before you risk damaging the clear? If you polished your paint twice a year, could you eventually wear through the clear coat?

I just picked up the Porter Cable DA for this very purpose.
Click to expand...


Great question and a often asked question. Here's the deal...


The idea is to polish your car's paint and remove as many defects as makes you happy. By this I mean sometimes you're better to learn how to live with the deeper defects than try to remove them.

After you get your car polished to the point your happy, then take care of it in a way that you won't have to come back and do aggressive polishing steps to it again.

By doing the above, how thin or thick your clear coat is a no-issue.


In my how-to book I talk about two ways to wash a car, the aggressive method before you put the car through a thorough machine polishing process and the careful method, which is how you wash a car after you've machine polished the paint.


Detailing How-To Book and Detailing How-To E-book by Mike Phillips



:)
 
So Mike, you could never rub through your clear doing things by hand using sealants/waxes, mixing in DG #501 to "clean things up" so to speak and claying 2-3 times a year. What's your opinion on this?

Sent from my SPH-M930 using AG Online
 
Klasse Act said:
So Mike, you could never rub through your clear doing things by hand using sealants/waxes, mixing in DG #501 to "clean things up" so to speak and claying 2-3 times a year.

What's your opinion on this?
Click to expand...


Here's what I always say....

If the paint is thin enough to rub through using a DA Polisher it's thin enough to rub through by hand. Just use common sense.

As for mixing, I tend to use products as stand along products and let the chemist do the mixing.


Good questions...


:)
 
Just to note...

While I had this car here I also,

  • Cleaned the Vinyl Tonneau Cover by machine.
  • Cleaned the Vinyl Interior by machine.
  • Cleaned the Gangster White Wall Tires by machine.
Haven't processed the pictures for the interior or tires yet but here's the write-up for how I cleaned the vinyl tonneau cover and it was just as stained with a dirt film as the paint which the pictures in the article show.


How to Machine Clean a Vinyl Tonneau Cover


Cyclo_Scrubbing_Vinyl_014.jpg



Cyclo_Scrubbing_Vinyl_019ma.jpg


:)
 
Would a finishing polish help or does it have to little cut to get through the film?
 
2shiny said:
Would a finishing polish help or does it have to little cut to get through the film?
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A finishing polish or "Fine Cut Polish" should be more than enough to remove dirt staining off a clear coat and even single stage paint job.

It's a very topical staining effect so it doesn't take much to remove it. The benefit to using a fine cut polish is that at the same time you remove the dirt staining or road film you also will work out any minor imperfections in the paint and perfectly prepare it for your LSP.

My preference is to use a dedicated polishing step for a SIV but for a DD I would probably opt for the cleaner/wax route.

Remember, if you use a finishing wax you'll tend to just seal the dirt into/onto the paint. So while finishing waxes are great for show cars they don't tend to be a good choice for a daily driver if you're not going to pre-clean or pre-polish the paint.



:)
 
I am telling people this all the time. I am going to start to reference these things.
 
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
A finishing polish or "Fine Cut Polish" should be more than enough to remove dirt staining off a clear coat and even single stage paint job.

It's a very topical staining effect so it doesn't take much to remove it. The benefit to using a fine cut polish is that at the same time you remove the dirt staining or road film you also will work out any minor imperfections in the paint and perfectly prepare it for your LSP.

My preference is to use a dedicated polishing step for a SIV but for a DD I would probably opt for the cleaner/wax route.

Remember, if you use a finishing wax you'll tend to just seal the dirt into/onto the paint. So while finishing waxes are great for show cars they don't tend to be a good choice for a daily driver if you're not going to pre-clean or pre-polish the paint.



:)
Click to expand...

Mike, what Auto Geek products do you recommend to polish/clean a DD? I asked because some polishing/cleaning products have more cut than others. Both my vehicles are well taken care of, but I'd like something to just clean the paint before waxing/sealing.

Thanks in advance!
 
eff said:
Mike, what Auto Geek products do you recommend to polish/clean a DD?

I asked because some polishing/cleaning products have more cut than others. Both my vehicles are well taken care of, but I'd like something to just clean the paint before waxing/sealing.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...


That's actually a great question. A good "catagory" of product would be either a Fine Cut Polish or an Ultra Fine Cut Polish applied by machine like the simple Porter Cably style of dual action polisher with a finishing pad.

Here's some very high qualitiy fine cut and ultra fine cut polishes,
  • Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish - This is what I'm using on my truck and I'm getting ready to hit the exteior pretty soon and then seal the paint again.
  • Sonax Nano Polish or Perfect Finish
  • Menzerna SF 4000 or SF 4500
  • Wolfgang Finishing Glaze
  • Meguiar's M205
  • Optimum Finish Polish
There are more but that's a pretty good list to draw from...


:)
 
While looking for some pictures I found these... forgot I even posted them to the forum. This shows decades of dirt build up on a classic car...

Dirt in Paint or DIP - Stained Paint - Dirt Embedded Paint


Here's an example of what dirty paint looks like, note how where Marius has been machine polishing the green paint is now a lighter, brighter color of green while the un-touched paint has a darker, cloudier look to it.


Here's Marius showing Brandon how use the Porter Cable with Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish to "carefully" clean and polish the original paint after we first rubbed the paint down with #7

Marius_Training_Brandon.jpg



I used MS Paint to draw a line around the section to make it easy to see the before and after difference where Marius has buffed and where the original dirty paint remains. This is an example of DIP or Dirt in Paint also called,


  • Dirt Staining
  • Dirt Embedded Paint
  • Stained Paint


Here's the picture, not the difference in the color of green on either side of the black line...

Marius_Training_Brandon_1.JPG




I have BETTER pictures as Marius buffed out only the passenger side of the roof and then I took a picture to show the color difference in clean paint versus dirty paint.


:)
 
I polish my RAV using m205 and a white pad , I've done it many times and see no issues from polishing so often.
All I see is a wet look:)
Owning a black car means you must polish it fairly often to keep it looking it's best.
The paint actually looks better than it then in 08', that's when I bought.
 
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