Is perfection impossible?

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cduprey

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Been working on a 2013 Camry that I thought was decently taken care of. Wow I was wrong. Hood is full of rock chips, ice scraper deep scratches, and the whole car is covered in swirl-o-matic scratches. Regular 2bm, iron-x, clay towel prep. I tried wg tsr on polishing pad, then tsr on light cutting pad :
View attachment 34062

I then stepped up to uber compound on a yellow flat pad, just to see how it worked. Pretty good on the "lighter" scratches:
View attachment 34063

But in places like the hood, after doing 2 6-section pass rounds, im still left with this:
View attachment 34064
View attachment 34065
Not sure if the pictures pick up the scratches but I think my perfectionist side is getting the best of me...I'd rather not use my most aggressive method but it's what seemed to be the only thing working close to pre-coating standards. Cquartz UK will go on Tuesday, at least it should give some protection over all the deeper scratches and pits.

So would you guys call that acceptable or keep trying to level the scratches out? It looks way better now, but I always see everyone post the mirror shots with 95%+ correction, but I also know I have to be realistic!
 
BTW......those lines could be microfiber towel marring when you were removing the polish. Be gentle if your using towels with a polyester edging.
 
AnthonyGXP said:
BTW......those lines could be microfiber towel marring when you were removing the polish. Be gentle if your using towels with a polyester edging.
Click to expand...


I used the edgeless from TRC for removal, I know the pictures aren't that great but those 2 lines saw multiple attempts at leveling them. I think I'm gonna take a look at it tomorrow with a fresh mind.

On a side note, I am doing all of this for free....
 
No, to a detailer's trained eyes, there is no "perfection." That's why people think I'm crazy, I detail their cars and all I can see are the defects I couldn't remove, whereas all they see is "perfect" paint.

Even my nephew's car which I detailed this weekend (which was admittedly TRASHED when I got it), was unsaveable (my eyes), my wife, the neighbor (shown in the first picture) and Travis all thought "BRAND NEW CAR/PAINT JOB!!" Where all I saw were the multitude of RIDS that made fun of me, no matter how much I tried to compound them out (without endangering the clear coat), and the still faded (but improved) plastic GM bumpers:

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/show-n-shine/91034-graduation-present-finished-w-pics.html

So in reality, all we can do is our best efforts and learn to live with what we cannot fix.
 
Impossible to the trained eye.

For those couple scratches you could do some wetsanding to remove them.

I did an Audi S8 this weekend that spent more time in than out of a swirl-o-matic. It took 2 buffing cycles with rotary, wool and PG1000 (I prefer to work light and fast with that combo) then another 2 steps with compound and polish and still wasn't perfect. The owner is very particular and knowing that, I informed him that it was going to be a huge improvement, but just wasn't going to be perfect. He turned out the be very happy with it and will be bringing his others cars.
 
AnthonyGXP said:
BTW......those lines could be microfiber towel marring when you were removing the polish. Be gentle if your using towels with a polyester edging.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. My wife's 2013 Toyota has very soft paint. I've marred it wiping off bird droppings even though I used a soft MF towel and a heavy application of QD.

And yes, perfection is impossible. For my daily drivers, I just try to get them good enough no one but me and other trained eyes will ever see the defects.
 
I suppose it could be proven that perfection is impossible,
because of: "Entropy" and other Laws of Thermodynamics.

But (and in order for me to keep thinking that it's still
possible): I try to always be optimistic.


As such:
•Imperfection isn't a fact to me...
•Its not even true to me!!


Bob
 
I would say perfection is similar to approaching the speed of light. The closer you get the crazier you go until that moment just before perfection you end up in a loony bin wearing a straight jacket. So it theoritically can't be done.
 
My friend has a business restoring classic cars and his slogan is "striving for perfection" which is neat because us detailer and restoration types will strive for it. But that is the key word. Strive. Because it is truly impossible to have perfection. We get better and better results but with each echelon we reach we find something else that we feel that could be better. :-)
 
I appreciate all the input! I took it for what it was, tried to clear up any trouble areas with uber and a yellow lc flat pad, then moved on to carpro reflect on a white pad. At this point I thought it was looking pretty good, so I went ahead for s thorough wipe down with eraser-this is where my day went downhill...

I first tried to use the eagle edgeless mf from TRC, quickly found out that wasn't going to work, so I grabbed the purple-nality and used it with seemingly no issues on the car.

I did my first attempt at cquk and thought it was fairly straightforward, although it usually started flashing before I could even think about going back over it in the crossing direction. As I was halfway done I decided to check for any high spots by trying to look "up" the paint with my head towards the ground. I found so many little scratches that I hadn't seen before, and I'm not sure how they got there. To top it off, the reload decided it was going to streak like no other, no matter what I tried to do. Pretty frustrating.

I'd assume that compounding with uber and polishing with reflect should give a pretty good finish, so where do you think I went wrong?

I used 7 or 8 of the little suedes and 3 of the big suedes.
I used the eagle edgeless for polish removal, putting minimal pressure.
I'm thinking it might be the eraser step, I used a lot of eraser but it still felt pretty grabby.
 
UK does feel grabby during application and removal... it is just how that particular product works.

It is not the easiest product to use on super soft paint due to the amount of wiping needed during removal. Eraser also has its challenges on soft black paint... microfiber is incredibly important. I recommend Microfiber Madness Crazy Pile towels for Eraser wipe downs.. I also recommend using a blower or compressed air to help evaporate the Eraser after wiping so you don't have to wipe excessively to avoid streaking. The paint should feel grabby... or "squeaky" clean after an Eraser wipe down. It will not be slick like it is after polishing.

Regarding Reload... if your production date on your bottle is in 2014 chances are it is a bad batch... contact the retailer you bought it from regarding a replacement. CarPro switched suppliers in 2014 and had some issues with the Reload... mostly streaking issues.
 
zmcgovern45 said:
UK does feel grabby during application and removal... it is just how that particular product works.



Regarding Reload... if your production date on your bottle is in 2014 chances are it is a bad batch... contact the retailer you bought it from regarding a replacement. CarPro switched suppliers in 2014 and had some issues with the Reload... mostly streaking issues.
Click to expand...


I thought the UK application was the easiest out of everything, just had to remember it's not surgery.

I had read that the new version of reload is much more forgiving, I know the one that came in my kit was 2014. But the weird thing is (after diluting 1:1 with distilled water) the roof came out fine, the hood was a little streaky but came out fine-I'll have to see in the sun though, then the drivers side door just streaked like crazy. I tried only spraying a little down, then coating the whole area, then the damp towel. After 40 minutes on the door, I looked at the weather and saw no rain til Sunday, so Saturday I'll be going to his house to try again-I'm guessing I'll have to polish it off, re-cquk it, then 2015 reload?
 
A reset wash and eraser should help to remove Reload streaks. Polishing shouldn't be needed, but may ultimately be quicker depending on how bad the streaks are
 
Called autogeek today and they are graciously sending me a bottle of the new reload!

So looks like no rain until Tuesday, if the reload comes in on Monday, am I safe to do a reset wash and then reload the rest of the car?

Since it was streaking I didn't use reload on the rest of the car. Just trying to figure out the best strategy now!
 
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