My first correction -- Questions

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royalkangaroo

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This weekend I decided to embark on my first paint correction with my new GG6. I stocked up with a variety of 5.5" and 4" LC flat foam pads (associated 5" and 3.5" BPs), and the whole meguiars ultimate line. (Compound, polish, and liquid wax). Vehicle: my semi-neglected 2010 Silverado.

After reading countless hours on these forums I decided to do the following common procedure
1. Full wash
2. Clay
2.5 Tape off all trim
3. Megs UC with orange LC flat pad (speed 5)
4. Megs UP with white LC flat pad (speed 4)
5. Megs ULC with black LC flat pad (speed 2.5)

I did use a 4" yellow LC flat pad with UC on the door frames and tight front bumper spots. Not sure if I really could notice that much difference on finish between the orange and yellow.

Overall experience:
I noticed all of the pads generated a lot of heat. At first I'd do a small area (less than 2' x 2') towel off the UC, inspect my work, sip a beer, etc. However I did 3 sections, back to back to back and ended up melting my 5" meguiars backing plate. No different methods, speed 5, moderate pressure, moderate arm speed, 6 section passes. Not sure what caused this. I primed the pad accordingly, used 3 dime sized drops of product per section. (Not section pass) cleaned on the fly, etc. Any thoughts on this would help.

Ultimate polish was a lot smoother to work with. The white pad seemed to get hot as well, but no issues like the UC stage. I wasnt sure if the UP step was necessary. In my mind the paint looked deeper, but overall UC to ULP mightve been appropriate.

ULC layed down extremely thin via polisher. Almost to the point where I couldn't see it. The black pad seemed to consume a lot of product initially, even with priming. However some passes seemed like there was a lot of product being layed down. Seemed tricky to work with, I'm more used to turtle wax paste by hand.

In the end, I think my paint still could've used a more aggressive compound to pull out more scratches (or more aggressive pad as well). I was going to go the M105/M205 route, however the feedback and ease of use for UC/UP seemed to fit my entry-level experience. My truck is also my daily driver / boat hauler / deer carrier / everything else under the sun, so by no means was I expecting to achieve show quality.

Seems long-winded but please let me know of any feedback you folks may have, I'd appreciate it.

Hood before:


Bedside scratches before:


Hood after correction:


Finish 1:

Finish 2:
 
Yeah, from that sun shot it looks like it turned out great.

I am new to machine polishing and messed up one pad on my first try after getting a little to comfortable with it. Happened quick too. I had decided to work one particularly messed up area a little extra and at a really slow arm speed. When I went to clean the pad after I noticed it was sunken in the middle and hot.

Same pad, different compound, different machine.

I have not used Meg's Ultimate Comp, and am not positive; but three dime sized drops might have been too much leading to the pad being over saturated. A saturated pad will retain more heat. I think three pea sized dots is what I have read is about the right amount, but this also may be pad and product dependent.

I also cannot tell much difference in results between the orange and yellow, but may only be more noticeable on soft paint

Once again, great job on a big project!
 
Thanks guys, I figured the truck would be easy with large flat panels, but man oh man is there a lot of surface area. My body is paying for it today.

By the way, I reference ULC or ULP above, I mean ULW.
 
It is helpful to touch the center of the pad and keep an account of how hot the pad is getting.
BTW, very nice looking truck. The color of the paint is sharp too.
Congratulations on completing your first paint correction. Now the real question is, whose vehicle are you doing next?
 
Truck looks great!!! When compounding I use 3 sets of 2 pads--use pad 1 for a couple of sections, then clean on the fly and set it asside to cool while I use pad 2--continue alternating between pad 1 & 2. Then switch to pads 3 & 4 and so on. Never melted a pad let alone a backing plate. For polishing usually 4 pads are enough for an entire car, but still keep alternating to allow for cooling.
 
Mantilgh said:
Yeah, from that sun shot it looks like it turned out great.

I am new to machine polishing and messed up one pad on my first try after getting a little to comfortable with it. Happened quick too. I had decided to work one particularly messed up area a little extra and at a really slow arm speed. When I went to clean the pad after I noticed it was sunken in the middle and hot.

Same pad, different compound, different machine.

I have not used Meg's Ultimate Comp, and am not positive; but three dime sized drops might have been too much leading to the pad being over saturated. A saturated pad will retain more heat. I think three pea sized dots is what I have read is about the right amount, but this also may be pad and product dependent.

I also cannot tell much difference in results between the orange and yellow, but may only be more noticeable on soft paint

Once again, great job on a big project!
Click to expand...

I agree, over saturation could have been an issue. I typically used 3 pea-dime size drops on the outer edge of the pad for each panel. It seemed to me the edges of the pad looked dry after completing a section, and the middle still had product in it. Even so, after 5-6 section passes, I was nervous of running the pad too dry.

Then again, seeing how thin UP and ULW works, less product with UC may be beneficial.

expdetailing said:
It is helpful to touch the center of the pad and keep an account of how hot the pad is getting.
BTW, very nice looking truck. The color of the paint is sharp too.
Congratulations on completing your first paint correction. Now the real question is, whose vehicle are you doing next?
Click to expand...

The pad face and panels never seemed to be overly hot. Heat really built up behind the pad on the felt/velcro interface. I actually removed pads occasionally when taking a break to let the BP and pad cool faster.

Thanks for the kudos too, I'm a big fan of that color.

Next project is a black Mercedes C300 sport. It's got some water spots and swirls, but not quite the level of defects as my truck had. I may try the polish first and go UC if necessary. I'm sure black paint will be a whole different challenge.
 
ski2 said:
Truck looks great!!! When compounding I use 3 sets of 2 pads--use pad 1 for a couple of sections, then clean on the fly and set it asside to cool while I use pad 2--continue alternating between pad 1 & 2. Then switch to pads 3 & 4 and so on. Never melted a pad let alone a backing plate. For polishing usually 4 pads are enough for an entire car, but still keep alternating to allow for cooling.
Click to expand...


That's smart. I used one pad during the first half of compounding. (Cleaning on the fly as well) Again, slower, learning as I go. I started moving section to section quicker with the second pad as it was getting late and I felt I had a rhythm going. But that's when I noticed the melting.

Next time I'll have more pads in my arsenal and change them more frequently. Thanks for the tip!
 
I'm scared to death to do correction on my car..... afraid I'm really going to mess up pads that aren't cheap.
How do you know if a pad is getting too hot or if it's over saturated or under saturated? Sorry for the nooB question, I just wanna' not ruin my equipment.
 
Did you use an extension cord? Make sure the gauge is correct. I use a 50' 12 Gauge and it makes my PC run cooler. At first I had it running through an electrical Y Adapter and it got super hot and destroyed a white polishing pad.

Another good pointer is to make a few vertical sharpie marks on the yellow edge of your backing plate. This helps you visually know your pad is rotating properly.
 
shagnat said:
I'm scared to death to do correction on my car..... afraid I'm really going to mess up pads that aren't cheap.
How do you know if a pad is getting too hot or if it's over saturated or under saturated? Sorry for the nooB question, I just wanna' not ruin my equipment.
Click to expand...

It's a learning experience. This was my first go with a machine polisher. (I regularly hand wash and wax my vehicles, never gone further though) My melted pad looked sunken in the middle after a section. When I peeled it off I noticed the melting, and ended up tossing the pad. The backing plate had enough hook left to hold fresh pads.

Next time I'll try a little less product and swapping fresh pads more frequently to aid in cooling. I also noticed the 5" GG BP has holes in it to help cooling.

I'd say start slow, keep your pads and towels clean, watch/read as much info as you can and just go for it.



Burnt350 said:
Did you use an extension cord? Make sure the gauge is correct. I use a 50' 12 Gauge and it makes my PC run cooler. At first I had it running through an electrical Y Adapter and it got super hot and destroyed a white polishing pad.

Another good pointer is to make a few vertical sharpie marks on the yellow edge of your backing plate. This helps you visually know your pad is rotating properly.
Click to expand...


I was using an outdoor extension cord, 50', not exactly sure what gauge. I've got a shorter, heavier gauge one I may try next time to see if there's any difference. I was always adamant about ensuring pad rotation. I think I've got to experiment with pad saturation.
 
With the gg6 stay with speed 4 and go slower try the burgundy pad from Meg's to cut with. Great job btw
 
royalkangaroo said:
After reading countless hours on these forums I decided to do the following common procedure

1. Full wash
2. Clay
2.5 Tape off all trim
3. Megs UC with orange LC flat pad (speed 5)
4. Megs UP with white LC flat pad (speed 4)
5. Megs ULC with black LC flat pad (speed 2.5)
Click to expand...

It's always great to hear this kind of feedback. Discussion forums are powerful and a great way to learn.

I know FB is real popular but you can't post how-to article in Facebook very well, it's more for one-liners.


Overall experience:
I noticed all of the pads generated a lot of heat. At first I'd do a small area (less than 2' x 2') towel off the UC, inspect my work, sip a beer, etc. However I did 3 sections, back to back to back and ended up melting my 5" meguiars backing plate. No different methods, speed 5, moderate pressure, moderate arm speed, 6 section passes. Not sure what caused this. I primed the pad accordingly, used 3 dime sized drops of product per section. (Not section pass) cleaned on the fly, etc. Any thoughts on this would help.

[/quote]

That's the nature of the beast. It's the pressure over time factor where the energy exerted by the machine to cause the pad to rotate plus the pressure you apply PLUS time = heat.

That's why more pads are better. In a perfect world you buff a couple of panels and switch to fresh dry pad. You can buff longer with pads but the heat and violent oscillation action destroys them. This is more true for thinner pads which obviously work better on these types of tools than thick pads.

See this article....


How many pads do I need to buff out my car?


royalkangaroo said:
Ultimate polish was a lot smoother to work with. The white pad seemed to get hot as well, but no issues like the UC stage. I wasnt sure if the UP step was necessary. In my mind the paint looked deeper, but overall UC to ULP mightve been appropriate.
Click to expand...

I hear what you're saying and I sometimes think the same thing. Last week I buffed out a black 1969 Corvette using Blackfire SRC Compound and a coarse foam cutting pad and after I wiped off the compound the paint looked perfect.

But I also know that if I were to chemically strip the paint or wash the car with a detergent soap and remove the polishing oils the paint would look dull and hazy from the combination of the cutting pad and an aggressive compounding step.

You would see the same thing. Most people would never do this though obviously, that is chemically strip or detergent wash their car after compounding just to see if the paint looks scoured and hazy. Also, if you were just to wax after compounding the wax would add to the polishing oils and mask any scouring or hazy areas and you would be happy with the visual end results but the haziness would still be in the paint and that's why you do a second step.

Somewhere on this forum I show pictures of a 1956 yellow Chevy Nomad that I buffed out with the RUPES BigFoot 21 with the RUPES coarse blue foam pad and the Zephir Gloss Coarse compound and after wiping the compound reside off the paint simply glistened.

I still followed it with a dedicated polishing step as I knew it needed this one more follow-up step to perfect the results created by the first step. That's how this works, it's the polishing process not the polishing step.


royalkangaroo said:
ULC layed down extremely thin via polisher. Almost to the point where I couldn't see it. The black pad seemed to consume a lot of product initially, even with priming. However some passes seemed like there was a lot of product being layed down. Seemed tricky to work with, I'm more used to turtle wax paste by hand.
Click to expand...

No need to prime the pad when waxing, just squirt a little wax on the pad and go. Pad saturation is normal if you read my how-to book or do a search for

Kissing the finish

You'll see the technique I show in my 3-day detailing boot camp classes to help reduce pad saturation.



royalkangaroo said:
In the end, I think my paint still could've used a more aggressive compound to pull out more scratches (or more aggressive pad as well). I was going to go the M105/M205 route, however the feedback and ease of use for UC/UP seemed to fit my entry-level experience. My truck is also my daily driver / boat hauler / deer carrier / everything else under the sun, so by no means was I expecting to achieve show quality.
Click to expand...

For daily drivers keep it real. No need to put a 100 percent show car finish on it because it's just going to get more scratches and swirls in the future.

Next time try the Meguiar's thin foam cutting disc with M101. M101 is a LOT more fun to work with then M105.

royalkangaroo said:
Seems long-winded but please let me know of any feedback you folks may have, I'd appreciate it.
Click to expand...

You did great! Thanks for sharing your first detail job with the forum I'm sure it will inspire others to follow in your footsteps.

[/QUOTE]
 
For the Megs burgundy foam discs, see my write up here,

NEW! Meguiar’s Foam Buffing Discs

watermark.php





On Autogeek.com

Meguiars 5 Inch DA Foam Discs



Here's the Camaro we buffed out and be sure to look at the BEFORE pictures as this thing was WIPE OUT!

watermark.php


watermark.php



The Meguiar's burgundy foam cutting discs are SHARP, just run your hand over the face of a clean, dry foam pad and you can feel the sharp, coarse texture of the foam and they cut great but like any pad as they break in, or become saturated the cutting falls off and it's time to switch to a fresh, dry pad.


:)
 
Burnt350 said:
Another good pointer is to make a few vertical sharpie marks on the yellow edge of your backing plate. This helps you visually know your pad is rotating properly.
Click to expand...


Like this?


Video: Mark your backing plate to make it easy to see pad rotation


MarkYourBackingPlate01.jpg


Here's a quick video that show how and why to mark your backing plate to see and monitor pad rotation while doing any correction or polishing steps.


[video=youtube_share;QM8PnDooZP8&hd=1"]How To Check Pad Rotation on a DA Polisher -...[/video]​


:xyxthumbs:
 
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