Need help getting light swirls on black street glide

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Bobby05

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I have a 09 vivid black street glide and the paint looks flawless until the sun hits it just right and you can see light swirls. I was wondering if i could get some advice on removing the light swirls. I have a PC orbital buffer but never really used it but to apply wax. I would think the Pc would be too big even if you used 4" pads is there any way i could do it by hand? What products do i need to purchase that would work the best in my situation?

Thanks alot
 
Hey Bobby,

:welcome: To Autogeek Online!! :props:

Is this the machine you have?

WaxSpreader02.jpg



Or does it look like this?

PC7424XP2.jpg



It makes a difference because you can get pads as small as 3 inches for the Porter Cable 7424xp style machines....:props:
 
bottom one is the one if have but i need to purchase some new pads
 
Bobby05 said:
I have a 09 vivid black street glide and the paint looks flawless until the sun hits it just right and you can see light swirls. I was wondering if i could get some advice on removing the light swirls. I have a PC orbital buffer but never really used it but to apply wax. I would think the Pc would be too big even if you used 4" pads is there any way i could do it by hand? What products do i need to purchase that would work the best in my situation?

Thanks alot
Click to expand...

I did a cobalt blue FLHX with a PC. it was in rough shape I used 4'' orange ccs pad with megs 105 then polished with a white ccs and megs 205. The bike was swirl free:xyxthumbs:
 
I did the majority of my Dyna with a GG6 and 4" hydrotech pads. 4 Inch pads work well and you could even drop down to 3 inch pads in certain spots if you felt like it. Of course there was a few spots the machine couldn't fit in and I did the best to get those areas by hand.

My bike is Vivid black as well and the combo that I ended up using was Blackfire Gloss enhancing polish on a cyan hydrotech pad. Now this a rather odd combination, super fine polish on a cutting pad, but it worked well. I got better results with the cyan pad than I did with the soft crimson pad. I think the blackfire worked so well in my case because it almost melts into the paint and there is almost nothing left to wipe off after.

If you use the search feature on this site look up vivid black and you should get a bunch of posts by tlmitchell with a ton of good info in there. Vivid black is super soft paint and can be a nightmare to get perfect as you may soon find out :D

One last thing, and maybe your paint isn't nearly as bad as mine, but almost any towel I use to remove wax or polish will inflict swirls back into the paint. I'm talking about my finest, plushest towels I have. Waffle weave towels seem to be ok though. So when wiped off the Gloss enhancing polish I used a waffle weave towel that I hit with a couple sprays of quick detailer and that seemed to work out well.

Good luck :dblthumb2:

 
thanks for he reponse i was wondering what pad and polish i needed to use i did some research and like you said the vivid black paint is super soft
 
I bought some blackfire polish and used a tangerine 3" hydro tech pad and used speed 5 on my porter cable da polisher. This is my first time polishing with it and im having problem with hazing. Its like a waxing film that wont come off I tried quick detailer and wax and still looks hazy. Any help would be appreciated
 
Sounds like you used to much product. The few times I've used it there was almost nothing to wipe off.

Also speed 5 is way too fast when you're using 3 inch pads. I would turn that down to 3.5 or 4.

Did you happen to buy any cyan pads?
 
Photo would greatly help

Did you happen to see any paint transfer (black paint) onto the pad you were using?
 
Nah there wasnt any paint transfer I might have used too much should I polish till there isnt any product left ? How much pressure?
 
Yeah I would try it again with less polish and slower speed. Shouldn't need much pressure at all.

I remember I had a real hard time buffing it off when I used it on my Jeep. I know the directions on the bottle say to work a section at a time then buff off immediately ... I wasn't having much success doing that so I tried something different. I let it sit for like an hour or so before I went to remove it. Came off so much easier this way. So that might be worth trying too.
 
Bobby05 said:
I bought some blackfire polish and used a tangerine 3" hydro tech pad and used speed 5 on my porter cable da polisher.
Click to expand...

Which BLACKFIRE product did you get? You wanted the SRC Finishing Polish and if that wasn't aggressive enough then you would want the SRC Compound.


Bobby05 said:
This is my first time polishing with it and im having problem with hazing.
Click to expand...

I always tell people when first learning to machine polish to not learn on something that's important to them like a black Viper. Same kind of goes for anything that's important to you.

It's not to late to do a little practicing on a car hood to get a good feel for the process and to work on what will probably be some paint that is more friendly to polish and polishing.


Bobby05 said:
Its like a waxing film that wont come off I tried quick detailer and wax and still looks hazy. Any help would be appreciated
Click to expand...

That's not normal for a high quality fine cut polish unless the paint is incredibly soft.

Assuming your have the SRC Finishing Polish try cleaning the face of the pad with a nylon brush and then re-polish using the 4 speed setting and "ample" product. Don't under use and don't dry to a dry buff, that is there should always be a wet film of product behind your path of travel.

See this thread,

Wet Buffing Technique


Also see this thread,

DA Polisher Trouble Shooting Guide


And if your paint is really soft then get a softer pad than the Hydro-Tech Tangerine Polishing Pad, instead get the Crimson or switch over to the CCS blue or red pads.

Lake Country also makes a 4" Gold Jewelling pad but I'm not sure if we stock this pad any longer.


:)
 
If you find you need a super soft gold jewelling pad there's a few in the warehouse that are not on the AG store.

Here's the part number,

LC-64-440-89MM


This is a 4" Gold flat jewelling pad. Probably the softest foam pad on earth today.



:)
 
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