Removing swirls from hard paint

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JarrettF

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I'm by no means an expert, but usually have very good results removing swirls with the following products and the recommended AG methods. Just purchased a 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe in white and ran my GG 6" DA over the paint with CG V36 with Orange pad then followed with CG V38 with White pad to remove some light-to-medium swirls. I've always had good results, but the process didn't remove all of the swirls so I'm guessing the paint is on the 'hard' side compared to previous vehicles I've corrected. I'm at a loss whether I should use a stronger compound like V34 or switch to a microfiber cutting pad and re-do the steps above.
 
Were you using a larger 6" pad? Thick pad or thin pad? How was the GG unit in terms of speed of rotation? I ask as thicker pads 6" in size perhaps lack of rotation and correction was an issue. Did you put a hash mark on the backing plate and monitor the rotation?

Not sure if the newer Santa Fe's have hard paint or not but one thing that comes to mind is just the rotation and correction of the unit as you worked.
 
Before I ever move up to a more aggressive product I first always test with a more aggressive pad. So if I had done a test spot with an orange pad and I didn't get the results I was looking for I would move up to a yellow pad and do another test spot in a different area.
 
And, how is your arm speed?? Slow is the way to go!!!
 
Thanks for the replies everyone...

5 inch CG pad, on a 5 or 5.5 speed setting, hash marks on backing plate to check rotation, slow and steady, crosshatch pattern.

I'll order a yellow pad and see if that takes the final 10-20% of swirls away and I'll be sure to let everyone know. I'll try to post some pictures as well in case others have the same question.
 
JarrettF said:
Thanks for the replies everyone...

5 inch CG pad, on a 5 or 5.5 speed setting, hash marks on backing plate to check rotation, slow and steady, crosshatch pattern.

I'll order a yellow pad and see if that takes the final 10-20% of swirls away and I'll be sure to let everyone know. I'll try to post some pictures as well in case others have the same question.
Click to expand...

You won't need yellow pads. Those are pretty stout. I've only ever used them once on some really deep scratches and marring. If you do use a yellow pad you'll need to polish it afterwards as you will see it haze the surface a bit with yellow. You won't see that (depending on product) with the Orange Pads.

My advice is switch to V34 if you want to stick to Chem Guys product lineup. The product is more critical than the pad. The pad is just there to transmit the pressure and work on how it holds the product against the surface. I personally would head up to the local store and pick up Megs Ultimate Compound. I used the Megs twins when getting rid of this marring on our Entourage. Check out these two links of before and after. The Results from just Ultimate Compound and an orange pad were great. I went on and used Ultimate Polish with a white pad after that too. From that point forward I hit it again in the spring with HDSpeed and will continue to use that as my go-to polish/AIO. It finishes as nice if not better that my Menzerna SF4000.

^^ The above with done with 6" Pads on a Porter Cable 7424xp too.
 
My concern with the yellow pad was how aggressive it would be. The swirling is no where near as bad as your van's swirling/rds, but not all paints are apples/apples I suppose. I wouldn't mind switching brands as I'm not sold on a lot of the CG products I have. According to the autopia graph, Megs Ultimate Compound is slightly less agressive than V34, so I'll try this first.
 
Not to bash CG V series, however, I no longer use them. IMO there are better products AGO sells that are SUPERIOR to CG. This is from (MY) 1st hand experience. I would look into the Menzerna, Pinnacle, Wolfgang, Mequire's, HD and many other brands before I would even use V series again.
 
OP I have all the V series polishes in my line up,amongst a ton of other ones. Right now my go to is just using the Rupes stuff. But all last summer I used V34/36 with Meg's micro fiber cutting pads and it corrected absolutely everything I threw at it. Had to finish with something obviously but still the stuff worked well.
 
Just to double check....

You don't see any white pigment building up on the face of the pad indicating the paint is a single stage white paint?


Most companies use basecoat/clearcoat paint systems but a few skimp out and only use single stage for white vehicles. Saves a step, reduces costs, most consumers would never know the difference.

And the deal is.... generally speaking... single stage white paint is the hardest paint there is the most difficult to correct.


:)
 
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Just to double check....

You don't see any white pigment building up on the face of the pad indicating the paint is a single stage white paint?


Most companies use basecoat/clearcoat paint systems but a few skimp out and only use single stage for white vehicles. Saves a step, reduces costs, most consumers would never know the difference.

And the deal is.... generally speaking... single stage white paint is the hardest paint there is the most difficult to correct.


:)
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike! I did not see any paint build on the orange pad I was using after several passes. In a situation like this where Chemical Guys V36 and an orange pad wasn't cutting it (pun intended), would you go for a stronger compound or a stronger pad, or both? I just need what I'm guessing is a little bit more cut.
 
Normally I'd say just step up to a more aggressive pad and use the same product, but V36 looks like a pretty mild polish. With hard paint it's going to take several passes to see much correction. I'd suggest getting a more effective product and try that with your orange pad.

My situation was somewhat similar. I used to have an Audi with black paint. Normally Audi paint is pretty hard, but that particular car was easy to correct with Wolfgang TSR, which is about middle of the road for correction capabilities. I replaced the black car with an identical one with silver paint that is harder than granite. I had to go to the most aggressive pad and compound to get decent results. Hard paint is a real PITA.

Make sure you have several pads, too. If you aren't using a clean pad, or it heats up, you lose a lot of correction ability.
 
For myself I would use more aggressive pad with same polish because I have it all on the shelf ready to go doing work on a more professional level. If you are just doing this stuff on personal vehicles I'm pretty big into the game plan of just using what you have first before spending more money on stuff you may not need. Don't get me wrong I'm an addict with this stuff and love buying products so I won't stop you from adding to the collection.

V36 is very mild for polish and v34 isn't a super super heavy cut. In my opinion you are fine to switch to v34 on the orange pad and give it a go before trying anything else and buying a bunch of pads.

If that doesn't work, did you say you have mf pads? You could try those with v34 or v36 also.
 
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