Rupes Blue Foam, not cutting?

[braga]

Hello, first of all, I'm new in polishing, learning how to use Rupes LHR15 Mark II everyday from morning till evening.

I have some issues (I think), but I'm not sure, my steps:

1. Clay the car.
2. Clean the surface with CarPro Eraser.
3. Put 4 small drops of Menzerna HC400 on the Rupes Blue Coarse Foam (for priming)
4. Level 2 for warm up the pad and spread the compound on the surface.
5. Put 2 more small drops of HC400, start compounding slowly. (Level 4)
6. Put the Rupes Yellow Fine Foam pad using Rupes Keramik (Yellow) and same steps (3 4 5)

I noticed, that surface or pad doesn't get hot, just slightly warm.
I tried to compound in the sun, and I did get better results, heat helped I guess.

Why the pad/surface is not heating up? Just slightly warm. Even HC400 is not dusting when I'm compounding in the shade, surface temperature is too low? Air temperature is only 52 °F.

Results, hood is really trashed, I polished it in direct sunlight. I guess I have to wet sand it or buy a microfiber/wool pads haha.
Last photo looks good to me, Rupes Blue foam + HC400 for compounding, Rupes Yellow foam + Keramik for finishing.

 

[Rsurfer]

What's wrong with the last picture? Looks like a polishing step will make it acceptable.

That scratch on outside of the taped area might be too deep to remove with compounding.

 

[dlc95]

Last pic looks pretty good.

 

[braga]

What's wrong with the last picture? Looks like a polishing step will make it acceptable.

That scratch on outside of the taped area might be too deep to remove with compounding.

Yes it looks good to me too haha, that scratch was on the corrected side too, blue foam + hc400 removed it.
Its all about the heat I guess, I'm not getting results like that in the shade.

 

[dlc95]

Yes it looks good to me too haha, that scratch was on the corrected side too, blue foam + hc400 removed it.
Its all about the heat I guess, I'm not getting results like that in the shade.

You don't necessarily want "heat". You want to warm the pad up just a bit to reduce stiffness at the face of the pad.

 

[rlmccarty2000]

You don’t need heat to break down a polish. The friction breaks down the polish. Heat will break down your pads faster. Maybe I’m not understanding what is going on. Never been a fan of the Rupes blue pads anyway. I never could stop them from slinging product everywhere.

 

[mc2hill]

Just a warning - the Rupes blue foam pads will begin shedding with Menzerna HC400. Something in the HC400 makes the foam disintegrate. When I spoke to Dylan from Rupes about it at MTE he said they once put a drop of HC400 on a blue foam pad and it ate all the way thru. Both are great products, just not good together.

 

[braga]

Just a warning - the Rupes blue foam pads will begin shedding with Menzerna HC400. Something in the HC400 makes the foam disintegrate. When I spoke to Dylan from Rupes about it at MTE he said they once put a drop of HC400 on a blue foam pad and it ate all the way thru. Both are great products, just not good together.

FG400 and HC400 - same compound. I'm using this combo 3 days in a row, pads looks fine to me.
I will try FG400 with the Rupes Yellow foam, I heard great feedback about this combo for one step polishing.

The Menzerna FG400 works very well with the aggressive blue Rupes pad.

This combo cuts fast and finishes out like a fine cut polish. I predict you will be amazed.

 

[Todd@RUPES]

It looks like you got good results?

The RUPES BigFoot Polishing System is designed to correct paint WITHOUT too much heat production. Heat is a product of friction and energy transfer, but when it comes to polishing paint, it doesn't offer much benefit. I don't think polishing in the sun is going to have too much of a benefit vs. in the shade and I would suggest carefully monitoring the results.