Oh talking about air compressor, i need a new air blow gun.
Damn Harbor freight crap keeps breaking on me....
Need something the last and dont leak air 24/7
And i do try to rub a towel over the pad with the machine on, but it stops the machine rotating.... so i dont think that helps
"Cleaning on The Fly" is always going to stop the pad. (unless it's a rotary or a 3401) so no big problem there.
I worked on this car LAST YEAR, and i put on a layer of OC 2.0, which i believe it didnt stick on the paint, because it is got a ton of watermarks and scratches.
BUT the scratches / hologram was not as bad when i first started working on it. With my trial and error it made it worst to what is in the pictures now.
I'm still thinking towels have some blame, (maybe the towel, maybe the wash technique for
the towel(s) as well). I've been amazed at how one towels versus another, or even the SAME towel on wonky paint when the two towels have been used for different jobs in the past. Think paint finishing work, LSB work... then that towels gets used for polishing... then that towel either from a pile on your cart, in your closet, (or whatever) manages to get used again for LSP... (even if it's been washed) or EVEN WORSE gets used for compound removal and buffing then used to remove QD spray. Think you're seeing what I'm seeing now.
But...
Little scratches, all in a row, like they are beside one another is a different name for a hologram. Think the radius of a pad, and think that pad spinning, and think that radius on that spinning pad as casting off it's own radial edge 'fingerprint' (as it may).... THAT could result in what is 'seen' (by your eyes, and only in certain light) as a hologram.
Now...
You said it was OCoated before. That means you need to remove the OCoat, but how do you REALLY know when it's all removed? Probably harder than not. I'd say about now a PTG would come in seriously handy. [Better yet, a series of recorded paint readings after the last buffing, then another set after the Opti-coat.] Given those readings you'd know exactly what happened last time RE coating thickness, and if all your readings now are measurably thinner than AFTER the last Opti-coat thickness then you're at least 100% sure it's not just gone in most places, or some places, but ALL places.
Along that line of thinking...
You said you didn't think the OC stuck to the paint last time around. Did you do a strong IPA wipe down? Not that I know you did or didn't.... just mentioning it as OC really doesn't play well with others. (Not if they have ANY polishing oils AT ALL.)
And finally...
The reason I mentioned maybe not knowing if all the OC is off, is maybe, just maybe it isn't. And maybe, just maybe there is enough on there where it's all scratched up. (Especially as it seems to be the general line of thinking that the Mini/BMW paint is likely hard rather than soft.) Because we DO know that OC is
many things,
but isn't scratch resistance, which is likely much MUCH easier (to scratch) than the paint it's installed on.
imho of course, just my 2¢ worth... and ymmv 
