Very unique damage with Porter Cable Polisher and Meguiars M105

C

carlg

New member
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
66
Reaction score
0
First off. Hopefully you can see the picture. It was in the dark with flash.

Not sure what this is or what to think about it.

My buddy was using my Porter Cable XP Polisher with Lake Country Orange pad and Meguiars M105. He was getting some deeper scratches out of his truck. All was going well.

Then he hit the corner. You can see it in the picture.

There is a part that is a little bigger than a dime that turned white. The paint did not chip! If you rub your finger over this it feels just as smooth as any other part of the surface. There is no indentation or anything like that. All totally smooth.

It's just like it turned color.

So, what is this?

And how do we fix it?


Thanks!!!
 
But if he burned through the clear, wouldn't you still see black? not white.
 
He burned through the paint. Paint doesn't just change colors.
 
If he burned through the clear and the paint, why can you not feel it?

If you run your finger over this, you cannot feel it. I mean it feels just like a freshly waxed car. No dips or anything.

Secondly, I thought you cannot damage your car with the Porter Cable 7424XP? Since it's dual action.

Mike's exact words in this video:
YouTube
"Virtually impossible to damage your clear coat with this polisher."

Which makes me wonder if it is clear coat damage?
 
Tough to tell from you that pic. I will say for an area that just got gone over with 105 that it looks pretty bad tho..... makes me wonder.
 
Looks like burn through to me as well. My buddies Lexus had a similar spot that was smooth in nature that somebody did for him. And not to be silly but "virtually impossible" is not the same as "impossible"

Did you measure the paint by chance. Folks have burnt through clear with the greatest of intentions using a DA polisher. Good luck...

Sent from my SM-G935V using Autogeekonline mobile app
 
carlg said:
Secondly, I thought you cannot damage
your car with the Porter Cable 7424XP?
Since it's dual action.

Mike's exact words in this video:
YouTube
"Virtually impossible to damage your
clear coat with this polisher."
Click to expand...
IMO:
Below (highlighted in Red) is the difference...
the game-changer, as it were.

carlg said:
My buddy was using my Porter Cable
XP Polisher with Lake Country Orange
pad and Meguiars M105...

All was going well.

Then he hit the corner.
Click to expand...
The total paint build is thinner
on the corners/edges.


carlg said:
There is a part that is a little bigger than
a dime that turned white. The paint did
not chip! If you rub your finger over this
it feels just as smooth as any other part
of the surface. There is no indentation or
anything like that. All totally smooth.

It's just like it turned color.

So, what is this?
Click to expand...
•Even though a “burn-through” can’t physically
be detected at this particular point in time
(Alas: it will become more, and more physically
detectable in short order)...
-The paint-system was (over)heated to the
point that it’s binders, resins, etc. have been
compromised, and is no longer bonded to the
underlying panel/substrate.


carlg said:
And how do we fix it?
Click to expand...
IMO:
The “best practice” fix is: remove the
compromised area; prep; and respray.



Bob
 
Could it be an old repair that had a thin paint on it. The shape looks like a small dent that was filled and painted. How did the pad looked after going over it? Was it any signs on black paint on it?
 
Hard to say from a picture so you have to go about it by elimination.

1. There is nothing that a polisher can put on the paint that would make it turn white, so this has to be due to the process of removing something. In this case the color layer of the paint

It is very possible that that spot had single stage paint on it due to a prior repair and repaint. And it was all removed by the compound. Otherwise, your friend burned though the clearcoat and completelly removed the color coat exposing the primer coat underneath.

As for smothness, you probably still have polishing oils from the M105 making is very smoth. Also if you polish primer enough it would probably turn smoth like paint.

As for being unable to damage anything with a DA.... well, it is very very difficult to do but not impossible. If you keep the machine with heavy pressure on a single spot for a long time (trying to remove a scratch for example) you can remove too much paint on that spot. What DAs are good for is give you a margin of safety for small mistakes likes going over body lines without removing pressure. The pad will stall if you do that preventing burn through. But on a flat pannel, if the machine is at full speed and with pressure and you stay on a single spot, eventually you can do just as much damage as with a rotary, it just will take a lot more time.
 
carlg said:
First off. Hopefully you can see the picture. It was in the dark with flash.

Not sure what this is or what to think about it.
Click to expand...


Here's your picture

64146d1530495291-very-unique-damage-porter-cable-polisher-meguiars-m105-20180701_213126-1-jpg



That looks like PRIMER.

Your buddy buffed through the clearcoat, then through the basecoat and to me, that looks like primer.


Kind of makes the case for my article here,


Clearcoats are thin by Mike Phillips


:)
 
carlg said:
If he burned through the clear and the paint, why can you not feel it?
Click to expand...

The reason you cannot feel it is because the layers are VERY THIN and the buffing process smooths over the difference between where the clear layer, basecoat layer and primer are exposed.



carlg said:
Secondly, I thought you cannot damage your car with the Porter Cable 7424XP? Since it's dual action.

Mike's exact words in this video:

YouTube


"Virtually impossible to damage your clear coat with this polisher."
Click to expand...


And what I said is accurate. It is virtually impossible to damage your clearcoat with a Porter Cable random orbital polishers. It's and incredibly safe tool. That said, back to my article,


Clearcoats are thin by Mike Phillips



For those that cannot or will not click the link, here's the pictures from the article that kind of drives home the point, this picture is also in my how-to book, The Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine. See my Sig Line to get your own copy,




Just how thin is the clear layer of paint on a factory paint job?

The factory clearcoat on a new or modern car measures approximately 2 mils thin.

The average post-it not is around 3 mils thin.


What does this mean?

This means the factory clearcoat on a new or modern car is thinner than a post-it note.

The next time you have a post-it note in front of you, feel a single post-it note between your fingers. Like this...

watermark.php




Even though the PC is one of the weakest DAs on the market, it is completely capable of doing what it's supposed to do when you maintain pad rotation with a foam cutting pad and an aggressive compound and that is,


REMOVE PAINT


For those reading this into the future, the way you remove swirls and scratches is you remove paint. You LEVEL the upper most surface of the paint with the lowest depths of the swirls and scratches you're trying to remove. The problem with this goes back to my article,

Clearcoats are thin by Mike Phillips


In all my detailing classes, I teach people what I call,

BIG PICTURE DETAILING

Once you learn the concept behind Big Picture Detailing, you don't burn through factory clearcoats with safe polishers like the PC.


My classes are good, you learn a LOT. Most of the people that take my classes are NOT detailers, just people that love to detail their own cars. For those reading this into the future, here's the link to find out about all our classes,


All our detailing classes


Get signed up, you'll learn a lot and also have a lot of fun.




:)
 
Something like that happened to me the very first time I used the Porter Cable 7424xp. I was using Ultimate Compound on green hex logic pad.

This was in 2013. Years prior I used a rotary, and probably because I was so heavily warned by my local paint shop guys to stay vigilant to not damage paint, it threw my perception off when using the random orbital. I took for granted the safety feature, and went fairly aggressive after a defect. BOOM - white... On a black vehicle.
 
Wow, thanks for all the replies.
I feel kinda bad for him. He was doing the work at my house, with my tools.

All makes sense now what happened.

Now, how can we fix this or at least hack it up to where it looks somewhat acceptable (maybe not perfect).

Since it's so smooth and there's no indentation like a paint chip, it's not like you can throw Dr. ColorChip in there.

I feel like it would have been an easier fix if it was actually chipped and there was an indentation for touch up paint to grab to.
 
carlg said:
Now, how can we fix this or at least hack it up to where it looks somewhat acceptable (maybe not perfect).
Click to expand...

Outside of a professional painter painting that area or the entire fender, nothing else you can do will fix it AND make it look like nothing ever happened.


What you can do kind of depends upon how much work you want to put into it. I'm guessing you could go to a local PBE store, (Paint Body and Equipment), and have the Paint Mixer mix you up an aerosol can of matching paint. Next tape-off an area surrounding the burn-through, sand, primer then paint. Allow it to dry for a few weeks than lightly, ever so lightly sand with #5000 Trizact by hand, (lightly), and then very lightly buff the area with a fine polish to kind of shmoo it over.


I'm not sure I would try. If it were my truck and it was important to me to get it fixed so it looked right I'd take it to my buddy Paul and pay him to fix it.


:)
 
I'm guessing the 105 had dried out when this happened. I started with 105 also. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't recommend 105 to a beginner. There are so many more user friendly compounds out now.

One thing is for sure, he was going at it fast and hard. I hope he doesn't feel you're partially responsible because you gave him the tools and turned him loose on it. Out of curiosity did you give him any direction or did he just take the stuff and run with it.
 
DaveT435 said:
I'm guessing the 105 had dried out when this happened. I started with 105 also. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't recommend 105 to a beginner. There are so many more user friendly compounds out now.

One thing is for sure, he was going at it fast and hard. I hope he doesn't feel you're partially responsible because you gave him the tools and turned him loose on it. Out of curiosity did you give him any direction or did he just take the stuff and run with it.
Click to expand...

He's watched me before. I told him it was pretty easy. You have nothing to worry about, etc. But he knows to not hold it in the same spot for a long time. Which he had to have done to cause this mess.

I was not watching him when it happened. me and another buddy were on the other side of the truck sitting there. And then we heard like a metal on metal type of sound briefly come from the polisher. Then we thought: What did he do?

He's actually a very strong guy and I'm wondering if he pushed so hard that the pad totally compressed and the backing plate hit the car? Because like I said, there was a sound.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top