Doing a 1 Step Polish, which Pad to use?

About to do a 1 step polish on my BMW, its Alpine White, only 4 months old.

I'm planning on using 106FA, and I'm not sure whether to use a Green CCS, White CCS or Black CCS?

And also, this is completely off topic but I've always wondered this but, what happens if you polish so much that you run out of clear coat?

 

I use White CCS pads with 106FA i dont like the Green pads

 

now there's a simple answer to you question.

Answer:
1. You'll "burn through" the clear coat.
2. Clear coat is taken off.
3. Color coat will be bare
4. Worst is you burn the clear and color coat exposing primer or metal/plastic panel.

how's the condition of the car? is it full of scratches, swirls, hologram?
are you trying to achieve correction? if not, 106Fa with white or black pad will be good

 

what? you cant run out of clear coat!

 

Oh my car is perfectly fine, has a few light scratches here and there. Since it is white its really hard to see, it was purchased September 2008.

I was just wondering what would happen if you polish it over and over and eventually run out of clear coat? A friend of mine had his 2007 G35 detailed and he said that the detailer did a poor job and there is barely any clear coat left. Wondering what would happen if the clear coat gets completely polished out.

 

are you a da or rotory, da you'll be fine, rotory slow and least agressive pad white the most I would go, pending what type of perfection you are trying to acheive, low rpms and keep the pad moving, p 106 is a fine polish..love the stuff, tryed on a black BMW 530 got only 75% correction with a white pad and rotory, stepped up to powergloss with white pad and 95 % correction and finished with no hazing..good luck..:applause2:

 

I'm gonna be using a PC.. I'm so new

Anyways. Ok I will try the white pad with the 106 FA. Cool thanks.

 

Well when detailing it all comes down to what your trying to achieve and how much clear coat your willing to scarifies for the end results. What I'm trying to get at is this. Some detailers don't believe on paint gauges, I personally wont detail a vehicle with out measuring the paint. That way you know how much clear coat you have to play with.

Now regarding your vehicle, if all your going to do is a light polish with a DA you'll be fine but it would be nice to know how much clear coat you have on your vehicle. Now can you run out of clear coat? Sure you can, if your not careful. But for what your doing, burnishing the surface, you'll be fine. I mean your only going to be removing microns.

Hope this helps.

 

Oxidation (Reduction) [: simply means that oxygen is added to a molecule with an electron being displaced, which in turn dries the paint surface].


Thickness - a clear coat has a thickness of 1.5 – 2.0 Mils, removing more that 0.4 mil (0.0004") of clear coat will cause premature paint film failure due to oxidation. As a point of reference two sheets of Saran wrap placed on top of each other measure 1.5Mil (0.0015") a surface scratch that will `catch' your fingernail is approximately 0.004" deep and will usually require wet sanding and refinishing. There comes a point when you must judge wither removing a scratch will compromise the clear coat and if so you’ll have to ‘live’ with the imperfection

Ultra Violet Radiation
Automotive clear coat paint has UVR protection in the upper 1/3 of the final coat, once this is gone there is no UVR protection for the basecoat and this will cause clear coat failure (oxidation) and photo degradation (fading) of the colour coat

 

So that means that if you get your car deetailed by one of the pros here on this shit 3-4 times, the clear would almost be gone?

 

What exactly are you trying to say? Sorry but I'm not getting the question...could be just me though :shrug:

 

haha, thats to funny.

truthfully, if you get your car detailed correctly once and you end up with your car looking like this AGAIN



theres something wrong with you, no one should ever need 3 full 3 stage corrections

 

Polishing removes such a small amount of clearcoat, that unless you are a developmentally challenged person ( its politically incorrect to say "retard") you shouldn't have a problem. If you measured your paint in a certain area and then polished it with Menz SIP on a Green pad and followed up with 106FA or PO85rd on a Black pad and then measured your paint again, you would probably find the paint thickness only down a couple of microns. You could use this combo on your car every month for a year if you were so inclined and you wouldn't run out of clear. To put this into perspective, your cars paint, if basecoat/clearcoat, is divided into thirds and will typically be 110 - 130 microns thick. That means your clear is approximately 40 microns thick. You should be able to remove one third or 15 microns of that safely without ruining your paint. Things that will increase the chances of removing too much clear are pad speed, choice of pad and choice of polish/compound. The high points or edges of the car will have the least amount of paint as paint will flow away from these areas when painted. Keep your speed low and don't use anything too aggressive around these areas. Coarser pads and compounds will remove more clear than less aggressive pads and polishes. Sorry for being long winded. Hope this helps.

 

Woops, I meant on this site haha. I don't know why I typed shit.

 

Ok makes a lot of sense.

I was just curious because I am a noobie and didn't want to polish my clear coat all the way to the paint.

 

Very well put Ken. That post will help alot of the newer members get a better understanding of paint thickness and the fear of burning paint.