This is the first of three parts of a review of some of the more popular polishing compounds used on wool pads by rotary to highlight the possible corrections achievable - I'm writing each one as I go as I am avoiding the snow showers!! :lol: A little on "why wool?" - Wool pads have a very aggressive cut compared to their foam counterparts and finishing down LSP ready with them is nigh on impossible... However, it is this aggressive cut that is the reason I wanted to do a little demo of wool pads as they get little air time compared to foam, yet present a huge advantage over foam: and that advantage is heat! Or rather, the lack of it. Some of these tests today have been carried out with the rotary at 2500rpm, yet despite mutliple passes at this sp[eed the panel remains cool to warm, as opposed to a foam pad that woud have had the panel smoking if care was not taken at these speeds! The ability to cut fast and hard without massive heat production is for me a big one! However, be very aware that wool pads cut strongly! To use one is a last resort (before wet sanding - but try every foam po0lishing combo first)... If you find serious compounding is needed, the for me, to do it on wool is a safer way of going about it from a heat perspective but careful assessment of the paint removed must be carried out at all times! Anyways, on with the fun! MarkV was the first products up, but before we start we really need to get stuck in with some wire wool on a panel... and a car key while we're at it just to give the wool something to work on - here we go: Absolutely no gloss! Wool pad of choice: the one that came with the Makita!! Yup, notthe highest quality wool maybe, but it does its job as we'll soon see So, a couple of lines of MarkV Mystique on the panel: The product was first picked up at 600rpm and then spread around the panel at 600rpm for a couple of passes to get a nice even coating of the polish readu to use. The rotary was then stepped first up to about 1500rpm and two or three passes were made at this speed with light to medium pressure. You could see at this stage a dramatic reduction in the swirls already, highlighting a very strong cut and by the end of these passes we only had the deeper marks and swirls left and you could see them quite clearly through the residue... Step up now to 2000rpm with light to medium pressure and move the machine backwards and forwards across the panel at two or three inches a second, watching the marks as you go. The strength of the cut is clear to see, as you could watch the marks reduce and then vanish - no need for a thickness gauge to know you're removing paint!!! After about five or six passes at the speed, all but the deepest marks could be seen to remain. So, step up to 2500rpm. Continue to move machine at 3 - 4" per second (quite fast), and note that panel temperature never gets above warm. Polish for four or five passes at this speed until the marks could be seen to be gone, and then switch off machine. No attempt has been made to finish down here, as you cannot get a wool pad to finish to the gloss and clarity of a finishing foam - to try would be wasting paint, especially given its cut! You want the wool to remove the marks, do its job, and once removed, switch off to stop the aggressive cutting stage and switch acorss to foam to refine. The result after wool: Light holograms - as you'd expect from a compound on wool, but certainly not huge arrays of holograms, just somthing light that could be easily and happily removed. Also, the gloss was restored: In order to remove the hologramming, a Meguiars W8006 polishing foam pad was fitted to the rotary and MarkV Mystique again was used but this time as a reifning polish (this polish can serve many tasks). Spread at 600rpm, then up to 1200rpm to begin working for a couple of passes, and then up to 1800rpm for ten passes to work polish until nearly dry (not the accepted method for using Mystique but the one that xseems to work best for me in terms of finishing!), reduce speed to 1200rpm and refine with a couple of passes. Noting here that the panel at these slower speeds with a fairly gentle foam got hotter than with the wool at 2500rpm! Result after Mystique: Hologramming removed and a bit more gloss restored to the finish. To finish the job off, MarkV Glisten was used on a Meguiars W9006 finishing pad to refine a little further and seal the paint at the same time. Spread at 600rpm, and then worked at between 1200 and 1500rpm until the residue vanished (about six to eight passes) and the end results were as follows: Not bad comapred to what we started with!!! 99% correction achieved here, only one deep key mark remained, and the gloss restored to the finish.
Well done Dave always enjoy your posts, very informative and filled with lots of good information :thumb: Thank you for taking the time to share with us :worship:
