Meguiars #205 - The Ultimate Finishing Polish?

[A few pics of cars, finished with #205 as the finishing polish - waxed here as well, but of course this adds little or nothing to the finish. The results you see below owe their clarity, depth and gloss to the finishing polish used, which was #205 in all cases...]

Great paint renovation detail and explanation :kilt:


- waxed here as well, but of course this adds little or nothing to the finish
Interesting, as it was always my understanding that polish adds shine, whereas wax adds gloss and depth.

I’d be interested to hear your comments on this.

 

My thoughts on LSPs and their addition to the looks of a paint finish are quite well publicised, especially the 7-Corsa Wax Test carried out summer last year where on identically prepped cars, there was no tenable difference between a cheap wax and an expensive one, and interestingly the sealant looked the same as well.

We could discuss the semantics of gloss, depth, shine, clarity, wettness until the cows come home but the terms are used interchangably in detailing to mean the same thing in many cases. My take on the appearance of paintwork is that you look at the paint, you see a reflection, a look - this look comes from the surface finish which you achieve by using mehanical or chemical abrasives, burnishing the finish to as best the clarity as you can... this leads to a deep looking reflection, a more mirror like shine from a "smoother" surface - some refer to this as gloss, others as reflection, others as clarity but its all the same effect just people's minds see and describe it a bit differently.

So what can a wax add to this now? Bear in mind, we are talking about a few nanometres thick LSP layer, sub optical wavelength in air (and in the wax too I would imagine as I dont think the dielectric constant of the wax layer is particularly high)... At that thickness it is essentially optically clear but there will be two additional dielectric interfaces added to the equation, separated by a sub-wavelength thickness... Physically I cannot see this adding anything tenable to the look of the paintwork, certainly not big differences that are often talked about in wax companies' marketing blurb to justify silly high prices (and ludicrous markups). The look you see is from the polishing stage. You could add a slight wettness say, with an oily product that leaves a "sheen", but we are talking vry subtle nuances here not big changes.

In short, I dont believe any LSP coating is going to add notably to the looks. I see this every time I detail, I get the finish to perfection or as close to it as I can by machine, and this is the end result save for a very subtle nuance here and there perhaps (usually wettness from an oily glaze). Big changes in looks are to me, nothing more than marketing and I read a lot of claims about looks that I have yet to see backed up by serious scientific scrutiny and testing - perhaps I am just hard to please here, I am a research Physicist by day so I take a very challenging eye to things without justification. But so far, no tenable proof or scientifically sound reasoning has been given to justify some marketing claims despite it being asked for for some time now.. I wonder if not seeing it is an indication of its lack of existance (again, the challenging eye here).

To me, the vast vast majority of a paint finish will come from the machine polishing stage, what you can do to the surface finish physically and no magic LSP exists to change this look.

All in my humble opinion of course

 

So in your opinion a wax / sealant is solely used to protect the finish

 

In essence, yes... you may get a very subtle nuance here, a very subtle nuance there... but since carrying out the wax test last year I can only say that waxes add a tiny amount to a finish and that 99% of the look (at least) comes from the prep stage

 

Nice write up Dave, thank you for taking the time to document and post this :thumb:

A few questions from my side if you please...

What pads were you using with the 205? I know you are somewhat of a Meg's fan so I am assuming the Meg's range but what about other pads like the 3M's, etc?

How does the cut compare to something like Menz 106FA on harder German paints (VAG's in particular) or is there something else in the new Meg's range that you would recommend?

How much product do you use to prime the pad with 205 and how much per section, say 40cm x 40cm?

Appologies for all the questions but this has me excited as an alternative to our tried and trusted Menz routine

 

I typically use the Meguiars W8006 polishing pad, or the Detailers Domain green polishing pad when I am using the #205 for a little extra correction... the slight extra bite of the polishing pad gives just a bit extra cutting potential for removal of more defects.

When finishing and refining, it is a finishing pad I use - either the Meguiars W9006, Detailersdomain Blue, or 3M Blue. All have worked really well for me.

Put on a polishing pad and the cut of #205 compares most closely with 106FA to me, perhaps a little more if you bring the work area in, step up the pressure and the speed a bit. But its not up to the levels of #83, Intensive Polish so if you need that level of cut then #205 is not suitable. I would hope to see Meguiars bring in a mid-range product to fall between 105 and 205, as 105 is a bit aggressive for a lot of jobs, good thought it is.

At the start of the day I use a 3" line of product in the pad, prespritzed with a little water and there after I am only topping up the polish level with a 5p (nickel) sized bead of polish... use small amounts, I find you get better control of the abrasive level this way than having the pad heavily ladened with polish.

Hope that helps

 

Dave, may I ask if you have used M205 much with a dual action polisher. Do you have any recommendations for pads and technique? TIA.

 

My main polishing work is done by rotary but I am currently perfecting techniques for using it with the DA which I will report back with soon

 

Great write ups on the 205 and lsp. I agree 100% with you on the lsp, but the 205 in my opinion needs to be followed up. 205 cleans things up nicely but still needs to be followed in order to get the best gloss. It has not outperformed 85rd, UF, or Scholls S40. I even have a Megs rep coming by the shop to show him. I even asked him since 3M owns them if they could take a little something from UF and add it to 205 and then it would be one helluva finishing polish in my eyes.

 

I think we have covered this in the other thread but I disagree entirely with this based on my own experiences with all of these polishes (bar S40, though is this not also SV CF Pro, in which case I have used this as well), even on the softest of paints... #205 certainly will match and even exceed the finish clairty of optimally worked UF and 85RD, I certianly find anyway based on my own methods. #205 does not need to be followed with another polish - its very different in its style, so requires adaptation of technique with varying pressures, speeds and machine movement, but once learned, for me it is the best finishing polish out there.