Whats up everyone, i dont have a paint meter. Whats the best way to polish my car? Can i still use a porter cable? What are some ways to tell which pad and polish i should use? My car has a couple light scratches and very little swirling. I would like to buy a porter cable, but dont know if i should since im not buying a paint meter. Again this is just for my personal car, no one else's. Thanks
What kind of car? What year? How many miles? Has it been polished or wet sanded before? Are there any signs of clear coat failure?
It is a 2003 audi A4 with about 94,000 miles on it. It is Silver color. It may have been polished before because the car looks well kept. No big scratches or anything. only few swirls and like 3 patches that look like someone rubbed fine sand paper or something. Nothing to noticeable. They're only noticeable when the cars washed and you point them out.
I second this request. From what i have read, a paint meter is the only way to know if its safe to cut...but it seems like a lot of people are cutting/polishing without measuring. Are they just winging it?
In all actuality paint meters like the Highline are not too helpful when polishing. Paint meters like these are generally used by people who purchase used cars (dealers) to see if the car has been repainted or not. For example if one panel reads 110 and the next 220, well then it's pretty safe to say that car's been repainted perhaps because of an accident. Now one can tell if a car's been into an accident or not, but there's no way of telling how much clear you have to work with. Reason being is that when you measure the paint, you're measuring all layers of paint as a whole, meaning the primer, basecoat and clearcoat (or perhaps 2 layers depending on the car, etc.). Keeping that in mind you can estimate how much clear you have so it's not useless in its entirety, but again, it's an estimate only. Furthermore, if the car has been polished before it's even more of an estimate because you don't know how much the cowboy before you took off. Let's say you take a reading of 180 on a Ferrari... Now technically we'd divide that by 3 provided that there's primer-basecoat-clearcoat. That gives us an ESTIMATED 60 microns per layer. I think it's pretty safe to say that taking off 3-5 microns for a normal polishing would be safe even if the car has already been polished. Now let's say we have a Ford Focus (generally very thin paint to begin with) and we take a reading of 65 in one place but 90 in another. Here's where uncertainty sets in. Was it the basecoat that was applied so thinly in that spot? Or perhaps the clear?? Is it safe??? You're never really going to know that unless you invest lots and lots of money on a professional PTG that reads all layers of the paint. I wouldn't say, "Don't waste your monety an a cheap PTG." because yes they do serve a purpose, but it's still only an estimate. Hope that helps . -Jesse
Hey Jesse, good write-up. Another trick is to measure a spot under the hood, where generally there is little to no clearcoat , this gives you a rough idea of clear thickness. Just got to make sure that you are measuring a flat spot away from the edges. Only done a few Ferraris though so Can't say what the boy's at marinello are doing these days! But from your work looks like not much! Peace!
So would i be good with just some very light polish? like the Adams fine machine polish, or the manzerna powerfinish, superfinish, and 85rd? Finishing polishes like that?
Thanks Jesse for the words. Here is what im wondering right now though. Scenario: You have a customer that comes in every 6 months for a wash/polish/wax. Lets say they bring they same car in for 5 years, twice a year....at what point will cutting through become a concern?
Cheers mate . You're right about that and it is a good way to estimate what the first 2 layers are, but then again not all manufacturers even bother with primer when they paint the underside of a hood or even the shuts for that matter. Take Mazda for example... under the hood most of the time is sprayed with a very quick shot of primer (I mean not even a REAL coating... almost like an overspray of primer!!) and an even quicker shot of basecoat... as well as the door shuts. My best friend has a Mazda 5 minivan and we we were floored that a van of this caliber would be so "cheaply" sprayed. Ferrari are the same with their fiberglass panels. The fiberglass panels are sprayed separately from the body and the undersides of them get a quick blast of black primer and that's it (varies with models). Yes you should be OK with a fine polish and a finishing pad, but you'll also need to know how to let "that one scratch" go. By that I mean don't try and go for the gold and take out every scratch. A light polish should take out most of the haze/spider webs caused by washing, etc. Also, don't underestimate the power of a glaze!! I've glazed a fair amount of cars that have had very low readings and I'm honest and upfront with the customer in the beginning and tell them, "Look, your car has very low readings, therefore I don't recommend a "correction" on your paint because there's a very good chance that there will be a strike-through. Instead, let's glaze the paint, remove a VERY small amount of the swirls and fill the rest of the scratches in. It should last for about 3/4 months and we can do it again safely if you choose." Ten times out of ten, they agree and everybody's happy. Here's a perfet example of an Alpina BMW that was an automatic car wash victim and had been polished more than a couple of times. I glazed the entire car and it was roughly 90% scratch-free. And I'll be going back in a couple of months to glaze it again . Don't misconstrue this thread and think that I glaze all of my work though; this is a last resort only. I keep a record of my customers' paint readings so it would be a good idea for you to start a chart. Also, you have to help your customer understand that not every polishing job you do on his car will make it 100% scratch-free. I have a lot of customers that keep their cars in garages and bring them out on shiny days only and I also have a lot of customers that use them as they were meant to be used. The latter is the one you have to sell the "not correction, just enhancement polishing to. Trust me, they will understand and they WILL thank you for your professional advice .
Chemical Guys make very good and fast working glazes and I've heard that Moose Glazes are also very good, though I haven't tried them. I use them with a finishing pad and apply the glaze liberally to the pad (as compared to a couple drops on the pad when polishing). Work it in at 600 over the area to be polished, but work it in for a couple of passes and let it get a bit "tacky" (it works faster like this). Bump it up to 1,500 RPM and work it in just like a polish and watch the scratches disappear .
