Ok, Black Tie is just a little over a year old. I made the mistake a year ago of washing the car with an item I should not have, and I have since hated the swirls in my black paint. I also have a few small paint chips on the front end. Nothing unusual, but this spring I want to get them taken care of. I have a pretty good handle on car care, and a pretty good stock of quality stuff. I wanted to post what my proposed product and plan of attack is and see what you wise ones had to think about it. Here goes. (There has not been any wax on the car since late fall).

1)Touch up chips with factory touch up paint. Let be for a few days.
2)Wash with Meguiars NXT wash
3)clay using sonus clay and lube
4)polish using 3M swirl mark remover
5)clean using sonus paint cleaner polish
6)wax using Meguiars NXT tech wax paste...all of these by hand.

Will the paint cleaner after the swirl remover be ok? Is it necessary? Will the polishes smooth out any paint chip touchups rendering them almost seemless?

Thanks for any help and or suggestions. This spring Black Tie looks nice a nice deep black again.

 

I am looking forward to your responses, because I would like to do exactly the same thing to Dobby. He hasn't been waxed since last fall either. Too difficult in the winter. Plan looks good to me, but I am no expert, So I await the responses of the detailing gurus.....

 

The products don't sound bad to me. There are technique tips for each of those steps in the 'My Detailed Detailing Process' that is sticky in the detailing forum.

Depending on the depth of your swirl marks, the hand polishing might make it tough to get everything back to factory finish. If you know someone w/ the PCDA or have the opportunity to snap one up on ebay or on sale at autopia, I would definately recommend it. I spent about 15 hours w/ my PCDA, briniging my 6 year-old Nissan Altima back to a crystal finish... I can't imagine what it would have taken to do it by hand!

My PCDA isn't the type of hardware you pull off of the shelf on a daily or even monthly basis, so check in w/ your local MINI club and see if someone there can loan you one for a few weeks...

You also might check into a product line from Sonus, one of my favorite auto abrasive manufacturers. It's a little more reassuring than your 3M / Sonus combination because it was made to be done by hand and it's a system that was engineered to work together (the grit sizes are appropriate to be used one after another): http://www.autopia-carcare.com/autopia/sonhandpol.html (plus you get their cool 3 color foam applicator)

I usually reserve the SFX-3 for the serious stuff (polishing out deep scratches or flattening touch-up blobs) and use the SFX-2 for swirlmarks, but I'm using the PCDA... you would probably need the more abrasive product to do it by hand (less heat and fewer passes).

 

Your procedure is generally OK. I too will soon be doing my springtime touch-up paint, polish, and wax maneuver.

First, be sure to wash the car. Use dawn, simplegreen, etc around areas you wish to touch up to be sure there is no wax or other greases in the touch up areas.
When the car is dry, touch up the paint of the thousands of paint chips you got over the winter (grrr..) as well as any scratches you notice if you have a paint pen.

ScratchX and other products note not to use on paint for a week, so wait for the next week to be sure your paint has fully cured.

Now for the big clean, polish, wax job.
Wash the car, at this point I use dish soap as I plan to replace the wax for this first wash of the spring.
Claybar to remove contaminants.
Polish with swirl removing polish, scratchx, etc. Random Orbit polisher if you have one. This is also the time to attempt to polish down those touch-up paint blobs.
Wash with car wash or paint cleanser again just to be sure you've removed everything.
Dry.
Wax.
(and wax and wax...get those first few layers of zaino down!)

There is my 2-week beginning of spring cleaning dance, and if the weather keeps up this warm spell I may be able to do very soon!

 

Just a note. When applying the OEM touch up paint use a toothpick. This way you can control the amount of paint you put in the chip. Takes a steady hand and patience. You can blot up any "domes" with a q-tip.

 

Even better, buy the disposable tools available from Langka. Oversize red toothpicks w/ tiny little foam applicators at the end. Those suckers are very cool!

 

I've got a pretty good-sized door whack to fix up - looks down to the metal in one small spot, but the rest still has primer. I'm wondering: toothpick, brush, paint pen, or tape it off and shoot it with my Paasche artist's airbrush? I was thinking of pre-sanding with 2000 to flatten the edges of the scratch, then as many coats with the airbrush as it took to build up. Is that better than blobbing it on and sanding down? (I'm pretty good shooting lacquer, not that concerned about orange peel etc). Seems like people never mention using an airbrush, is that because it doesn't give a good result?

 

I've never tried airbrush before. I think that most people just don't have the rigs to do it.

I've done Langka on scratches, but it just doesnt' seem to work well and it keeps pulling the paint out of the scratch. I've had better luck with lots of coats of paint from touchup brushes and wetsanding, but it takes a lot of patience and some practice on a car you don't care much about!

Try practicing on your wife's or girlfriend's car!

 

Hmmm, any chance that item was a ScotchBrite Kitchen pad?? Here is one car I restored at AMVIV that was "cleaned" with such a pad.


A PC wasn't aggressive enough to restore it. Only a cutting pad on a rotary buffer could pull out these scratches and gouges.

Your process is fine, except you have many choices to decide at the "Paint Cleaning/Polishing step". Instead of using a Swirl Remover, then a Paint Cleaner, use something like Meguiar's M80 or M83 which does both functions in one product. M83 is twice as aggressive as M80. You will want to be using a PC and a yellow buffing pad like a W-8006 pad.

If you're going to be at the Dragon, I'll be happy to take a look at it for you.

Richard