I detailed my MINI and Mercedes Benz this past week and noticed in the sun both cars have super fine scratches. They aren't swirl marks, but rather a pattern of small fine scratches all over the car. My method for both cars were the same. I clayed both, used the porter cable DA polisher with the yellow pad and Meguiars #83. Then applied #7 with a different yellow polishing pad, then two coats of NXT wax. Does anyone know why I got these super fine scratches and how i can get them out? Was the #83 to harsh on my paint and should I try using #80 to get these fine scratches out now? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

i would give Prima Amigo a shot especially over black or dark colors.

 

I don't know anything about the Meguiars numbering, but generally with polish, if you aren't using the very finest polish, you have to back down from whatever you used in succession to the finest polish. So if you were using a cutting polish, you'd then back down to a swirl polish, and then a fine finish polish.

But I don't know if any of that applies to Meguires, just cuz I don't use their stuff. OctaneGuy will know, though!

 

Sounds like micromarring to me. You probably need to go over the cars again with a polish that is not as abrasive as #83. #80 will probably do the trick. If that does not work, try #82, #09, or #66.

 

or skitelluride531. the other expert.

 

I will order the Meguiar #80 tomorrow. Hope it works. Thanks for the help.

 

What year is the MB??

Skitelluride may be correct that this is micromarring. Do you have any pix??

How many pads did you use on the car?

What color are the cars???
#83 aka Dual Action Cleaner Polish is about twice as aggressive as #80 aka Speed Glaze. #83 works great, but really should be followed by 80 in most cases. Personally I do my best to stay away from 83 because it's harder to work with, and do more passes with 80.

Micromarring can also happen as a result of a saturated pad. Are you cleaning it often? How much product are you using

NXT Tech Wax contains some fine fillers in it.

#7 is a pure polish and if you're going to use it, I would either apply it by hand or use a W9006 Finish pad. But the jump from 83 to 7 is great. 7 (Show Car Glaze) is only used on a perfect finish. So to really have 7 do it's best, you'd want to go from 83 to 80 and maybe to 82 or #9 before going to 7.

In my experience, Amigo would not help in this situation.

Richard

 

Hahaha...Although that is quite flattering, I don't think I am anywhere near the level of Octane Guy .

 

well, if you're ever in Chicago again, i want you to work on my car.

 

Soooo modest!!! I've seen your work---you know your Meguiar's stuff!! I would be answering questions sooner if I weren't having email issues--I'm not recieving emails at all--I have to check NAM to see if there are any new posts or replies. I'd have no problems recommending customers to you.

That's probably a good thing--to let others chime in before I do.

Richard

 

Tried calling you two times agian Richard but got your machine twice. I left a message both times. This is Peter from Pennsylvania. I spoke to you a couple of times already. I appreciate your reply on this thread. Yes my pad was saturated. So when I wash both cars next time, should I jump straight to the 80 with the polishing pad, then you said 82 or 9 but with which pad polishing or finishing pad? Also how do you clean your polishing and finishing pads, in the wash? Ready to place an order just want to make sure I have my list ready for you for which products I need. If you can call me that would be great, I left my number on your machine, if not a reply on this thread would be fine. Thanks to you and everyone who helped me out with this thread. Can't wait to try to get these scratches out, they're killing me!!!

 

^^ like i said at the top, try Amigo. thats specifically made for
removing/hiding micromarring.

 

Peter,

Please use PM or my yahoo email of OctaneGuy95@yahoo.com for now, and confirm what phone you are using.

I'm having strange issues. I'm not receiving your phone calls or getting any voice mail messages. Neither on my home phone or my cell phone.

But just the same, my SCG email has been having issues too. I've gotten calls from people telling me they emailed me 3 times and no reply--when I didn't even get one message.

Sooooooo, trust me I'm not ignoring you.

As in our DVD, you can remove a lot of the saturation by wrapping a towel, preferably a terry, but mf will work too, and firmly grasping the pad as you turn the PC on. Do this for a few seconds, then turn it off, reposition the towel--you will see the polish has transferred to the towel.

If the polish is dry, you can wash the pads in warm water with some Dawn soap--Yes that's what Dawn should be used for-- I've washed mine in the washing machine, but beware that everytime you wash and saturate the pad with warm water or even polish the potential for the cloth backing on the pad could loosen. You can fix this by gluing it back.

Although as Kenchan has said Amigo may hide this marring, its MUCH better to remove the marring than hide them, and you can do that! If you've already polished your cars with 83, then you most likely don't need to use 83 next time--I would definitely start with 80 with W8006 pad.

82 could be applied with a yellow W8006 pad or W9006 finishing pad, but since we're trying to polish it out to a high degree, I'd say you would want to use the cutting power of W8006. For #7, definitely apply with W9006 as being a pure polish you don't want any cutting happening--as at the time you're on #7, all polishing and swirl removing should be finished by now.

Hope that makes sense!

Richard

 

daohhh! that's a deduction in Octane point.
but an addition for DP point as we know Amigo works.

 

Haha, you gotta use the right product for the right situation. I initially thought that using a polishing pad with Amigo on my rotary might be aggressive enough to get the swirls out of the Porsche, in the normal light it looked great, but under my Xenon swirl finder light, the finish was horrible (swirls and haze). Not knowing exactly what was going on, I skipped Amigo and went with M80 with the rotary, then PC, and finished it off with Epic with the PC.

This doesn't discourage me from using Amigo, rather it means I need more experimentation to find what works best in a given situation. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a fan of Swirl right now, though Cut, Finish, and in most cases Amigo are pretty great.

re: Deduction
As mentioned above, in some cases, it's not possible to remove the marring. Yesterday my partner worked on a Mosler, that I was originally going to take part in, but had to change my schedule around so I couldn't. He said working on the paint was miserable--just scratched really easily. I've had the same thing happen with Infiniti paints where it's not possible to remove the micromarring and a product like Amigo is the perfect and sometimes only solution. But IMO, if it's possible to remove micromarring and you have the capability to do so, then it's best to remove them--that doesn't apply to most people though.
Richard

 

^^ ahh, so for an amature Amigo is good enough for a quick fix, but
for a pro it is still not there unless it is used after Finish (or any finest
polish in your detailing arenal)?

 

Yeah, for the same reasons that Zaino is so popular--that it fills in swirls and hides them until they are so deep or plentiful that you gotta eventually deal with them, or that you gotta Dawn Wash it to remove all the built up fillers so you can start from a clean slate everyonce in awhile, Amigo has it's place.

For a pro, good enough never is, unless I'm a production detailer (which I'm not)--where speed is more important over longevity or quality.

For an amateur who is doing everything by hand, he may not have the ability to remove light swirls, so a product with fillers is highly desirable.

For someone that's learning to use the PC to remove swirls and leaves the micromarraing behind, IMO, not going all the way to maximize the PC, is like eating only half of a chocolate fudge sundae. You gotta finish it off, not by dumping it in the trash, but by eating it. Ok not the greatest example. But I think I'm hungry.

For a pro, Finish would be the next logical step after Swirl in the Prima line if micromarring still exists.

Richard

 

that's probably the worst explanation ive ever heard, but
i see your point.

 

Like OctaneGuy illustrated, different products yield different results on different paints.

Amigo does fill and conceal but it also abrades... with the right set of tools. I hope this doesn't just confuse everyone, but Amigo is unique to begin with so maybe it's par for the course that it can be confusing. Let me explain...

By hand, Amigo is a paint cleasner with fillers/concealers. This means that it will gently clean the paint of oils, gunk, etc. It will also fill the finest scratches and swirl marks (although not big scratches or swirls).

With the PC (DA/RO) and a finishing pad (aka super soft pad, like the Lake Country/Paradise black pad or the Meguiar's finishing pad or the Sonus blue pads or Griot's red waxing pad), Amigo is again a paint cleanser with fillers/concealers.

With the PC (DA/RO) and a more aggresive pad, like a polishing or light cutting/swirl removing pad (ie, Lake Country white polishing pad or Lake Country orange light cutting pad or other manufacturer's equivalents), Amigo is a strong paint cleanser with fillers/concealers AND an abrasive. With the right pad, Amigo's super fine abrasives will remove 3000 grit sanding marks. (grit level removal is often a good way to know what level of abrasive you're working with... although note that it's not the only measure of how it will work)

So with a denser pad and the polisher, Amigo does not just hide imperfections... it does indeed abrade and remove them.

**Remember that the denser the pad, the more pressure there is on the abrasives in the polish... in other words, a denser pad adds bite to your polish (and vice versa). Also, paint softness varies. For example, the PC with a white "polishing" (LC) pad and Amigo might yield a perfect finish on the soft paint of a BMW, while the PC with the denser orange "light cutting" (LC) pad and Amigo might leave you with some hazing and micromarring on a BMW. Likewise, the PC with an orange pad and Amigo on a MINI might result in a perfect finish. You learn how to mix and match your various pad densities with your various polish abrasiveness for the perfect combination for your situation.


It may be that the Meguiar's yellow pad would not be dense enough to pair with the Amigo for true abrading, in most cases. I would say that pairing the Amigo with either the Lake Country white (for super-super light abrading) or the Lake Country orange (for light abrading), would finish just about any car with soft to medium paint hardness to perfection.

So, Amigo is many different things depending on how its used... it's sort of a chameloen I suppose, changing with the way you use it and how soft your paint is.

Shwoo... I hope this was clarifying and not more confusing!

It sounds like Peter W. is about to get the right product for the pad system he already has. So, I would agree with OctaneGuy that Amigo wouldn't help, but only because Peter W. is limited to just one kind of polishing pad in his current lineup. And, sometimes it's easier to stick with what you have!

I hope this helps clarify what Amigo is and isn't. Please let me know if you have any questions about our chameleon Amigo!

-Heather

 

Richard- you are making ME hungry too now!! LOL.

-Heather

 

I'll jump in here as an always by hand detailer (my own cars and others) who got a PC, tried it on his black MCS roof, spotted this micro-marring, ran for the 3m hand glaze, covered it up, and hasn't gone back to the PC yet.

Needless to say I can't keep up with the fine swirls and need to get rid of them.

I used the sonus pads with poor boy's polishes. Since then I have purchased the sonus polishes, but I'm gun shy.

I think I need the detailing DVD for machine polishing - where do I get it?

mb

 

Hi Heather,

Excellent explanation and very clear to me.

As mentioned in the explanation, plentiful options are good when faced in different difficult situations. In my work, I like consistency, to be able to go into a situation, and be able to ascertain before I work on the paint that a certain tool set should solve the problem. Until I get my hands on the paint, and am able to positively identify the best solution to the problem, often times experimentation is needed and thats where having flexibility is important.

For most people, just knowing that Amigo can either clean your paint, or help you achieve a higher quality finish depending on your pad selection is probably good enough. Too many options can be confusing. From a Pro view points, that's wonderful!

I did order a quart of Amigo on my last DP order, so I am committed to making it work for me.

Looks like I'm gonna have to do a quart size order of Epic next.

Richard

 

Haha Go sniff some Slick, it'll really make you hungry. Well it does for me. LOL

It's right under your nose in the NAM store

http://store.northamericanmotoring.c...t=0&bestseller

All you need is:

1 W-8006 foam pad from Meguiars
M80 (Speed Glaze)
my DVD

Or

Follow the DetailersParadise pad recommendation chart for an equivalent polishing pad--think it's the white pad.

Swirl
Finish
my DVD

Either way I'd follow with DP's Epic wax.

Richard

 

I'm sure OctaneGuy will chime in with info on the DVD since I don't have the link handy... (or if he misses this I'll find out and post again later). Indeed, with just a bit of training and some good polishes (and pads!), you will learn to love the PC and never go back!

I hate to dodge recommending what you should do next on the forum because it'd probably be helpful to others... but, it sounds like it might be helpful to get some specific recommendations for your specific situation. I'm fairly familiar with the Sonus system, so give me a shout (PM or email) and I can help you figure out what to use when, etc. It sounds like your past experience was similar to Peter W.'s... you may have jumped polish levels too quickly (ie, from too heavy to too light or something). Anyway, we can help!

I agree with OctaneGuy in that removing swirls/scratches is much better in the long run than just concealing them. And since you already have the PC you're half way there!

-Heather

 

Ooops... I guess OctaneGuy already posted before I finished my post!

...and he did just what I knew he would and gave you the link!

Definitely buy the DVD. I can help you convert the instructions to your Sonus system (since you already have their polishes and pads).

Since OctaneGuy already suggested specifics, I'll get specific too...

First though, which Sonus polishes do you have? Also, do you have their SFX pads or their regular pads? Do you still have any of the Poor Boys polishes left? Let me know and I'll put together a list of what might work best on your Chili Red.

OR, you could just convert to our system... just kidding! Might as well use what you have. Both Sonus and Poor Boys are decent systems.

Let me know what you have and we'll go from there!

-Heather