ryangambrill

Thanks.

ryangambrill

Here are some photos that I just took of the car. As you can see, not bad shape for 100k miles.



You can see some lighter color marks in the hood. Much more noticeable in the sunlight with your eyes.

Sneaky Pete

Griot's has a distribution facility just outside of Indy. Been there for a 'How to" and came away with $650 of stuff. I went 1/2's with my neighbor. We have two porter Cable buffers 3" and 6" all the polishes, rags, dry towels, micro fibers and much much more. They called it the "I want it all kit". We had suckers written all over our face. But it actually was a great buy. This was 2 years ago and we both use this stuff on a regular basis. Have to say the key is the quality of the clay bar. That stuff is priceless.

ryangambrill

I would like to order everything tonight. Does this look ok?

AudiOn19s

Add an orange pad. As a matter of fact...you're better off with 2 pads in each color (orange / white / black). They will saturate with product before you're finished with the car and they're less effective once they get to that point.

This way you can change up the agressiveness with both pad and polish. Orange / SIP being your most agressive combo where it's needed.

Andy

ryangambrill

Thanks. I will get extra pads.

Should I apply the SIP (Step 1) to only the scratched areas, or should I do the entire car?

How should I was all of the pads and applicators?

htny

I would first apply the SIP to a small area regardless of whether there are prominent scratches. Try to work a small area, no bigger than 2 square feet. IF you can choose an inconspicuous are first to get used to the technique and pressure that would be best. Then use it on all the scratched areas. You can use it on the whole car, (probably advisable, but wait until you've seen how different your 2x2 SIP work areas look compared to the unpolished sections of the vehicle, and then make a decision), then jewel the finish with the 85RD


Soft bristle brush and water should be all the product you need to keep pads clean, provided you clean them immediately after doing the work.

ryangambrill

Thanks. The paint is in really good shape, considering age and miles. I am going to try just the SIP on the scratched areas on the hood. If it turns out well, then I will just use the finishing polish on the whole car.

AudiOn19s

One last tip - expect there to be a learning curve even with the PC. You can't just expect to turn it on, glide it across the surface even with the right pad and polish and have great results the first time. If you're not getting the results you desire play around with applied pressure (usually just bogging the machine works best for defect removal), working time for the polish and number of passes / attempts. I always use speed 6 for cutting as well.

Andy

salayc

I was taught: weight of the machine is max pressure and lift slightly for the final pass, any more and you should use a more aggressive product. It is much safer with a PC to use pressure though. I would recommend as little pressure as possible and if the scratches don't come out, take the car to a professional. Believe it or not, done correctly, color sanding is safer than buffing for scratch removal.

AudiOn19s

it only takes about 5-10 lbs of force to bog a pc even on speed6. Rotary you're correct you should just let the weight of the machine do the work. In my personal and professional experience its pretty common for first time users to actually be disapointed at how much work is required to do correction work with a PC. When it comes down to it you almost have to TRY to damage paint to do so with a PC.

There's been alot of findings as of latge in how to be much more effective with a PC. Search on Autopia for the "Kevin Brown method". This has come about with the new polishes that no longer contain diminishing abrasives but can still be applied with conventional polishes as well.

Andy

adg44

I am a huge fan of 3M products, as I think they work better than anything else. They are a little tricky to work with at first, but once you get it down, you will never be disappointed with the results.

Since you are a VW guy as well, there is a really good detailing forum with some extremely knowledgeable people here: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zeroforum?id=24

You can see my detailing thread about my 911 here: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...cs-inside.html

- Anthony

htny

Andy did Kevin Brown ever publish the paper that those guys over there were making such a big deal about?

AudiOn19s

I've never seen a copy of it and I was supposed to be on a list of people who would get it.

You can get the jest of it if you search through the threads and only take the informaiton from credible people. One of my buddies in Atlanta was an early adopter and swears by it. I still feel there's quite a few situations where I need to use a rotary in order to keep cutting time down but do understand the value in the KB method.

htny

I haven't used these new non degrading abrasive polishes, and I have so much product already (I only have our four cars to deal with, and it's really an annual thing at this point) that I'm not sure I can justify taking up more room in the garage! But it does look interesting (and suspiciously like a Meguiars ad) and I'm sure it's faster than standard PC polishing, which for professionals like yourself must seem excruciating!