Probably should be in the car shine section but figured Id ask here too...Well my car went to the dealer to replace battery wires and a few other things a rat chewed up under the hood while my car was in my parents garage while I was deployed, and while it was at the dealer they washed it and put swirl marks ALL OVER the car. Do I need to go buy a good buffer now or do you guys have any good advice or products that you have used in the past that has worked?
Swirl Marks
- Thread starter Nasty03Cobra
- Start date
I Have been Using Meguiars DA Microfiber Correction System
Meguiars DA Microfiber Correction System
And Get a good Random Orbital
This stuff works very well, cleans up very easy, and DOES NOT DUST.
You will have a swirl free 100% paint corrected finish.
Chris
SicShelby09
Banned
Buy yourself a porter cable buffer, and learn how to use it. Swirls gone./
A lot of swirls can be removed by just simply applying some wax by hand. Since the car has been sitting go ahead and clay bar it and apply wax. I used klass sealer after I clay bared my car and the put on some wax and my paint is smooth shiny and it pops better
Oh yes the klass will help prevent the swirl issue in the future
I second all of this. There are quite a few good polishers to choose from. I went with the Flex 3401 a while ago and could not be happier with it. Autogeek also has a forum where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about detailing.
Wax typically doesn't remove swirls, it just helps hide them. If they are bad enough that he is posting about them, the car needs a good polishing, something that is not easily accomplished by hand.
Look at the Junkman section and watch his videos
lhttp://www.adamsforums.com/forums/cmps_index.php
lhttp://www.adamsforums.com/forums/cmps_index.php
Seer
Banned
Porter cable or Flex 3401 and 2-3 of the following pads:
Orange Compounding
White Polishing
Grey Finishing
You'll also need a compound/heavy cut polish as well as a polish/finishing polish.
Work your least agressive combo first.
this is the best way to remove swirls, waxing does not remove swirls, some waxes contain fillers that hide them.
Orange Compounding
White Polishing
Grey Finishing
You'll also need a compound/heavy cut polish as well as a polish/finishing polish.
Work your least agressive combo first.
this is the best way to remove swirls, waxing does not remove swirls, some waxes contain fillers that hide them.
+1
I'm a big Adam's Polishes user. Went with them when I had the black G8 and never looked back. I use a Porter Cable 7424 with all Adam's Polishes products. Is it the absolute best on the market? I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that it DOES work. The Junkman vids are great at explaining how to properly use the products. Best of luck to you OP, swirl marks are annoying and ruin a car's appearance in my eyes :xpl:
*ETA - What Seer said is true. A wax will not correct swirls, it can hide them though. So when you wash it the swirls reappear. You're better off polishing them out with a DA polisher, your shoulders/elbows will thank you.
Last edited:
Thanks for the solid advice guys. Im looking at a Porter Cable with the Adams starter kit. The swirls marks aren't horrible by any means, but they are definitely noticeable to someone as anal as me when it comes to cars (esp having a black one).
then its not swirl marks its scratches in a circle...... swirl marks are usually left over from buffing and not using the right compound at the end like 3m swirl remover which is basically a hopped up wax.
OP come to killeen and i will prove my point on this subject.
LOL, what do you really think swirl marks are? Call it micro Marring if you like the technical term, there is still no question that swirl marks are scratches. Severe swirl marks will not be removed by hand in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time. While swirl marks can be caused from improper buffing, the most common cause is from washing your car improperly. Even with proper washing techniques, you are still swirling your paint, but by being careful, you are minimizing swirls and can maintain a relatively swirl free finish by doing light polishing periodically.
All this being said, If you start with a relatively swirl free car and use proper washing techniques, then you can maintain a relatively swirl free car by hand without it taking insane amounts of time.
Come to Houston and I will let you try and remove the swirls in my roommate's black mustang by hand with 3M swirl remover. It could be done I guess, but I suspect you would give up after 12 hours or so.
Last edited:
come to killeen and il prep his whole car.... everyone here takes detailing to a drastic extreme and its senseless. My wife has a black sport trac that gets scratches all the time b/c she barely washes it... iv gotten all scratches out by hand easily. im not talking key scratches either just the normal wear and tear scratches a car gets.
As always when I make a long post, I see the need too. Be it from bad information or just a good general answer to information. This post will be correcting some very bad information in this thread so far, while answering the OP's original question.
*Very bad Information Above*
Five, you really have no idea what you are talking about, which shows from some of your replies in this thread. I can also tell your a dealership detailer, by saying referring to a buffing system and mentioning the 3M 3000 line.
Swirls CANNOT be removed by hand. It requires way more energy and heat then your hand/arm can produce. As someone already stated, if your applying a wax an the scratches/swirls go away, all you are doing is filling them in. Within a few washes, they will be right back. It takes at minimum a DA buffer to remove scratches.
Klasse anything does not prevent swirls in the future. It is not some Opti-Coat hopped up on crack or the be all end all miracle product. It is a simple polish and a very light one, which does have a very slight filling effect.
Now calling out anyone to bring their vehicle to you too prove them wrong, I really hope they do not. Your work is the type of work that keeps the people like me, who know what they are doing, in business.
Now to the rest of the responses that actually seem logical and work answering are below.
The Flex is not a bad polisher. Its not my favorite as I have one and just rarely find the need to ever use it. I am not a fan or at least never can get use to the counter-clockwise rotation it has. Its also not a great polisher to start with.
For starter polishers you want too look into, as mentioned, the Porter Cable or Griots Garage polisher. These are great polishers to start with and work well for any weekend warrior needs. Though my vote goes to the Griots, as its my favorite of the two.
Again, good choice, but I would warn against the Flex for starter use.
Most of Seers information is pretty straight forward. Always try to remove everything with the least aggressive combo. If your least aggressive combo does not work, step up too a more aggressive pad before going to a more aggressive polish.
As the pads he mentioned, the Lake Country Orange, White and Grey are pretty standard for starting out. For a weekend warrior, with a good compound/polish and Orange pad, you can remove a decent % of defects.
Adams is far from the best on the market. Now in terms of good weekend warrior based stuff, then yes, they are at the top of their game. Which is what their stuff is meant for. Its not professional grade by any standard, but great for people who want to take a hand at polishing their own vehicles in person.
Mentioning Junkman, I have been at two of his detailing seminars here in GA, that were held at a buddies business and even his results are below professional. He is dam good at what he does and markets it correctly for Adams. I have seen it impress many people, but for me, it was still needing additional steps.
The love of having black vehicles.
Pretty much all correct. Its next to impossible to keep a daily driver vehicle scratch free. There are ways to be safe on washes to extend the time when you have to repolish the vehicle.
Also, judging by what Five said earlier, I think what he is referring too is holograms or buffer trails. Which is just inexperience with a rotary buffer.
Also, I really hope you do not let him anywhere near a vehicle if he actually comes to show you wrong on the mustang.
*Very bad Information Above*
Five, you really have no idea what you are talking about, which shows from some of your replies in this thread. I can also tell your a dealership detailer, by saying referring to a buffing system and mentioning the 3M 3000 line.
Swirls CANNOT be removed by hand. It requires way more energy and heat then your hand/arm can produce. As someone already stated, if your applying a wax an the scratches/swirls go away, all you are doing is filling them in. Within a few washes, they will be right back. It takes at minimum a DA buffer to remove scratches.
Klasse anything does not prevent swirls in the future. It is not some Opti-Coat hopped up on crack or the be all end all miracle product. It is a simple polish and a very light one, which does have a very slight filling effect.
Now calling out anyone to bring their vehicle to you too prove them wrong, I really hope they do not. Your work is the type of work that keeps the people like me, who know what they are doing, in business.
Now to the rest of the responses that actually seem logical and work answering are below.
The Flex is not a bad polisher. Its not my favorite as I have one and just rarely find the need to ever use it. I am not a fan or at least never can get use to the counter-clockwise rotation it has. Its also not a great polisher to start with.
For starter polishers you want too look into, as mentioned, the Porter Cable or Griots Garage polisher. These are great polishers to start with and work well for any weekend warrior needs. Though my vote goes to the Griots, as its my favorite of the two.
Again, good choice, but I would warn against the Flex for starter use.
Most of Seers information is pretty straight forward. Always try to remove everything with the least aggressive combo. If your least aggressive combo does not work, step up too a more aggressive pad before going to a more aggressive polish.
As the pads he mentioned, the Lake Country Orange, White and Grey are pretty standard for starting out. For a weekend warrior, with a good compound/polish and Orange pad, you can remove a decent % of defects.
Adams is far from the best on the market. Now in terms of good weekend warrior based stuff, then yes, they are at the top of their game. Which is what their stuff is meant for. Its not professional grade by any standard, but great for people who want to take a hand at polishing their own vehicles in person.
Mentioning Junkman, I have been at two of his detailing seminars here in GA, that were held at a buddies business and even his results are below professional. He is dam good at what he does and markets it correctly for Adams. I have seen it impress many people, but for me, it was still needing additional steps.
The love of having black vehicles.
Pretty much all correct. Its next to impossible to keep a daily driver vehicle scratch free. There are ways to be safe on washes to extend the time when you have to repolish the vehicle.
Also, judging by what Five said earlier, I think what he is referring too is holograms or buffer trails. Which is just inexperience with a rotary buffer.
Also, I really hope you do not let him anywhere near a vehicle if he actually comes to show you wrong on the mustang.
Last edited:
have some questions that ive wondered that may be relevant to the thread.
when polishing, do you mask trim and lights? if so, how?
and how do you wash the polishing pads, if you do in fact wash them?
oh and one more thing. is m105 and m205 enough to get rid of light swirls and be considered "finishing" compound?
oh wait... one more thing...
what microfibers can be used to reduce swirl marks from washing? ive seen sites where they sell some that are for removing wax, some for washing, etc, but what makes some better than others?
when polishing, do you mask trim and lights? if so, how?
and how do you wash the polishing pads, if you do in fact wash them?
oh and one more thing. is m105 and m205 enough to get rid of light swirls and be considered "finishing" compound?
oh wait... one more thing...
what microfibers can be used to reduce swirl marks from washing? ive seen sites where they sell some that are for removing wax, some for washing, etc, but what makes some better than others?
Last edited:
I will answer these in order so...
1. YES YES YES. Masking off plastics, vinyls, trim, edges, etc does two things. It saves staining plastics and trims, dulling trim and burning edges *hard with a DA, easy without experience with a rotary.* It also helps make clean up easier. You want too always cover edges between panels or areas that if product or product dust gets behind making it very hard to clean out.
2. Yes you can wash the pads. There are multiple ways of doing it. Things I do, if I am out in the field mobile and I have a pad I need cleaned, I spray a diluted APC into the pad and scrub it under water. Doing this multiple times till you can ring the pad out and only clean looking water comes out. Or you buy a product from Detailers Pride that is meant to clean buffing pads. I generally do that step when I get a number of dirty pads and throw them into the laundry as a single load of just buffing pads and a few scopes of the DP product.
3. Yes and no. 105 & 205 are a detailing industry standard for anyone. 205 for most people can be a finishing polish, even though it does leave micro marring. People will claim it does not, but it does, they are very fine/faint but they are there. For most, its a vast improvement from that they had. 105 will leave tons of micro marring and not finish down. You will always need a finer polish too follow it up with.
4. Ply amount. I have probably 10-15 different types of towels and each has a particular purpose...until it gets downgraded from too much use, to a general towel. lol. But yes, towels are different. They will have a different ply amount, different microfiber count percentage, etc. Cobra is one of the biggest names and would be able to cover all the towels you need. As you real through them you will see some that are best used for buffing, others best used with QD'ers and removing waxes, drying vehicles, windows, general, etc. As for some being better than others, that is just personal opinion.
Cant say for if they did a good job, but their information is correct. If you have no experience with a buffer, never start with a rotary. Meguiars, Porter Cable and Griots are all DA Orbital Buffers.
thanks a lot for your information! In reference to the m105/m205 question and answer, if I were detailing a car, and i used my "least aggressive combo", being grey pad with m205(hypothetically), and it wasnt correcting the paint enough, and going to a white pad, and that didnt do the job either, should I go to an orange pad at this point? or would I try m105 with the grey pad, then white, then orange? Is there a product between m105 and m205 that shouold be used or will m205 cover up everything m105 leaves behind?
and if you dont mind, what do you suggest for a finishing polish?
and if you dont mind, what do you suggest for a finishing polish?
For your scenario, I think once you went too a white pad and it did not get the amount you are after, going to 105 and a Orange pad would be your step. Each color pad has a purpose and when you get too that purpose, might as well use it. Think of it as a numbers game.
Everything is based on numbers, scale of 1-10. 1 being least, 10 being most cut.
Too really give you an idea, where is your hypothetical situation in numbers.
M105 - 10
M205 - 5
LC Orange - 10
LC White - 5
LC Black - 1
If 205 + White = 10 did not get your results then going
105 + White = 15 is not going to be a big difference.
I know, that probably did not make complete sense, as I know what i am doing so in my mind I understand it. :lol1: :lol:
Everyone says you want to start with your least aggressive combo and work up until you get your desired results. This is not something that is just going to happen, it takes many many many hours buffing and learning what you are doing to understand the concept. In the last year, I have probably spent between 750-1000 hours buffing, maybe more. A lot of learning time. I can look at paint and its condition and pretty much guess or get close to what process will work. But thats also because I have more skill with buffers, different buffers to chose from, different grade products and more diverse buffing pad choice for cutting.
When you are cutting paint, your are cutting mils off. In the most extreme cutting with wet sanding, you are only removing anywhere from .5-1 mil of clear. Which each mil is equal to the thickness of a strand of hair. If your paint is only 2-3 mils thick, then its extremely thin and its not good to be buffing on much. You wont be able to figure this out without spending good money on a paint measuring tool.
So what I am getting at is, if your paint is badly swirled and you have M105, M205, LC Orange and White and then a Megs, Porter Cable or Griots DA buffer, do not be worried. You would really have to be trying to destroy your paint to do damage. So starting with M105 and Orange, seeing the results, then do an area beside it and using M205 and White to see those results then comparing, to see if you get your desired results. If the 205 got all the cut and your happy, use that across the whole car, if 105 got all the cut and results your after, do that and follow behind with 205 too gloss the paint and remove the marring left behind from the 105.
Its all about learning. As your buffing, make sure to not buff hard on edges, do not stay in one place for too long, make sure to feel the paint with the back of your hand to get an idea of the temp of the paint after buffing. This will give you an idea if your using too much pressure or staying in one area for too long. If you buff a section and its so hot that you cannot touch it, your doing it wrong and need to speed up your movement and not use as much pressure. 10-15lbs of downward pressure is all you need to be using. Throw your body weight on it and your doing it wrong.
I could go on and on about the dos and dont...but I do not have that much time. lol
Users who are viewing this thread
