tgeoffreyh

Just recently bought (rescued) my '04 RX-8 (Brilliant Black) from some bonehead who was mistreating it. I'm working on restoring it to it's as-new condition but am having trouble getting the swirls out of the paint. Looks like the dude polished it without washing it first! Anyone have any suggestions on how I can get the swirls out? Thanks!

derwankel

A Porter Cable buffer ...

... buffing pad:

http://www.meguiars.com/?pro-pad/Softbuff-Buffing-Pads

... swirl remover :

http://www.meguiars.com/?pro-cleaner.../Swirl-Remover



See their on-line how-to

tgeoffreyh

Thanks! I'll check it out.

dillsrotary

also try a good clay bar to begin with, that'll clean the paint up real nice

NgoRX8

iTrader: (1)

yes, full detail.

tgeoffreyh

I apologize for my ignorance, what's a clay bar?

NgoRX8

iTrader: (1)

its a piece of clay that when paired with a spray detailer will glide across the surface of your paint and remove all the little contaminants off of it.

lazi

black iS THEEEEE hardest to take care of. and plus the swirls, are the worst when it comes to our black cars. =(

Raptor2k

Porter Cable + good swirl removing polish = w00t

tgeoffreyh

Ya, but when it's all shined up, it's the sweetest color of all! (of course, my opinion)

NgoRX8

iTrader: (1)

^opinion, sminion. lol

Astral

I concur with a random orbital buffer.

However, I had pretty poor luck using Meguiar's Softbuff pads. The Meguiar's yellow pad is just too soft (at least w/ the product I was using), it is still a polishing pad and not a cutting pad. Meguiar's recommends against using their harsher burgundy pad with the random orbital polishers, and so I did not try that pad.

I really liked the Lake Country Pads much better. I used the Lake Country pads from Proper Autocare ("Hi-Gloss 6-1/2" pads is what I have).

So what seems to be working well for me is:

1. Poorboy's World SSR1 using a Proper Auto Care Green Pad (although you can use a white one here just the same)
2. Poorboy's World SSR2.5 using a Proper Auto Care Orange Pad
3. Poorboy's World SSR3 using a Proper Auto Care Yellow Pad

Be sure to *NOT* wash those pads with dishwashing liquid: it makes the velcro backing come off.

I use all that with a 6.5" velcro backing plate and a Porter Cable 7336 random orbital sander (7424 is just as good, only diff. is counterweight).

Basically, the three combinations above are listed in their aggressiveness from little to a lot. I'm going to refer to just SSR1, SSR2.5 or SSR3 here, but I am implying using the corresponding pad.

SSR2.5 seems to do the best job. It removes quite a lot of swirls and even on black, when worked through all the way, and removed carefully (w/ a clean good microfiber towel, like ones from exceldetail or pakshak), it leaves no micromarring. Sometimes, however, it does leave a little micromarring/hazing.

SSR1 is a very nice finish. It removes micromarring/hazing and very fine swirls and adds a touch of extra depth.

SSR3 (w/ the yellow pad) is quite an aggressive product. If you have major swirls or deeper scratches or a ton of etched water spots, use a couple of passes with SSR3. You must follow up with SSR1, though, because SSR3 is quite abrasive and leaves micromarring.

Without seeing your car, I think you need 3-5 passes of SSR2.5 on your entire car. I think you would be really delighted at the difference. I doubt your swirls are bad enough to warrant SSR3.

Keep in mind that a Porter Cable polisher requires many passes to take care of everything. The slow speed is what you pay for safety: with a random orbtal, you're not risking burning your paint, but it takes more passes and more time to get the job done.

Astral

http://www.melncal.com/detailing/pc_video.html

these videos are very helpful.

the only thing is that he seems to have much better luck with meguiar's softbuff pads there. perhaps it could be a different hardness of the clearcoat.

Raptor2k

What Astral said, and
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...5&page=2&pp=15

Astral

Raptor, how did things end up working out for you? From what you're saying, it seems that the RX8's clear coat is hard... oops, I thought it was going to be soft. Looks like my green pad may have a harder time working

I still haven't tried SSR2.5 w/ LC orange pad on my own car, but I will do that soon. I've been mostly swirl-removing/polishing my friend's cars. I am hoping to remove everything...

The only thing I tried was SSR2.5 w/ Meguiar's yellow pad (the non-cutting, polishing pad) on my car and it didn't seem to make much of a dent (but also left some micromarring, so looks like the polish was not being broken down).

Raptor2k

My swirls weren't terrible but they were hard to get rid of. I started out with SSR2 and it just didn't get it done, so I moved to SSR2.5 with the orange pad and yellow pad, and it took a few passes. And my swirls aren't completely gone....maybe 90% gone, there's still some spider webbing but very hard to notice. The clearcoat seems to be tough, because it took me quite a few passes with the oribital, and judging from the people who post on autopia, they didn't have as hard of a time when getting swirls out using the same procedure. I also had to put a little more extra pressure and time into a single area, speeds ranging from 5-6.

Right now I have to figure out the art of touch up paint to get rid of the chips on my hood.

yiksing

Let a body shop do all these

Astral

Let me know how that works out for you... a friend of mine had good luck with a 280-count sheet wrapped around a plastic card (just like the Langka system), using Meguiar's Scratch-X to level down the paint.

Raptor2k

Stupid typo in my last post...

What's the 280 count sheet thing? Too lazy to google atm. I'm thinking about going for Langka's. Maybe I'll post some photos on autopia for furthur advice.

Astral

x-count cotton means how many threads per... some unit of distance? 280 or 350-count is pretty darn fine cotton, much finer than your average t-shirt.

the langka didn't work so well for my friend, because it kept dulling the single-stage touchup paint.

so using langka with a cotton shirt, he had two problems:

1) it would dig in too deep, so the touchup paint wasn't level
2) the spot would be dulled

He solved problem #1 by using much finer cotton. He solved problem #2 by not using the blob eliminator, but instead by using scratchx to slowly remove the blob

I wonder how well a regular polish w/ a PC over not-yet-dry touchup paint would work though. time to post on autopia?

tgeoffreyh

Wow, amazing amount of info! Thanks for the links (read your autopia thread also)! Looks like I'll be getting the PC 7424 with probably the Sonus DAS pad kit, from everything I've read it looks like that'll do the trick. Thanks all!

Astral

good luck! post some pics when you're done!

tgeoffreyh

Absolutely, I'll do some "before" and "after" pics. Thanks again!

Clavius

I wanna cry see I have this same damn problem. I bought my 04' Rx-8 used and the guy who owned it before me took f'ing horrible care of it atleast to the exterior. Been trying to fix the swirls and the scratches and knicks, and well its over whelming honestly I've spent close to $150 on products to fix it and I notice "some" improvments. So my question is since this thread is still active.

A friend mentioned a detailing guy which her company use's to clean their cars and she could only speak raves about him. Should I just suck it up and have this guy get all the swirls out and all those lil light scratches and a few knicks in the paint (aint gonna worry about the hood all that much just a few of the big ones). So afterwards I can keep it up myself. One Sunday I spent 3 hours washing the car and then using all these paint cleaners and wax to no avial (well some but small) so yeah I'm frustrated.

Astral

Clavius, I would ask around on autopia.org (or search around) for reputable Autopian Massachusetts detailers and see who is GOOD (preferably people who have posted before/after) and use them. I am very afraid of your average detailer, because sometimes they can just make the swirls worse (or fix them up mostly, but leave buffer marring that they cover up with thick wax). So if you are going to plop down cash for swirl removal (which may make sense, esp. if you go to someone good who can do a quicker job w/ a rotary polisher), be sure you select someone who is definitely good.

Nothing short of machine is going to help you.. all the hand-based stuff like ScratchX and paint cleaners like Deep Paint Cleaner just don't cut it for anything major like that.

I see you are located in the Boston area... if you're interested, perhaps you can come out to my place to try buffing your hood or trunk w/ my Porter Cable random orbital polisher, to see whether we can make a dent in your swirls (PM me).