Machine polishing

[gs.davies]

After my car was painted, it’s never been polished or waxed. I’m many thousands of miles in and it really needs a good sort out.

What products are recommended to get the paint nice and shiny and remove the little bits of orange peel that remain on it?

I’ve got a rotary polisher with a range of pads and variable speeds but I’ve not done this before.

All advice gratefully received as ever.

[DougR]

Hi gs.davies, my advice is to consign that polishing machine to the nearest skip. You can do untold damage with those things unless you have lots of experience. Believe me, I've tried it. Just get yourself a lot of soft rags (underwear and socks are great) and use T-cut and a lot of elbow grease. After that get a decent polish that has the same colour as your car like Turtle Wax colour magic and more elbow grease. I did all that on my old Cooper that had been sitting for years and the paint came up like new. Alternatively hand it over to a reputable body shop. Cheers, Doug.

[Joel Welsh 4769VU]

Doug is spot on.

If you've not got the practiced hand with one... now is not the time to get it. You can, and will destroy what work you've got done on her in a heartbeat.

Alternatively- a much easier technique to learn, pick up and much harder to mess up- is plain and simple- hand wet sanding.

Thouroughly wash the car, meticulously. Hit every spot with a cloth to disturb any dirt and loosen it.

Using a very high grit sandpaper to start with, such as a 2,000-2,500 grit... and some soapy water, hand rub the paint out, keeping the area and the paper wet at all times. Move up to higher grits when satisfied with area coverages for smoother polishing.

Rinse continuously to remove any removed grit.

Be very careful in tight areas, on high corners, on drip rails, sharp edges that you could burn through the paint easily.

This is the same issues you'd have with the machine. Same problem areas.

After rubbing it down, then hand polish with a paint polish and soft pads or rags.

[mini_surfari]

I will disagree with the above to a certain extent, the only way to learn is try!

Invest in a DA polisher, they are far more forgiving than a rotary …first time I used one was on a freshly painted mini! Had orange peel in various places, sanded down with 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 5000.

Then used meguiars ultimate compound on a rupees cutting pad (blue pad), then meguiars ultimate polish on a yellow polishing pad. And waxed by hand.

It took a while, but take your time, and you can avoid any burns or scratches.

Check out ‘other projects’ 1991 cooper to see how it came out.

[Richspec]

I will disagree with the above to a certain extent, the only way to learn is try!

Invest in a DA polisher, they are far more forgiving than a rotary …first time I used one was on a freshly painted mini! Had orange peel in various places, sanded down with 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 5000.

Then used meguiars ultimate compound on a rupees cutting pad (blue pad), then meguiars ultimate polish on a yellow polishing pad. And waxed by hand.

It took a while, but take your timing and you can avoid and burns or scratches.

Check out ‘other projects’ 1991 cooper to see how it came out.

I'd echo all that, i had to wet sand mine to get rid of most of the orange peel and crap in the paint then using a da brought it back to a shine. just go easy and dont jump in with ultra cutting compound on a hard pad..

[apblake]

I agree with the comments on Dual Action. Don't use a rotary unless you really know what you're doing. Get a random orbital and they are extremely forgiving. If you want to avoid doing damage (but probably not remove the orange peel) then I would recommend a two stage polish. Start with the least aggressive compound and work your way up to more aggressive compound only if it is required to remove surface scratches. Then finish with a polishing step. Finally wax. Lots of good videos on YouTube to help.

[mk1]

Got to be honest, Despite my pre set inclination to be "I can do that", for something like machine polishing a whole car, I'd far rather pay someone who knows what they are doing. As far as I am concerned, there are FAR too many potential pit falls for it to be worth trying to do myself. Could you live with your self if you;

A) Polish through somewhere?

B) get a bit of grit in the head that you don't notice & put little circular scratches over parts of your car.

C) burn the paint cos' you let it get a bit dry.

Need I continue?

[Peter Laidler]

No need to continue Mark. Friend Clever Trevor did the small circular scratch trick, followed by a cut-through when he tried to correct it! His only saving grace was the fact that the roof was snowberry instead of old English white. So instead of it being a correction repaint in a few years, it's a repair repaint NOW!

[MrNoo]

Its not as scary as you're led to believe. I use a rotary, flat back with 1500 then 2500 then out with the mop, I use 3M fast cut then a second pass with a finer compound. You can use a guide coat if you've got a lot of peel in the paint but I tend not to, just use good light. The trick is to keep it spotlessly clean, use plenty of water especially when using the mop, keep the rpm down and you'll soon get used to it. I would also say it is probably quicker than using a DA, which can also leave you a lot of "swirls" in the paintwork if you're not careful. But agree re edges etc, you have to be careful and also mindful when flatting down that the mop head will not get into really tight hard to get areas, close to the seams etc.
You can get small mops with small heads that will go towards getting into these areas.

[gs.davies]

This is all really useful and I think that I’ll get the t cut out out, give it a good going over by hand, get some polish on there and then, when I can, get it in a proper job.

It looks authentically ‘old’ though. Flat paint with not a bit of shine anywhere on it! And still carrying the road filth of the the IMM run.

Is there a more neglected new paint job anywhere in Minidom I wonder

[NZmember]

The detailing people use clay bars to remove the surface gunk and restore the deep shine. Worked well on my VW.