imported_Dave KG
New member
The purpose of this little test by Gordon and myself was to try out some cutting compounds when applied using a middle of the road wool pad for application - testing the correction abilities for severe damage over a wide area. Wool has a reputation for aggressive correction and large paint removal rates, however its use should never be disregarded as you can use it to achieve excellent correction and minimise paint removal but cutting your work time short to ensure you are not removing paint unnecessarily (you will want to refine the finish with a finishing polish anyway 
).
However, for fun in this test, we used the polishes for longer sets to give the wool a chance to refine a little further, though still on the understanding we would want to be finishing with finishing polishes (which will be a subject of a different thread.
So - the products under test...
3M Fast Cut Plus: One of the older school cutting compounds now, but never one I would discount owing to its cutting abilities and flexibility over a large variety of finishes.
Wolf's WP-6S: Designed apparently for softer finishes, you may think it strange we have chosen this on on the Mercedes bonnet test panel... however, this finish has been resprayed and the paintwork is more middle of the road and not a ceramiclear finish, so we have opted for the 6S in this test (though perhaps we would see greater correction from 6N...)
Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish / Power Finish: the curve ball! Not Menzern'a compounds, but instead, the middle of the road workhorse polish - here out of interest and for amusement
Meguiars #105: Unigrit abrasives compound, and when out on wool this is designed for the correction of aggressive marks - tested here with a little twist following some advice from Kevin Brown :thumb:
Test panel details: Mercedes C-Class, blue metallic, resprayed... chosen because the respray has some small area orange peel and hazing that was spoiling the clarity of the finish, and we wanted to see how the wool would deal with this in addition to the severe swirls and scratches We washed it with a yard brush dipped in a muddy puddle to inflict the marks :devil:
** Health warning: on the videos, you will see the panel has been taped up for the sets, with sets including the contour of the bonnet. Personally I would not recommend typical sets go over contours like this, however we were limited by the test panel for where we could get out test areas... so the contour gives a little extra fun to the challenge, but required lighter pressure across it to avoid localised heat and potential paint burning.
3M Fast Cut Plus
The test panel before, under the Sun Gun:
The strip lighting shows the real extent of the damage... not also the haziness from the respray work.
3M Fast Cut Plus was applied, as tradition, with 3M Ultrafina SE to give additional lubrication. Lakecountry Purple Wool pad was used for application, and the product worked at 2000rpm until it dried out and began to drag the wool...
The product worked well, panel ran pretty cool for the work (certainly compared to foam). The results of two such applications:
under the striplight you can see the biggest difference, and this is used to look for deeper marks remaining: you can see the odd one here and there. Also, a significant enhancement in clarity now that the haziness has been addressed with the compound:
Moment of truth, following two wipedowns to remove as best as we could the oils and fillers...
With the longer sets, less hologramming was evident but you can still see some, as expected, which will be refined with a finishing polish (separate test ).
Overall, good levels of correction of the severe defects, and decent clarity left behind as well for the aggressive process. The benchmark from one of the most popular compounds in correction.
Wolf's WP-6S
The panel before (Gordon had the compound on the panel before I could photograph it! :lol...
Gordon did the polishing this time, working the Wolf's at slower speeds than the 3M as we found that higher speeds caused the product to dry out prematurely where as keeping the speeds below 1500rpm didn't give this effect...
The results following two applications:
The finish was good overall under the sun gun, showing minimal hologramming, slightly less in the flesh than Fast Cut Plus. However, the level of correction achieved for the deeper marks seemed significantly lower than Fast Cut (and the other compounds on test here)... indeed, despite trialling a variety of applicaiton methods, we could not get the WP-6S to match other compounds for correction so perhaps we really need to be using WP-6N despite this paint not being overly hard, or ceramiclear. The clarity left was a bit less too, leaving some of the haziness of the poor spray work behind. Still - good levels of correction, that cannot be denied, but compared to the others it just seems to be less (and this is the same on foam too).
).However, for fun in this test, we used the polishes for longer sets to give the wool a chance to refine a little further, though still on the understanding we would want to be finishing with finishing polishes (which will be a subject of a different thread
.So - the products under test...
3M Fast Cut Plus: One of the older school cutting compounds now, but never one I would discount owing to its cutting abilities and flexibility over a large variety of finishes.
Wolf's WP-6S: Designed apparently for softer finishes, you may think it strange we have chosen this on on the Mercedes bonnet test panel... however, this finish has been resprayed and the paintwork is more middle of the road and not a ceramiclear finish, so we have opted for the 6S in this test (though perhaps we would see greater correction from 6N...)
Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish / Power Finish: the curve ball! Not Menzern'a compounds, but instead, the middle of the road workhorse polish - here out of interest and for amusement
Meguiars #105: Unigrit abrasives compound, and when out on wool this is designed for the correction of aggressive marks - tested here with a little twist following some advice from Kevin Brown :thumb:
Test panel details: Mercedes C-Class, blue metallic, resprayed... chosen because the respray has some small area orange peel and hazing that was spoiling the clarity of the finish, and we wanted to see how the wool would deal with this in addition to the severe swirls and scratches
We washed it with a yard brush dipped in a muddy puddle to inflict the marks :devil:** Health warning: on the videos, you will see the panel has been taped up for the sets, with sets including the contour of the bonnet. Personally I would not recommend typical sets go over contours like this, however we were limited by the test panel for where we could get out test areas... so the contour gives a little extra fun to the challenge, but required lighter pressure across it to avoid localised heat and potential paint burning.
3M Fast Cut Plus
The test panel before, under the Sun Gun:
The strip lighting shows the real extent of the damage... not also the haziness from the respray work.
3M Fast Cut Plus was applied, as tradition, with 3M Ultrafina SE to give additional lubrication. Lakecountry Purple Wool pad was used for application, and the product worked at 2000rpm until it dried out and began to drag the wool...
The product worked well, panel ran pretty cool for the work (certainly compared to foam). The results of two such applications:
under the striplight you can see the biggest difference, and this is used to look for deeper marks remaining: you can see the odd one here and there. Also, a significant enhancement in clarity now that the haziness has been addressed with the compound:
Moment of truth, following two wipedowns to remove as best as we could the oils and fillers...
With the longer sets, less hologramming was evident but you can still see some, as expected, which will be refined with a finishing polish (separate test
).Overall, good levels of correction of the severe defects, and decent clarity left behind as well for the aggressive process. The benchmark from one of the most popular compounds in correction.
Wolf's WP-6S
The panel before (Gordon had the compound on the panel before I could photograph it! :lol
...
Gordon did the polishing this time, working the Wolf's at slower speeds than the 3M as we found that higher speeds caused the product to dry out prematurely where as keeping the speeds below 1500rpm didn't give this effect...
The results following two applications:
The finish was good overall under the sun gun, showing minimal hologramming, slightly less in the flesh than Fast Cut Plus. However, the level of correction achieved for the deeper marks seemed significantly lower than Fast Cut (and the other compounds on test here)... indeed, despite trialling a variety of applicaiton methods, we could not get the WP-6S to match other compounds for correction so perhaps we really need to be using WP-6N despite this paint not being overly hard, or ceramiclear. The clarity left was a bit less too, leaving some of the haziness of the poor spray work behind. Still - good levels of correction, that cannot be denied, but compared to the others it just seems to be less (and this is the same on foam too).
