Help..Swirls gone but holograms remain!!! PICS!

H

havlykke

New member
I have a 2005 Scion Tc. The color is Flint Mica - a dark grey with heavy metal flake. Scions have really soft paint and I have had no problem removing swirls marks when I needed to. However, last year I was in an accident and had to have my hood and front fender repainted. The shop that I took it to uses the new super hard clear coat from duPont. The shop did a pretty good job but left me with some swirl marks on my hood. I just got into detailing this year and the swirl marks really started to bother me. I could have taken it back to the shop and gotten them to fix it but I was afraid that they may do more damage than good. I'm really anal about my car now and I want to be the only one that touches it.



So I took on the task myself. Being new to detailing I didn't realize that there were special polishes for the new hard clear coats so I tried a number of things first that didn't work.



These were all using my PC on Speed 6.



1. M80 with Megs Soft foam buff pad - nothing

2. Sonus Swirlbuster Polish with Swirlbuster pad - nothing

3. Sonus SFX-2 with Swirlbuster pad - nothing

4. M83 with Megs soft foam buff pad - nothing

5. M83 with LC Orange - nothing



Then I discovered Blackfire SRC Finishing Polish. WOW! This stuff is wonderful. It knocked out my swirls and left the finish incredibly reflective with a high gloss. I had to experiment a little with the pads before I found the winning combination.



I started with the 6.5" Green Lake Country pad from CMA. It helped with about 50% of the swirls. So then I tried the 5" Green LC pad from Danase. I love these pads! The PC sounds and feels like its working at its best with the 5" pads. The PC seems to get bogged down a little with the bigger 6.5" pads. The switch to the 5" pad definitely helped. Most of the swirls were gone but under the lights at my condo. complex I could still see little swirls over the hood. I then switched to the 5" Orange LC pad from Danase. This destroyed all remaining swirls. However here is my problem. I had some light holograms on the hood left from the orange pad. I thought finishing with the same polish on a green LC pad then white LC pad would take care of it but it didn't.



Questions:



1) Does anyone see a problem with this process?



2) Is there another finer polish that I need to step down to in order to remove the holograms?



3) Was the white pad not the correct pad to finish with? Maybe I should have tried finishing with a 5" white LC pad instead of the 6.5"? I just didn't think that this step needed to be so focused.



Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.



Process (hood only):



Wash w/ NXT

Clay with Sonus Mild Green clay

Wash w/ NXT

Blackfire SRC FP with 5" LC orange pad from Danase - Speed 6

Blackfire SRC FP with 6 1/2" LC green pad from CMA (heavy polishing) - Speed 6

Blackfire SRC FP with 6 1/2" LC white pad from CMA - Speed 6



Onto the pics.



Swirls

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Half and Half

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Holograms (Swirls gone but notice the micro-marring)

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Other than the holograms I am very happy with the finish.

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stiffdogg06 said:
Try a less aggressive polish on a white pad...
Click to expand...





I agree.. you need to finish down with a white pad. I had a similiar situation before, and the answer was right in my hand the whole time. :chuckle:
 
i got the same problem as well. People on here told me either i was moving to fast with the orange pad, not working the polish in enough, or not working the white pad with a light polish enough.
 
stiffdogg06 said:
Try a less aggressive polish on a white pad...
Click to expand...



Could you recommend a less aggressive polish? How about FPII? Is that less aggressive?



I was working the polish in 2' by 2' sections with slow arm speed until the polish ran clear. Usually 3 - 5 minutes.
 
Be sure you do a IPA wipe down. I fought that sort of thing before I found out

that most of mine was left over residue,that left the holograms.

Kevin
 
KevinVanCaster said:
Be sure you do a IPA wipe down. I fought that sort of thing before I found out

that most of mine was left over residue,that left the holograms.

Kevin
Click to expand...



I did an IPA wipe down. I should have mentioned that in my original post. I too have seen what looks to be very bad holograms that turn out to be leftover product.
 
Yes, I do have some and I will give that a shot. I'm a little surprised that the Blackfire SRC FP on a white pad wasn't able to clean it up though. I thought this polish was PO106FF with just more oils to give a longer working time. From what I've read many, many people finish fine with a white pad and PO106FF.
 
I have seen that same thing before, and it is not holograms like you think.



It is actually residue from whatever polish, wax, sealant, or qd youre using being smeared around.



I know this sounds stupid but this has happened so many times to me, try loking at them in the sun, the wipe in a diferent direction than you see them in with a MF. Keep trying different directions, you will see they will go in the direction you wiped!



I noticed MDRX8 had this same issue seen here in a picture of his car



http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t139/mdrx8/P9230283.jpg



You see the marks around the reflection of the camera flash? Those are not holograms, they are smears from wiping.





Try a brand new MF with some water or QD. The reason these smears that appear to be holograms do not happen to me anymore is because I now wash my MFs 3 times. First with hot water and soap on heavy, then 2 more with just water but no soap.
 
Thanks Ron. I 'm not sure though. I did an IPA wipe down. Surely that would have removed any residue, right? Well, I'm gonna give her another wash on Friday and take another look under the sun then.



If the holograms remain, then it must be actual marring and not leftover residue. If so, I will try FPII on a white LC pad on speed 6.



Meanwhile, keep the responses coming. I really appreciate the insight as I'm pretty new to detailing.
 
I would think that since you did an ipa wipedown (thus no residue) it is your microfibers, but try what I said with wiping in different directions and seeing if they change.



Also how good was the lighting when you took off the residue and did your wipedown? I it was poor youd be surprised what you miss, especially on the lower parts of the car.
 
Funny... Greg Nichols and I were recently discussing how the Blackfire SRC series of polishes were real "sleepers"; great stuff that hardly anyone uses...



Using Blackfire SR Finishing Polish with a white pad should definitely cure what ails ya.



And *great* job on your first detail, man, the car looks *awesome*.
 
Thanks! I couldn't believe how well this Blackfire wiped out the swirls. I will definitely be doing the entire car with the Blackfire and white pad soon and will post up pics.



As for the holograms, I'll try the Blackfire again. This time on a 5" white pad to see if its more effective in removing the holograms. The 5" orange and green pads have been much more effective for me with removing other defects so why wouldn't the 5" white pad, right?



I'll try FPII on the 5" white pad too and let you guys know what works. I have the day off on Friday so, OF COURSE, I'm going to spend the day detailing. I first promised my girlfriend though that I would detail her Honda Civic. It's silver with a nice flake. So I'm finally going to bust out my Werkstatt twins and do it up nice. Expect pics.
 
Just wanted to give an update to everyone and let you guys know that these were not really holograms after all but leftover product as Ron231 and VanCaster orginally thought. Even though I did an IPA wipe down, Ron suggested trying the wipe down with a new microfiber. I had a couple new Meg's Supreme Shine microfibers so did another wipe down and sure enough the remaining product was lifted and I was left with the pictures you see below....You have no idea the relief that I felt when I realized they were not holograms.



Anyways, I love this Blackfire SRC FP. If you haven't tried it yet, get yourself a bottle. The gloss is unbelievable. I just got a bottle of PO85RD in the mail today from Autogeek that I am going to use on the rest of the car since I don't need to do any correction. I'll post pics next Friday.



Thanks again for everyone's help. I really appreciate it.



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