How to tell if polish is too aggressive, or not aggressive enough?

C

cjv998

New member
Hi everyone, I have an '04 Acura RSX that I'm trying to polish (Arctic Blue Pearl). I'm using a 7424 on speed 6, with Sonus SFX-2 on an LC orange pad. After a few minutes of polishing, the surface looks better, but I still see small imperfections/specks (micromarring?) in the paint. Do these mean I'm inducing marring when I polish, or do I need to follow up with a finer polish, or do I need to step up to something stronger? Thanks!



PS: I also tried SFX-2 on a white pad, and that didn't clean up the surface as well as the orange pad.



Before:

IMG_1406.jpg




After:

IMG_1407.jpg
 
There is a little more clarity to your flash reflection in the paint in the after picture. If the "leftovers" you are talking about are those random small scratches seen in the "after" picture (RIDS) then the only thing to get those out will be light wet sanding.
 
If the polish is "too aggressive" (scare-quotes because sometimes that's what's necessary) it'll leave relatively uniform marring of its own while removing the marring that was originally there. Then you just follow up with someting milder to remove those marks (often called "hazing" or, if it's really mild, "micromarring").



That does not appear to be the case here, where the marks look like individual, relatively straight scratches. So those look like they were too deep to be removed by your efforts so far. To do more, or say "good enough", is a call I can't make for you :nixweiss



FWIW, I generally think that orange pads are too aggressive to leave a really nice finish, so even if you decide to live with those RIDS (Random Isolated Deep Scratches), I'd go over it with the white pad, with perhaps a milder product.
 
you are not going to remove those with a finer polish/pasd combo...if it wasnt removed by the more aggressive approach, then you will just be covering/concealing it if they are "gone" after the lighter step.
 
I don't think the 7424 is capable of doing any serious harm with an orange pad. I wonder how Ultimate Compound with an orange pad would do for you. Whatever the product, if it is aggressive enough to take out the scratches with a 7424, it might leave a little haze that can be taken out with a less aggressive polish with a white pad.
 
Sounds like something a bit more aggressive may do the trick. I'm betting I'll need a two-step process on this as well. Well, time to stock up on some more polishes. Thanks for the replies!



If anyone has any previous experience with Honda/Acura paint, I'd be interested in hearing what works well for moderate swirling (looks like I need something more aggressive than SFX-2 and an orange pad).



Oh, and my pictures weren't the best..the second picture didn't really capture what I was aiming for - I noticed these small, 1-millimeter or so long scratches distributed over the paint now, and I was wondering if those were caused by the polish, or if those were scratches from before that didn't get fully removed.
 
cjv998 said:
Oh, and my pictures weren't the best..the second picture didn't really capture what I was aiming for - I noticed these small, 1-millimeter or so long scratches distributed over the paint now, and I was wondering if those were caused by the polish, or if those were scratches from before that didn't get fully removed.
Click to expand...



What shape are they? IF they're like little "fishhooks" then they're possibly from the aggressive polish being a bit too aggressive for the approach/paint. The abrasives cut a lot initially (causing the "hook" scratches) but then break down too fine to *remove* that initial cut. Something like that would be uniformly distriubuted across the area of operation.
 
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