Jeweling paint with a Flex

Ok, after more experimenting with M205 and FPII, I found the following:



Using either a PC or Flex with M205, I am not able to achieve the same high gloss finish on medium/soft paint that I can easily get using a rotary. In every case, hazing and micromarring was visible in the right light. My LED Surefire did a good job of showing this, while 1500W of halogen didn't. The closest I got to a perfect finish was using a PC with moderate pressure and medium speed. Using a Flex, I could get decent results if I dropped all the way to Speed 1 for the last two passes. All of these were with Black CCS style pads.



Using either a PC or Flex with FPII, I can get a seemingly perfect finish with FPII. This was rather forgiving and gave nice results from Speed 1-4 and from zero to moderate pressure. To me, FPII is the much easier jeweling polish with the Flex. Obviously it doesn't offer the cut of M205, but that's not the point.



I tried UF and while it never gave visible micro-marring and a haze-free finish, the reflections were not crisp. I have a hard time putting words to it, but it's almost like it left something on the paint that wasn't removed with multiple alcohol wipes. I know people love this polish, and I've gotten decent results using it, its just not on par with FPII in my tests.
 
Matt@Autogeek said:
Optimum Polish has a little TOO long of a working time IMO. But I did enjoy using Optimum Finish. What type of pads did you try it with, and with what machine? I opted for a gray pad instead of red/blue, and perhaps that caused it to break down quicker - plus I'm using a Flex 3401. Either way, I found the working time to be about right....worked very similar to 3M Ultrafina IMO.
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I was using OCP via rotary and PC, with a variety of polishing pads. Sounds like the OF might be a little better in this regard.
 
Matt@Autogeek said:
M205 did leave a considerable amount of haze with a white polishing pad on the Flex (keep in mind this is VERY soft paint). However, the LC Hydro-tech pads (Tangerine) made a HUGE difference - almost LSP ready, but I still decided to follow with Optimum Finish / Gray which was icing on the cake.
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I can attest to that, even on some very hard BMW black paint.



I was repairing some deep scratches on a 335i trunk (caused by the tint installer) using the M105/M205 coupled with the rotary/DA combo:

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Here is the result after M205 after IPA wipedown:

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Although it looks extremely good under the halogen or Brinkmann swirl finding light, it did leave some very fine hazes if I look at the repaired spots under certain angle. I would have to use a black pad and PO85RD to remove those very fine hazes.



Upon seeing this reply, some would harass me for improper M205 usage and call me a novice, but one must keep in mind that M205 is not an ultra-fine polish like PO85RD.
 
I use the LC blue pad and PO85RD to rotary jewel (after M205 polish):

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M205 could never achieve this level of finish...
 
the_invisible said:
M205 could never achieve this level of finish...
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On hard paint it absolutely can and I've done it on my Audi. Check out DaveKG's review of M205 sometime.



But isn't this thread about jeweling with a Flex?
 
wfedwar said:
On hard paint [M205] absolutely can and I've done it on my Audi...
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Eh...I still can't get M205 to give the ultimate finish on our Audis :nixweiss It's sure not *bad* or anything, just not the absolute best I can achieve.



Don't read too much real-world application into that; last week I just did #80 then #16 on the A8's front bumper cover. Looks fine and it isn't even as nice as M205 woulda left it. And no, I didn't do any IPA wipe or anything before the #16. If somebody approaches Accumulatorette in a parking lot and says her bumper cover has a deficient level of gloss, maybe I'll redo it :chuckle:



the_invisible said:
Although it looks extremely good under the halogen or Brinkmann swirl finding light, it did leave some very fine hazes if I look at the repaired spots under certain angle. I would have to use a black pad and PO85RD to remove those very fine hazes.
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I've kicked this kind of thing around a little with Mike Phillips. IME a finish that's OK under halogens and the Brinkman (and natural sunlight) can still look a little bit off under my 3M SunGun. Heh heh, Mike good-naturedly chided me that nobody's going around inspecting cars with a SunGun :o (well, nobody but me).



Of course, with M205 you need to IPA/PrepWash, often quite a few times, to remove *all* the oils/etc. and it's easy to mistake residual stuff like that for hazing. I've still had oils leeching out after *numerous* straight-IPA wipes and I still think the PrepWash is the best product for this, short of a solvent like PrepSol. And as gmblack3a has pointed out, Menzerna products can leave a lot of oils behind too, so you need to IPA/PrepWash after using *anything* if your objective is a product comparison.



Heh heh, if your objective is simply to have a nice looking finish, one might argue against stripping off all the oils/etc. (as well as using unnaturally demanding lighting). This is another topic where Mike can kinda :rolleyes: about some of the things I do...he'll often just cut to "Does the car look good? Then, OK...the car looks good. End of story. Apply the LSP. Done." IMO there's a lot to be said for not overkilling this stuff.
 
Accumulator said:
I've kicked this kind of thing around a little with Mike Phillips. IME a finish that's OK under halogens and the Brinkman (and natural sunlight) can still look a little bit off under my 3M SunGun. Heh heh, Mike good-naturedly chided me that nobody's going around inspecting cars with a SunGun :o (well, nobody but me).
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Ha ha, I haven't really been following this thread, but that was pretty much the sentiment from one of the detailing supply personalities in explaining why he would never sell a "ceramiclear" polish and his frustration at the forum half&half halogen shots...that if you park a car at a car show or drive it down the street and everybody thinks it looks good, nobody comes around with halogen lights and says "look, you have swirls under the halogens".
 
Setec Astronomy- Yeah...I can be as over-the-top as anybody, but I sure see a point in keeping the whole Curse of Autopia mindset in perspective.
 
Matt@Autogeek said:
M205 did leave a considerable amount of haze with a white polishing pad on the Flex (keep in mind this is VERY soft paint). However, the LC Hydro-tech pads (Tangerine) made a HUGE difference - almost LSP ready, but I still decided to follow with Optimum Finish / Gray which was icing on the cake.
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Accumulator said:
Matt@Autogeek- I'm always like hearing how those tangerine pads work for people. If I ever wear out my Griot's orange pads (super with M205 on hard paint) you can bet I'll be giving them a try.
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I LOVE the hydro tech tangerine pads! They are amazing in that you still get some cut but they finish very well. :bigups
 
Rob Tomlin said:
I LOVE the hydro tech tangerine pads! They are amazing in that you still get some cut but they finish very well. :bigups
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I like tangerine and cma-style green pads with M205. Both give some cut and very nice finish. I've heard cyan pads are excellent with M105 also. Haven't tried that combination yet.
 
wfedwar said:
I like tangerine and cma-style green pads with M205. Both give some cut and very nice finish. I've heard cyan pads are excellent with M105 also. Haven't tried that combination yet.
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I detailed a dark blue Mini Cooper last weekend. I only had about 12-13 hours to do the entire detail, so I had to be as efficient as possible.



I used my Flex with the hydro tech cyan pads and M105. This removed the swirls with 2 passes (and occasionally 3). I followed up with the hydro tech tangerine and M205, which left the paint LSP ready.



This worked extremely well. This will definitely be my "go to" combo for 2 step details. I was very impressed, and needless to say, so was the owner of the mini (my niece)!



The ability to go from M105 straight to M205 and clean up the hazing from M105 AND finish down lsp ready is a nice advantage/time saver.



I would add that the hydro tech pads seem to be particularly well suited to the KBM because of the way they hold the polish.
 
My only reservation about these pads is the velcro doesn't seem to be adhered that well to the foam. I had a couple of cyan pads tear up during their first use with SIP on the Flex. Since then, I haven't used them that much. I think they would have fared better if I had been using either a rotary (not as much tugging on the velcro) or a less grabby polish. M105/M205 seem ideally suited to them. I think I need to go play with them some more...
 
zoraduntov said:
Was this achieved with a flex or rotery?
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On that detail of my black Z06 I did use my Metabo Rotary but I have achieved similar results using a Flex XC 3401 VRG with Menzerna PO85RD with a LC Kompressor Jeweling pad. Here's a few pics on a detail of my Viper using a Flex/PO85RD/Kompresser Pad.



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