My Toughest Challenge So Far...Merz S280

G

Gen2

New member
This car is by far the toughest challenge I have faced so far, not only the size is big but the swirls on the car is terrible. At first I thought it was going to be a 8-9 hours kind of job, in the end I was so wrong, it took me two days to complete the swirl removal and polishing job. Here are a couple of photos showing the swirls on the car and basically it was everywhere on the car.



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I was hoping a yellow cutting pad + Power Gloss (PG) with a DA on speed 5.5 can remove the swirls but after 3 passes, the swirls were still there and not much improvement at all. Than I switch to Meguiar cutting pad (IMO more aggressive), after 3 more passes still not much improvement.



Than out came my rotary, with a yellow cutting pad + PG at 1400 rpm, after 3 passes most all the deep swirls were removed leaving behind the light swirls created by the yellow cutting pad and PG. I decided to switch to the DA machine with a light cutting pad + Intensive Polish (IP) at speed 5.5 to remove those light swirls. But after 2 passes, not much improvement, so I tried PG instead and again it did not work very well. At this point I cannot help but to wonder is this the characteristic of the new nano paint from Merz. Again I switched back to a light cutting pad + IP with the rotary. After 2 passes most all the swirls were taken out and left with the very minor ones which can only be seen under direst sunlight.
 
I was thinking with a DA + polishing pad + PO106FF should be able to take care of the remaining defects and again I was wrong. Switching over to the rotary at 1200 rpm, after 2 slow passes all the swirls were taken out but a small amount of hologram was introduced into the paint work. Finally the DA + light polishing pad + PO106FF did work out on the hologram. Here are some pictures showing the before and after of the swirls removal,



Before

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After

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Before

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After

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Before

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After

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On the first day I only managed to finish with the bonnet, the roof and the left side of the car and on the second day after I finished with the rest of the swirl removal, I applied a layer of Prime on the car with a foam applicator pad and seal the paint with a layer of Acrylic Jett with a plush MF towel. Here’s the end result,



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Some close-up shots,

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Excellent job on those nasty swirls! I agree about the CeramiClear paint, really tough stuff. I have found though, that with careful washing you don't end up with halo swirls for a really long time. I guess that car was pretty neglected for it to be that pad.



BTW, according to Mike Phillips with Meguiars, PPG worked with them on developing techniques to correct the CeramiClear paints and supposedly, Meguiars DACP and a yellow polishing pad via rotary works very well.



The after shots of the car are beautiful! :)
 
Very nice work.



I had the same issues with removing the same smaller swirls after wool/PG on a red 98 vette. I finally had to use PG and foam 3m compounding pad. IP and the same pad would not work. All done with a rotary.
 
milky_08 - thanks for the compliment and I have send you a pm too :)



Scottwax - The current owner bought over this car not too long ago and the swirls came with the car. He sent the car to other 'groomers' before coming to me and in the end I believe more swirls were introduced onto the car. I did try out DACP quite long ago, not on ceramiclear, but DACP tends to gum up on the paint. That's why I stopped using it.



sevenrd - you can say that again :p the bonnet alone is already so much to handle.



gmblack3a - thanks for the kind words. Now I am still trying to improve my rotary skill, wanting to achieve no swirls and hologram with a rotary.
 
VERY impressive cleanup! It's dripping wet now. Excellent job, indeed.

Which reminds me, I need to call my only "regular" client and get his black Mercedes wagon back up to spec :)
 
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