Need advice buffing very stubborn swirls from my ride

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babyhands

New member
I had my 1985 Mercedes repainted a few months ago. It looks great until you notice the MASSIVE amount of swirls and holograms the body shop left me to deal with. I picked up a Makita polisher and an arsenal of 6" Edge wool pads a couple weeks ago. Last weekend I corrected nearly 2 decades of paint defects out of my 1989 Mercedes with great success:







Today I took on the swirls the body shop left for me and I just can not achieve any kind of significant result. I've spent several hours just on the hood trying every combo of pads, polish and technique that I can possibly think of. I'm using Poorboy's SSR3, SSR2.5, and SSR 1. I didn't purchase SSR2 for whatever reason. I have 6" Edge black, yellow, green and blue wool pads.







The car looks beautiful untill you look closer and see these awful heavy and very stubborn swirls:







This is the test patch I had marked off and tried everything I could on it with no significant improvement:







I don't know what the deal is. I did my other car last week and got the results I wanted but I can hardly make a mark on this one. The clear coat is a Mipa clear coat. Does Mipa produce super hard clear coats or something? I'm really starting to get frustrated. This car is my baby and every time I look at it, all I see is these swirls laughing back at me. My friends and family think I've gone insane and I'm like "are you guys blind?!?!?! Do you not see these swirls?" I point them out and people still think I'm insane.



Anyways, I'd really appreciate some advice. Are Poorboy’s SSR products just not going to do it? Is it my pads? What could it possibly be that's preventing these swirls from coming out? Keep in mind that I did my other car last week and achieved beautiful results so I dunno if it's my technique. I'm doing everything the same way, perhaps better. I apply a small circle of polish directly to the paint, spread it around with my pad at 600RPM, then I step it up to about 1,000RPM to break the polish down a little bit and then I speed it up to the 1500-1800 range, then I slow it down to 900RPM and do a IPA wipe down. I've had my eye on some Menzerna IP will that maybe do the trick?
 
The paint is probably still soft and should be finished with foam.



Your other cars paint is fully cured and hardened over the years and you might be able to finish down swirl free with wool.
 
Well by a few months ago I mean it was repainted in March. So it's been at least 5 months. Maybe the clear coat is super soft though. I'm thinking about picking up some Edge foam pads.
 
Try hitting it with some Ultrafina SE on a soft foam pad. This should show good results if the clear is soft.



If that doesn't work, try Meguiars M105 (great cut, very fast, nice finish) on a cutting pad. Even if the clear is super hard, you should still see some improvement...



If that doesn't help my money says it got cleared before it was sanded during the repaint.



Good luck:ca
 
babyhands said:
I I've had my eye on some Menzerna IP will that maybe do the trick?
Click to expand...



I'd recommend a 3 stage polish process for sure. The car would look amazing.



SIP with cutting foam

106 with polishing foam

85RD with final finishing foam
 
Plenty of people (myself included) just can't finish out 100% with the rotary. I'd get things as good as possible with the rotary and then switch to a radom orbital.
 
Yes I discovered finishing 100% with the rotary is very difficult with my other car. I could not for the life of me finish hologram free on it but you could only see them in the right light.



I appreciate your suggestions. Looks like my wallet is gonna have to take another hit. I'll probably pick up some foam pads, either m105 or SIP and perhaps the Ultrafina SE.



That would be some serious BS if this car wasn't sanded before the clear. The guy who painted it knew what he was doing though so I doubt he woulda done that but we'll see.
 
I hope it wasn't sanded before the clearcoat was applied. With the paints that I am familar with, I don't know of any metalic base coat that is sanded before being covered by clear. It just looks like you have a very hard clear coat.



I agree with David on the Menz SIP but but I would give it a whirl with your wool pads. For me, wool seems easier (and faster) with SIP and Nano. Whether you use wool or foam however, give Menzerna a try.
 
Mmmmm yeah maybe I won't buy a whole arsenal of foam pads. I do need a white pad though. My softest pad is my blue wool pad and I wasn't able to finish without causing holograms with it.
 
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