new guy needs some advice

K

king nothing

New member
so Im getting a Pc 7424 for christmas and I want to start gathering up the stuff I need to do some serious work on 3 vehicles. this is what I have so far



1 orange pad

1 white pad

menzerna intensive polish

menzerna final polish II



These are my vehicles



03 redfire metallic (almost maroon) mustang cobra

07 black chevy tahoe

06 dark blue dodge ram



The tahoe and the ram need some serious work since i screwed up and used a new carwash and used the foaming brush and put some bad swirls in them. In addition the tahoe has some scratches in it that are worse than swirls.



What should i use after the final polish? do you go straight to wax or use a glaze then a wax



Ive been using meguiars gold class wax. is that going to give good results?



should i pick up some 4 inch pads and a backing plate to try to take care of some of the worse scratches? will the intensive polish take care of scratches as well as swirl marks?



What other products should I pick up?



How many pads of each color do I need to do each vehicle?





Sorry for all the questions. Im new to this but am really excited to get my rides looking great. Sucks that im gonna have to wait till spring but the weather and shoulder surgery not to mention not getting my PC till christmas are really holding me back at this point
 
Welcome to the forum! I'm new to detailing and am excited as well!

From the posts I've seen, you need a black LC pad. Black pad is the one for polishing. Meguiar's recommended not using the orange pad as it will be too aggressive, and suggested people use black pads. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post link, but if not, please remove them for me. Meguiars Online Commnuity (Meguiar's Online) offers GREAT advice and is worth the time to look through as it has all the questions a newbie would ask. And I suggest getting 2 of each color. You only apply one type of polish to each pad.
 
Id get at least 2 of each pad to have around. There is also some pad washing soap you can buy to clean them out. I would get some black pads, this way you can use the white pad to polish out some of the marring or whatever is left from cutting it and then use the black pad to bring out the shine moreso than the white one. Im sure others will chime in with more tips as well.
 
GeorgesBlazah said:
Id get at least 2 of each pad to have around. There is also some pad washing soap you can buy to clean them out. I would get some black pads, this way you can use the white pad to polish out some of the marring or whatever is left from cutting it and then use the black pad to bring out the shine moreso than the white one. Im sure others will chime in with more tips as well.
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georgesblazah from pavementsucks.com??
 
King Nothing- Welcome to Autopia!



The 4" pads are *much* more effective when doing significant correction via PC.



I'm not much of a Menzerna user so I dunno if a) the IP will be aggressive enough (I kinda doubt it) and/or, b) whether that's too big a jump from IP to FPII (FPII is very, *very*, gentle).



Don't switch to the FPII until things are basically perfect; don't expect it to do any correction of stuff like swirls/etc.



Get more than one pad of each type because, well, [stuff] happens and usually at an inconvenient time. As long as you don't use too much product (and most people *do*) you shouldn't need more than one pad but you will have to stop and clean it as it gets loaded with old product.



Orange pads are usually the best choice for the serious correction, and white or green polishing pads are usually the best for a follow-up. I've never found black/etc. finishing pads to be all that useful for final polishing via PC (rotary is a different matter) and cme to think of it, I really don't use them *at all* for polishing via PC.



I've used orange (and even yellow and 3.5" PFW) via PC (and other machines) countless times and they always work fine for me. Trying to do that GMC with just white pads would almost certainly be an exercise in frustration and most people find they need all the aggressiveness they can get when working via PC.



The white pads will *usually* leave a ready-to-wax finish, especially with something gentle like the FPII.



The kind of burnishing that some of us do with finishing pads and gentle products is often not worth doing for normal people and is pointless unless you've first attained a basically *perfect* (and I mean *PERFECT* as in, most people can't appreciate it) finish, and that's a mighty tall order for somebody just getting started and doing it all by PC.



I don't mean to make you nervous, but you'll find that getting the marring knocked down to an acceptable level can be quite a challenge, at least without resorting to aggressive products like Meguiar's M105 for the initial correction.



I'm not a big fan of using a glaze before the LSP in most cases (yeah there are exceptions). For now, I'd try to keep this whole thing very simple as you'll find the basics to be challenging enough. I'd just get the marring reduced to your satisfaction and apply the wax.



I'm not knowledgeable about the Gold Class. Somebody here reported that it caused micro-marring for him. I do know that it gives a nice gloss but it's also short-lived. I'd recommend you get a tin of Collinite 476S (or a bottle of their 845) instead. Much more durable and it looks OK.



Regarding your shoulder issues, when recovering from a serious shoulder problem I found that I could do polishing/waxing/etc. via machine that I couldn't *dream* of doing without the machine. It's a very different motion and you might be surprised what you're capable of.
 
Thanks for the offer paintPolisher. unfortunately im in illinois so I wont be able to take you up on it. im glad to see that the members of this site are so helpful though, that awesome
 
King Nothing said:
Whats the best way to clean the pad while you are in the middle of a project. i would assume you dont want to soak it?
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King, do the "Clean on the fly" method.



What you do is get a 100% cotton terry towel or just use microfiber towel, then turn on the PC and let the towels spin around the pad.
 
King Nothing said:
Whats the best way to clean the pad while you are in the middle of a project. i would assume you dont want to soak it?
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I spray the pad with Meg's #34 and then rub it clean/sorta-dry with a cotton towel; I don't turn the machine on.



The trick is to not let it get too loaded up to where the cleaning becomes a big deal.



If you do need to take it off and really wash it out, I'd squeeze it dry in a cotton towel rather than spin it dry. I've had the PC launch pads off into space so many times that I've given up on that (works fine with the Cyclo/rotary though). It's not like you have to get the pad 100% dry.
 
Accumulator said:
I've had the PC launch pads off into space so many times that I've given up on that (works fine with the Cyclo/rotary though). It's not like you have to get the pad 100% dry.
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Rotaries can launch wet pads also if they are not affixed very well on the hook and loop backing plate, trust me, I know. Amazing how 3000 rpms and cause pad flight.
 
bert31 said:
Rotaries can launch wet pads also if they are not affixed very well on the hook and loop backing plate, trust me, I know. Amazing how 3000 rpms and cause pad flight.
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Heh heh, yeah, I can imagine :D



These days I spin pads dry inside a plastic tub that I keep around for just this purpose. Besides containing the sling, it'll catch the pad(s) if necessary.
 
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