Swirl removal - What am I doing wrong?

X

XRL

New member
So I finally got a chance to use my new Meguiar's G110 and pads and SCG Beyond Clay. If you read my review of the Beyond Clay, you will see that I was less than impressed.



I accept that I have no idea what I'm doing, so I can't place total blame on the Beyond Clay. This is what my process was. Washed the car with SCG Pacific Whatever Car Wash, then dried the car. I then busted out the polisher and misted it with some Mother's QD spray to "prep" the pad. Then I put the polish on, I put it on in a circle first, but it sorta sucked into the pad immediately. I tried to do the circles thing to get it on the car, worked ok. I tried it at speed 3 on the G110, moving not super quickly. Buffed it off, and what did I see? It had barely made a difference on my swirls.



I stepped it up to speed 5 with more polish on it, and found that it will spin faster if I hold it up and don't apply force into it. Still, very little effect on my swirls.



So what is going wrong? Is my technique THAT bad? Is the product that bad? I'm using the Meguiar's Polishing pads, I think they're 7 inchers (very big). I tried reading the guides and watching the videos, but I still can't get it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
XRL- IMO the pads are *way* too big, you're probably using too mild a polish, and putting that QD on them before polishing made the pad/product combo even milder. And IMO low speeds like 3 are a complete waste of time; I even apply waxes at higher speeds than that.
 
IME 7" pads on a PC, even with an aggressive compound may not make a dent in swirls depending....



For effective swirl removal the move to at largest a 5.5" pad and preferably smaller 4" types are most effective.



I know accumulator will chime in on this one! What type of clear do you have?
 
I'd suggest:



- smaller pads

- pads with some amount of cut

- a polish/compound with some amount of cut

- speed of 5-6, some pressure, move slowly and work the polish/compound sufficient time



Swirl removal with a PC requires some 'effort' ... I remember when I started I was more afraid of damaging the paint so I started very mild (which is smart :bigups). However, to remove swirls you have to mildly abrade away these defects so some effort is needed.



Good luck.
 
Yup, I have not had experience, but something already tells me you're probably not using aggressive enough a combo.



Speed should go up, put pressure on the machine, 15-20 lbs, as they say.



If you tell us what pad/polish you used, as well as the type of car you have, it would help us understand why it doesn't seem to be working.



You should also have clayed before polishing, if you haven't already.
 
Not sure what kinda clear I have. It's an '04 Saturn Vue Redline. Silver in color if that matters.



Well, since I've got the holiday tomorrow I might give it a shot again with more speed and force. I was kinda scared to hurt the paint, but I guess I'm gonna need to grow a set. So I shouldn't prime the pad? I just washed the pads and stuff after using them. How often should I add more polish to the pad? Is a single or double circle enough for most of the car, or just for the hood?



I'm not gonna be able to get smaller pads in time, so I guess I'll have to give the 7s some hell.



Thanks again.
 
XRL said:
How often should I add more polish to the pad? Is a single or double circle enough for most of the car, or just for the hood?



I'm not gonna be able to get smaller pads in time, so I guess I'll have to give the 7s some hell.
Click to expand...



For swirl removal

- you need to work in small sections, no more than 2'x2' in most case

- I don't think giving the 7s some hell is gonna work...for swirl removal with a PC you need to work smaller pads IMO
 
 
I don't mean to be controversial--and certainly do not intend any rudeness or disrespect--but why is it that so many folks here on Autopia insist that paint correction cannot be effected with 7" pads, yet over at Meguiar's Online a lot of people testify that they do it all the time?



Heck, even I have seen swirls disappear under my G110, despite my inexperience and incompetence. ;)



Cheers,

Al
 
I am also using the G110/220 along with Meguiar's Paint Reconditioning Cream, and a SOFT BUFF 2.0 FOAM POLISHING PAD. I apply an X of cream and then begin. Once I complete the section, wipe, and check my work, it seems as if small dots now appeared on the finish. I checked other areas of the paint but could not see those dots again.



This is very frustrating to begin with after spending all this time and money in the garage. I should also mention that I am washing with meguiars Gold class soap, and went over with the clay bar which turned out clean 98% of the car.



I do see that some mentioned the 4" pads...I guess my question would be, what are these 7" pads for then?



I also have the Scratch X, also by Meguiars. I hope this is enough information.



I appreciate all of the assistance.
 
akimel said:
I don't mean to be controversial--and certainly do not intend any rudeness or disrespect--but why is it that so many folks here on Autopia insist that paint correction cannot be effected with 7" pads, yet over at Meguiar's Online a lot of people testify that they do it all the time?
Click to expand...



*** Disclaimer: I've never used a Meguiar's branded random orbital, only PCs and Cyclos. I haven't been by MOL for ages either, so I'm not up-to-date on the official Meguiar's policies regarding which pads for which machines. So please feel free to discount the following accordingly. ***



The reason I insist it can't be done is that I've *tried* it, many times. I don't even get timely correction with ~6" pads via PC. Not even on the Jag's sorta-soft lacquer, not even when I spend hours on one panel.



If somebody else has better results, I'm happy for them, but I can't discount first-hand experience. And those experiences sound exactly like the problems people such as XRL often complain about.



No I don't want this to be an :argue either so I hope I don't come across that way..but whenever somebody says "my PC-based correction attempts aren't successful", I'm utterly confident that switching to smaller pads and certain (specific) products will solve the problem. Again, because of first-hand experience over the course of many years.



Doing even significant correction on hard clear isn't *that* tough via PC, but you *gotta* use the right pads/products. If lesser correction on softer paints isn't happening then something is simply wrong with the approach.



ihateswirls said:
...I guess my question would be, what are these 7" pads for then?
Click to expand...



Those 7" pads are for use via rotary. Maybe Meguiar's is OKing them for use with their random orbitals these days, but I'd stick to smaller pads for machines like that.

 
[quote name='Accumulator']*** Disclaimer: I've never used a Meguiar's branded random orbital, only PCs and Cyclos. I haven't been by MOL for ages either, so I'm not up-to-date on the official Meguiar's policies regarding which pads for which machines. So please feel free to discount the following accordingly. ***



The reason I insist it can't be done is that I've *tried* it, many times. I don't even get timely correction with ~6" pads via PC. Not even on the Jag's sorta-soft lacquer, not even when I spend hours on one panel.



If somebody else has better results, I'm happy for them, but I can't discount first-hand experience. And those experiences sound exactly like the problems people such as XRL often complain about.



No I don't want this to be an :argue either so I hope I don't come across that way..but whenever somebody says "my PC-based correction attempts aren't successful", I'm utterly confident that switching to smaller pads and certain (specific) products will solve the problem. Again, because of first-hand experience over the course of many years.



Doing even significant correction on hard clear isn't *that* tough via PC, but you *gotta* use the right pads/products. If lesser correction on softer paints isn't happening then something is simply wrong with the approach.

I agree 100% 7" pads are a complete waste of time if your doing any kind of paint correction. I use 6" pads for applying and removing wax only.

On another note, one must realize that, generally speaking, the posters over on Meguiar's.com come from a different skill level than most of us here. My guess is that most of them wouldn't know what a swirl mark was if it jumped up and bit them in the rear. What they might call flawless, we look at as barely acceptable. All joking aside, we here at Autopia cater to a much, much higher standard.
 
Accumulator said:
*** Disclaimer: I've never used a Meguiar's branded random orbital, only PCs and Cyclos. I haven't been by MOL for ages either, so I'm not up-to-date on the official Meguiar's policies regarding which pads for which machines. So please feel free to discount the following accordingly. ***



The reason I insist it can't be done is that I've *tried* it, many times. I don't even get timely correction with ~6" pads via PC. Not even on the Jag's sorta-soft lacquer, not even when I spend hours on one panel.



If somebody else has better results, I'm happy for them, but I can't discount first-hand experience. And those experiences sound exactly like the problems people such as XRL often complain about.



No I don't want this to be an :argue either so I hope I don't come across that way..but whenever somebody says "my PC-based correction attempts aren't successful", I'm utterly confident that switching to smaller pads and certain (specific) products will solve the problem. Again, because of first-hand experience over the course of many years.



Doing even significant correction on hard clear isn't *that* tough via PC, but you *gotta* use the right pads/products. If lesser correction on softer paints isn't happening then something is simply wrong with the approach.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% 7" pads are a complete waste of time if your doing any kind of paint correction. I use 6" pads for applying and removing wax only.

On another note, one must realize that, generally speaking, the posters over on Meguiar's.com come from a different skill level than most of us here. My guess is that most of them wouldn't know what a swirl mark was if it jumped up and bit them in the rear. What they might call flawless, we look at as barely acceptable. All joking aside, we here at Autopia cater to a much, much higher standard.
 
Well, using the holiday today I went out and went on a mission to see what I could do with this thing.



Taking the advice here, I grew a set of balls and upped the speed. On speed 6 with the 7" pads and a non-primed pad, with less polish applied to the pad, I actually was able to make a significant difference in the swirls. I definitely could have gotten them all out if I had more time.



It's very possible that I got it to a level that they on MOL would consider perfect, but I still see swirls. But they're nowhere near as bad as they were before, I went over each area horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally, then vertically again, overlapping by 50% on each stroke. I did this twice, and realized that the first time I had used it with my polish I was using way too much polish. I realized that a few small wipes were enough for the 18x18 area I was working with, and sometimes was enough for 2 sections.



Anyways, I'm glad to be learning how to do this, my car(and my gf's car) are swirled to hell and back, so it'll take some time to get them to where I want them to be. Sorry, no pictures yet.
 
XRL- Glad to hear you've made some progress and that you're finding it enjoyable as opposed to frustrating. Sounds like you're using the polish in a more correct manner :xyxthumbs Heh heh, with some smaller pads you might *really* make some headway ;)



Sounds like you did two of what I term "passes" (apply product, work it until it's done, wipe off residue, inspect). Note that when I did correction via PC, I often went over an area literally *countless* times. I'd plan to count how many times I did it, but I'd end up forgetting about that after doing it over and over and over. It's truly no exaggeration to say that I sometimes spent literally *hours* on a single panel :faint: After doing that enough times I wised up and found some more effective approaches and you might want to too. But at least you're getting somewhere now.



While I haven't been to MOL for a while, some people there are every bit as serious about this stuff as anybody here. There *are* areas where I disagree with the official Megiar's postitions on certain topics, but I also endulge in plenty of Autopian Heresy too.
 
Well, this topic is obviously oozing with pre-formed opinions, and begging to become a you-know-what match, so keeping that in mind I just want to share my own personal experience without it going south.



Let's keep it friendly.



As for the "frowning" on the crowd at MOL, although there are obviously more "newbies" who join with a need for help with their consumer line products, MOL is also home to some of the more famous, acclaimed, and revered detailers on the planet. There is a reason auto manufacturers and owners of hardcore SEMA vehicles call Meguiar's when they need a vehicle shined up.



MOL is community more about helping teach others, than it is a "look how awesome I am at detailing" community like Autopia can often be. That's perfectly OK, as both communities have their place and their need. I enjoy my time here on Autopia as much as on MOL, but for different reasons. They're both great sites.



Now, all that mumbo aside... I realize the popular trend on Autopia is to use smaller pads on the DA, and there are some personalities in this thread that are particularly well known for preaching that.



That said, do you really think Meguiar's would sell only 7 inch pads if they didn't think they could do the job on a DA? Especially considering they sell ONLY a DA polisher, and 7 inch pads, they would be setting themselves up for nothing but unsatisfied customers, right?



I spend a fair amount of time on MOL daily, and I can honestly say I almost never see anyone post about how their G110 and 7 inch pads couldn't get the job done with the right products and technique.



I myself have and use a G110, FLEX, and Makita all with 7 inch pads about 90% of the time...never had a problem getting the job done. Granted, it might require more pad cleaning to keep it from bogging down, but the G110 can achieve correction with 7 inch pads...I do it all the time, and I see posts of it being done all of the time as well.



All that said, can more aggressive correction be accomplished with a DA and a smaller pad? Yes. Would I love to see Meg's make smaller versions of their washable pads? Absolutely.



But to say that a 7 inch pad is "worthless" is reckless and wrong IMHO.
 
Hey, this is all great information. I have one more questions which why the polished area remains swirls free, and yet has small black dots. I threw a layer of Meguiars tech wax 2.0 over it, and small dots were still there.



Other than that, I had great results except some small swirls.
 
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