I picked up a bottle of 105 today to see if it lives up to the hype surrounding it, and because I wanted to try a new aggressive compound.
The instructions on the bottle say to use it with a wool cutting pad, and to follow with something else. However, the point of 105 is that it is tough but still leaves a nice finish with no haze like most compounds leave.
So, the first thing that came to mind was fillers. Meguiars products are usually loaded with fillers, even their sealant fills, and IME #80 is more fill than it is abrasive.
So, I put a blue 6" edge2000 pad on my makita and set out to polishing a small test area. The reason I chose a soft foam pad that can finish down LSP ready, is because I wanted to see if given the proper pad, the abrasives in 105 could diminish to the point where it would not need to be followed with something else.
First impressions were not too good, my pad was really not very lubricated compared to menzerna and optimum (which are the polishes I am used to). It dusted like crazy, and gummed up but I continued to break it down until it was nearly invisible.
When I wiped it off, my impressions went through the roof, ALL of the swirls on this badly swirled (as in automatic car washes, this is a customer's car, not mine) truck were GONE. So of course, my first reaction was well, it must have filled them because there is no haze at all, no buffer trails, and the swirls are totally gone with just a blue pad.
So I broke out the griots paint prep spray to try to remove any fillers, and the surface looked the same. Then I broke out the alcohol, let it sit a while and wiped off and to my surprise the surface looked exactly the same.
This can only mean one thing, it actually did remove all of the swirls with no fillers and still managed to finish out perfectly. Normally to tackle these swirls I would have used wool with something like presta ultra cutting creme, followed with foam and 106ff.
To combat it making my pad jump and being s dusty, I mixed it 70/30 with OP which seemed to only tone down the cut a little, but made it very usable. I would not use it again without the 30% OP.
Overall, great product. Aggressive and when used with the right pad the abrasives break down to a glossy LSP ready finish without the use of fillers.
Honestly, I was fully prepared to write about how it just fills everything like most megs polishes and thats why it seems to finish so nicely, but I tried everything I could and apparently it does not fill at all. 70% 105 30% OP is now a great option for me when a customer's budget does not allow for wool followed by foam but still wants some serious swirl removal. However, I would not recommend using it without the (minimum) 30% OP as it dries out very very quickly.
The instructions on the bottle say to use it with a wool cutting pad, and to follow with something else. However, the point of 105 is that it is tough but still leaves a nice finish with no haze like most compounds leave.
So, the first thing that came to mind was fillers. Meguiars products are usually loaded with fillers, even their sealant fills, and IME #80 is more fill than it is abrasive.
So, I put a blue 6" edge2000 pad on my makita and set out to polishing a small test area. The reason I chose a soft foam pad that can finish down LSP ready, is because I wanted to see if given the proper pad, the abrasives in 105 could diminish to the point where it would not need to be followed with something else.
First impressions were not too good, my pad was really not very lubricated compared to menzerna and optimum (which are the polishes I am used to). It dusted like crazy, and gummed up but I continued to break it down until it was nearly invisible.
When I wiped it off, my impressions went through the roof, ALL of the swirls on this badly swirled (as in automatic car washes, this is a customer's car, not mine) truck were GONE. So of course, my first reaction was well, it must have filled them because there is no haze at all, no buffer trails, and the swirls are totally gone with just a blue pad.
So I broke out the griots paint prep spray to try to remove any fillers, and the surface looked the same. Then I broke out the alcohol, let it sit a while and wiped off and to my surprise the surface looked exactly the same.
This can only mean one thing, it actually did remove all of the swirls with no fillers and still managed to finish out perfectly. Normally to tackle these swirls I would have used wool with something like presta ultra cutting creme, followed with foam and 106ff.
To combat it making my pad jump and being s dusty, I mixed it 70/30 with OP which seemed to only tone down the cut a little, but made it very usable. I would not use it again without the 30% OP.
Overall, great product. Aggressive and when used with the right pad the abrasives break down to a glossy LSP ready finish without the use of fillers.
Honestly, I was fully prepared to write about how it just fills everything like most megs polishes and thats why it seems to finish so nicely, but I tried everything I could and apparently it does not fill at all. 70% 105 30% OP is now a great option for me when a customer's budget does not allow for wool followed by foam but still wants some serious swirl removal. However, I would not recommend using it without the (minimum) 30% OP as it dries out very very quickly.
