wizardofahs
New member
First off, I’m not an expert. I'm on here asking questions about as often as I’m answering them. However, I have been doing this for a while, and have been able to get some good results. So while I might not know as much as RedCarGuy, DavidB or NYD, I thought I would share what I do know.
This tutorial is meant for people who are interested in using Menzerna, or the PC, or both together. The same steps could probably be followed with another abrasive product like FI-II. Something a little easier to work with (like aio) might have a slightly different process, but for those jobs where you are really trying to fix some problems in the paint (and not just cover them up) this is a good way to do it.
So lets begin shall we?
This car was repainted a few months ago. It had some fairly severe buffer marks from the body shop. As well as the standard set of swirls. Here is how it looked:
You can see it wasn't horrible, but really could use some work. The panel we will be working with is the front driver side fender (following the tradition set up in DavidB's video, which is where I started in learning how to use the PC). Here is how it looked:
You can see the buffer marks on the right, as well as the swirls on the left. The first step of course was to wash with dawn, and then clay. After it was pulled into the garage and ready to go, I set my PC up with the Orange power pad from CMA (any pad with a little bit of grip would of worked just fine).
The first step is to put two small lines of the product diagonally across the area we will be working with. This can be a little difficult to, especially on vertical panels. The best way I found to do it was to turn the bottle upside down. Where the product comes out at the tip, there is a little knob on one end, kind of like this:
I found that rotating it so that the extended part was on the bottom, made it easier. This way you could squeeze a little product out using your thumb, and it would sort of catch on that knob and hold there forming a little pile. Then you could carefully follow the surface down squeezing a little while you do it, and having the product stick to the surface. I'm not sure if that is a good explanation, but if you understand it should help. This way you shouldn't ever have to touch the car with the bottle, which will prevent scratches. It takes some practice, but it doesn't have to be perfect. If your line is fatter in one part than another, or missing an area, it really doesn't matter. Once applied it should look like this:
Before you start buffing it's best to mist the pad of the PC with a quick spray of QD. The next step is to put the PC against the surface and then with it turned off, use the pad to spread the product across the surface. This gives you a nice even application of the product, and also prevents it from splattering everywhere. If you just put the pc right on the car and turn it on without spreading it first, it will really create a mess. Again it doesn't have to be fancy, just try and get it everywhere. At the end it should look like this:
Now the pc is turned on at a speed of 3 or so. The goal at this step is to begin working the product in, and spreading it some more so everywhere looks uniform. You don't need to apply any pressure at this stage, just let the weight of the PC do the work. just go back and forth and up and down at a fairly slow speed. A good indication of how fast you are going can be seen in the ripples that you create. The further they are apart the faster you are going. You can use the picture below to see about how fast I went. You really want to get it worked in. It should begin to look like this:
Once it does it's time to turn it up a notch. Now you can put the PC on a speed of 4.5-5 and give it just the slightest hint of pressure. This is where you really take time to work the product in. I usually go over everything in multiple passes, and at a fairly slow speed, maybe .5 to 1 inches per second. Again go left to right, top to bottom, crisscross. However you feel comfortable. If there are some non flat surfaces, like this fender, it's good to tilt the PC slightly so only 1/2 of it is against the car. With a rotary you don't really want to use the edge like this, but for those curves it really works well with the PC, and isn't as dangerous as with a rotary. It lets you have more control over what surface the PC is in contact with, so you can really make sure you get the whole surface, even if it does have a weird shape.
it should start to look like this:
Now that it is fully worked in it's time to buff it off. I've found that every product that is really abrasive isn't easy to remove. But it's not impossible. The best thing to do is to spray the area with a little bit of QD or an alcohol solution. On this car I used the Alcohol. It does do a great job in making it easy to remove, but it also dries the paint out, which makes it very difficult to remove other products. I would recommend a good QD over the alcohol solution. You just want to mist over the panel. Your not trying to hose the stuff off, just moisten it a little to break up the bond holding it to the surface:
To buff it out it's best to go over it with a MF towel using the standard technique. Buff as much of the stuff as you can off, then flip it over and go over it once again to make sure you get it all.
So how does the IP (Intensive Polish) work? Well after those steps on the panel here are the results:
You can see that the buffer marks and the swirls are gone. The whole process took about 5-7 minutes per area. There is a little bit of milkyness in the paint left, but that is cleaned up with the Final Polish (or I would assume AIO, GPEC or SMR would get rid of it).
Next I went over the panel using the FP, using pretty much the same technique (except using a QD instead of alcohol and CMAs gray pad instead of the orange). This stuff was a little harder to remove, I think because of how dry the paint was from the alcohol.
After that I went over it with some AIO and 2 coats of SG. The end results were good (I didn't dress the tires or do the windows or anything yet when this was taken)
It isn't the easiest thing in the world, but I’ve found that just about anyone can do it. Your results might not be the same as someone who has been using it for months, but you should be able to get the hang of it rather quickly. Like just about anything else the more practice you get the better your results will be.
I hope this has been a help to at least someone. Your mileage may vary. Overall it's not a very difficult to do. It just takes a little bit of time and know-how. I encourage you to try your own experiments and see what works for you. There are all kinds of variations that could be applied to this method. If anyone has questions feel free to post them here. If I can't answer them I’m sure there is someone who can.
Update:
As I get more information about what works i'll post it here.
So far I think you'd get better results by using less product, and working it in more. If anything that will at least make it easier to remove while not hurting the results
This tutorial is meant for people who are interested in using Menzerna, or the PC, or both together. The same steps could probably be followed with another abrasive product like FI-II. Something a little easier to work with (like aio) might have a slightly different process, but for those jobs where you are really trying to fix some problems in the paint (and not just cover them up) this is a good way to do it.
So lets begin shall we?
This car was repainted a few months ago. It had some fairly severe buffer marks from the body shop. As well as the standard set of swirls. Here is how it looked:
You can see it wasn't horrible, but really could use some work. The panel we will be working with is the front driver side fender (following the tradition set up in DavidB's video, which is where I started in learning how to use the PC). Here is how it looked:
You can see the buffer marks on the right, as well as the swirls on the left. The first step of course was to wash with dawn, and then clay. After it was pulled into the garage and ready to go, I set my PC up with the Orange power pad from CMA (any pad with a little bit of grip would of worked just fine).
The first step is to put two small lines of the product diagonally across the area we will be working with. This can be a little difficult to, especially on vertical panels. The best way I found to do it was to turn the bottle upside down. Where the product comes out at the tip, there is a little knob on one end, kind of like this:
Code:
_
__| |
| |I found that rotating it so that the extended part was on the bottom, made it easier. This way you could squeeze a little product out using your thumb, and it would sort of catch on that knob and hold there forming a little pile. Then you could carefully follow the surface down squeezing a little while you do it, and having the product stick to the surface. I'm not sure if that is a good explanation, but if you understand it should help. This way you shouldn't ever have to touch the car with the bottle, which will prevent scratches. It takes some practice, but it doesn't have to be perfect. If your line is fatter in one part than another, or missing an area, it really doesn't matter. Once applied it should look like this:
Before you start buffing it's best to mist the pad of the PC with a quick spray of QD. The next step is to put the PC against the surface and then with it turned off, use the pad to spread the product across the surface. This gives you a nice even application of the product, and also prevents it from splattering everywhere. If you just put the pc right on the car and turn it on without spreading it first, it will really create a mess. Again it doesn't have to be fancy, just try and get it everywhere. At the end it should look like this:
Now the pc is turned on at a speed of 3 or so. The goal at this step is to begin working the product in, and spreading it some more so everywhere looks uniform. You don't need to apply any pressure at this stage, just let the weight of the PC do the work. just go back and forth and up and down at a fairly slow speed. A good indication of how fast you are going can be seen in the ripples that you create. The further they are apart the faster you are going. You can use the picture below to see about how fast I went. You really want to get it worked in. It should begin to look like this:
Once it does it's time to turn it up a notch. Now you can put the PC on a speed of 4.5-5 and give it just the slightest hint of pressure. This is where you really take time to work the product in. I usually go over everything in multiple passes, and at a fairly slow speed, maybe .5 to 1 inches per second. Again go left to right, top to bottom, crisscross. However you feel comfortable. If there are some non flat surfaces, like this fender, it's good to tilt the PC slightly so only 1/2 of it is against the car. With a rotary you don't really want to use the edge like this, but for those curves it really works well with the PC, and isn't as dangerous as with a rotary. It lets you have more control over what surface the PC is in contact with, so you can really make sure you get the whole surface, even if it does have a weird shape.
it should start to look like this:
Now that it is fully worked in it's time to buff it off. I've found that every product that is really abrasive isn't easy to remove. But it's not impossible. The best thing to do is to spray the area with a little bit of QD or an alcohol solution. On this car I used the Alcohol. It does do a great job in making it easy to remove, but it also dries the paint out, which makes it very difficult to remove other products. I would recommend a good QD over the alcohol solution. You just want to mist over the panel. Your not trying to hose the stuff off, just moisten it a little to break up the bond holding it to the surface:
To buff it out it's best to go over it with a MF towel using the standard technique. Buff as much of the stuff as you can off, then flip it over and go over it once again to make sure you get it all.
So how does the IP (Intensive Polish) work? Well after those steps on the panel here are the results:
You can see that the buffer marks and the swirls are gone. The whole process took about 5-7 minutes per area. There is a little bit of milkyness in the paint left, but that is cleaned up with the Final Polish (or I would assume AIO, GPEC or SMR would get rid of it).
Next I went over the panel using the FP, using pretty much the same technique (except using a QD instead of alcohol and CMAs gray pad instead of the orange). This stuff was a little harder to remove, I think because of how dry the paint was from the alcohol.
After that I went over it with some AIO and 2 coats of SG. The end results were good (I didn't dress the tires or do the windows or anything yet when this was taken)
It isn't the easiest thing in the world, but I’ve found that just about anyone can do it. Your results might not be the same as someone who has been using it for months, but you should be able to get the hang of it rather quickly. Like just about anything else the more practice you get the better your results will be.
I hope this has been a help to at least someone. Your mileage may vary. Overall it's not a very difficult to do. It just takes a little bit of time and know-how. I encourage you to try your own experiments and see what works for you. There are all kinds of variations that could be applied to this method. If anyone has questions feel free to post them here. If I can't answer them I’m sure there is someone who can.
Update:
As I get more information about what works i'll post it here.
So far I think you'd get better results by using less product, and working it in more. If anything that will at least make it easier to remove while not hurting the results
. 
