White paint article

Slik560

Slik560

New member
I recently joined the forums and I have to admit I am a little disillusioned after reading Mike Phillips’ excellent and informative article on the foibles of white paint. Last year I bought an ’87 Mercedes 560SL. It is polar white and was stored indoors by the two previous owners. Over the winter I had planned to use a new Griot’s random-orbital and some Griot’s polish & sealant to bring the finish up to a higher standard. There are a lot of swirl marks that can be seen at certain angles and certain light. I guess the good side of white is that you can’t SEE the swirls as easily. :cool: My question: Am I wasting my time and possibly doing more damage on this older finish with the random orbital machine polisher? Maybe the best thing to do is clean the paint really well (clay is always my first step) and slap on a couple of coats of a good paint sealant. Griot’s Paint Sealant is what I had planned to use. No one seems to know the actual characteristics of the older Mercedes paint jobs (single stage, clear coat – no clear coat, etc) Any advice is appreciated – Thanks.
 
Hey, Kevin. :welcome to Autopia!



Although I have huge respect for Mike and his paint polishing skills, and I agree that the article contains a great deal of useful, factual information, I totally disagree with the opinion that white paint is boring.



It’s easy to be seduced by the delights of deep, dark colors. But even some of us Autopians can (and I’m sure most normal people do) still see paint as part of the larger whole of the car. And lots of cars look great in white, especially big Benz’ (it’s a German thing).



White is the perfect color fur ein grosse Panzerwagen cabrio. It positively oozes class.



Contrary to popular belief, flaws in white really can jump out and smack you in the face. They just don’t do it constantly, in all light, from every angle like they do in black. They lay low, waiting in ambush until the light hits it just right. Then they leap out and ruin the look of the car.



And even the flaws that people don’t see overtly can still profoundly affect how they see the car. A finish that’s oxidized or swirled just doesn’t shine like a clean, clear one. People will see that. They might not be able to point to exactly why a swirled car doesn’t look as good. But they’ll know that a clear, glossy finish looks better.



The trick with white is knowing how it works. White has little (or no) depth in the sense of the deep liquid pool of a black finish, so what you’re after is gloss on the paint and sharp contrast with the other elements of the car.



You want the paint to “glow� and all the trim to be crisp and clean. Chrome and aluminum should be clearly polished, wheels free of brake dust. Tires and rubber trim should be uniformly dressed and free from and dingy smudges like wax residue.



Without seeing the finish in person I can’t begin to give you an accurate guess about what potential it has or what a good process for reconditioning would be. But if it’s been stored out of the sun for a large percentage of its life and hasn’t been abused in other ways there’s a good chance it has the potential to look fantastic. It will take some experimentation.



Griot’s products are of high quality but major reconditioning isn’t what they’re about. So how effective they can be really depends on the condition of the finish and its workability.





PC.
 
Many thanks. The car was treated well by the two previous owners, and I recently took second in class at the local MB club concours in Oct 07. So the paint is in pretty good shape. In daylight, you have to look very hard for any swirl marks. However, I pulled into the local gas station late one night and under those metal halide lights in the canopy over the pumps, you'd swear someone took 0000 steel wool to the deck lid. What I need to find out before doing any more polishing is if the folks in Stuttgart put a clear coat on this vintage of MB, or if they shipped them with just paint. When I buff off polish and/or wax with a dark microfiber cloth, I don't see any white, so that leads me to believe it's got a clear coat. I'll contact the MB Classic web site to see if they have any history. Even the guys at the national MB club web site can't agree on what year MB started clear coating as standard practice. Thanks again for the "welcome"!!
 
the other pc said:
Hey, Kevin. :welcome to Autopia!



Although I have huge respect for Mike and his paint polishing skills, and I agree that the article contains a great deal of useful, factual information, I totally disagree with the opinion that white paint is boring.



It’s easy to be seduced by the delights of deep, dark colors. But even some of us Autopians can (and I’m sure most normal people do) still see paint as part of the larger whole of the car. And lots of cars look great in white, especially big Benz’ (it’s a German thing).



White is the perfect color fur ein grosse Panzerwagen cabrio. It positively oozes class.



Contrary to popular belief, flaws in white really can jump out and smack you in the face. They just don’t do it constantly, in all light, from every angle like they do in black. They lay low, waiting in ambush until the light hits it just right. Then they leap out and ruin the look of the car.



And even the flaws that people don’t see overtly can still profoundly affect how they see the car. A finish that’s oxidized or swirled just doesn’t shine like a clean, clear one. People will see that. They might not be able to point to exactly why a swirled car doesn’t look as good. But they’ll know that a clear, glossy finish looks better.



The trick with white is knowing how it works. White has little (or no) depth in the sense of the deep liquid pool of a black finish, so what you’re after is gloss on the paint and sharp contrast with the other elements of the car.



You want the paint to “glow� and all the trim to be crisp and clean. Chrome and aluminum should be clearly polished, wheels free of brake dust. Tires and rubber trim should be uniformly dressed and free from and dingy smudges like wax residue.



Without seeing the finish in person I can’t begin to give you an accurate guess about what potential it has or what a good process for reconditioning would be. But if it’s been stored out of the sun for a large percentage of its life and hasn’t been abused in other ways there’s a good chance it has the potential to look fantastic. It will take some experimentation.



Griot’s products are of high quality but major reconditioning isn’t what they’re about. So how effective they can be really depends on the condition of the finish and its workability.





PC.
Click to expand...



Wow, great post!
 
I think a well polished white finish looks good at night under street lights. Proper wax/sealant cure times and layering is good for making white nice.
 
My comments about white paint are just personal preference, nothing against white paint... just personally find it boring as far as colors go.



One more point not related to opinions on color... I get e-mails all the time about this article from people thinking their paint is hard because it's white, they somehow glaze over, (no pun intended), the portion that attributes paint hardness to pigment type as it relates to single stage paints, not clear coats.



Pigment has nothing to do with hardness when you're working on a clear coated car because you're never actually working on the pigmented portion as it's covered by the clear layer of paint.



Clear coat paints vary in workability or polishability and that's why we always tell people to withhold judgment until they actually go out into their garage and work on their own car's paint. Generalizations can be made, for example I've never come across a Viper or a newer Corvette with a clear coat finish that was 'easy' to buff scratches out of and create a flawless finish. Can it be done? Sure, everyone here does it all the time, but the paint itself isn't fun to work on. Same thing for all the newer Audi's I've worked on and read of other's experiences when working on these cars.



So many times someone will post something like this,



I read somewhere that Honda's have soft paint, or I read somewhere that Subaru's have hard paint, what products do I need to remove the swirls out of my car's finish?



And again, what you have read may be true or may not be true, you never know how hard or soft your car's paint is until you go out into your garage and bring your hand down on the paint or your polisher and do a Test Spot to see what happens with the first products and process you've chosen.



Of course experience really counts for a lot when a person is trying to determine if a paint is hard or soft and if a person doesn't have a background of working on zillions of cars all with different types of paint then they can come to faulty conclusions about the hardness or softness of their car's paint because they don't have a wide spectrum of experience to base their results off of.



I don't have anything against cars and trucks with white paint and in fact someday I think it wold be a good color to own for a daily driver as dark colored cars show defects so much easier.



And while you can get a lot of gloss and shine out of paint it's pretty hard to compare the ability of white paint to reflect images when compared to dark colored and black cars.



You can spend all day buffing out a white car and the results can look pretty much the same as if you had just wash the car and used a quality cleaner/wax. That 's not true for dark colors and black paint, thus the reason I guess I find this color on the boring side compared to other colors and that's why I wrote that way back in the early 1990's



Dang time goes by fast...



:D



white-paint-1.jpg
 
Hi, Mike....long time no postings :wavey Well, no postings *here* :D



You're so right about generalizing...you and I have experience Audis at utterly opposite ends of the hard/soft spectrum.



the other pc- Yeah, that was one great reply :xyxthumbs



karburn- Yeah, MB quit using ss paint right around that time and the last colors that were ss were the solids like that white. The last year I can absolutely verify white being ss was '84 (per factory literature), but I *suspect* that they used it later than that. I can *almost* remember somebody here working on an original-paint Benz of the late '80s that was ss but my memory is hazy...



Griot's stuff is very, very gentle (even their Machine Polish #1), at least when used with their orange polishing pad (much more gentle than other orange colored pads) and their polisher. Your paint could easily be ss but so hard (as is most white ss) that you won't get color transfer with the Griot's combo (I've experienced that first-hand with ss paint that wasn't even all that hard).



I'd try to improve the finish with something more aggressive than the Griot's Machine Polish. Yeah, getting rid of the marring can make white look a lot better.



To better duplicate the lighting under which you can see the marring, try an incandescent light in an otherwise dark environment. That's the only way I can clearly see light marring on colors like that.



And Welcome to Autopia! I'm a sucker for Benzes of that vintage :D
 
karburn- Ah, something just occurred to me!



Even companies like MB didn't/don't clearcoate *all* the painted surfaces. Under the hood, in the fenderwells, on the subframes, etc. the paint isn't cleared (at least it wasn't on my W126s of mid-late '80s vintage if memory serves, and it sure isn't on my other vehicles). See if you get color transfer from those areas. If you get it from them, but *not* from the outer surfaces, then the car is probably b/c; if you don't get transfer from *any* surface it's probably just very hard white single stage. Just an idea...maybe it'll be helpful, maybe not.
 
I 100% agree PC's post. I love white. It's easy to work with and if you know what your doing you can make it look incredable. Right now I'm trying to figure out a good glaze for white. Any suggestion white paint gurus?
 
LS1 Eddie said:
Right now I'm trying to figure out a good glaze for white. Any suggestion white paint gurus?
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This is a bit of an old-school answer, and it's not a strict "glaze" approach, but I always liked Pinnacle PCL (which leaves a bit of something behind) topped with Souveran. I used that on my white VW for ages even though it needed redoing all the time...it just looked too good for me to switch to something more durable.



But these days there are a *lot* of new glazes on the market...
 
IMO white and their pearly cousins, are more than in league with darker colors. This is especially evident in morning and afternoon to early evening sun.
 
Kevin,



There are a few way to tell if the paint is single stage or base/clear. There will be paint codes listed on a plaque somewhere in the car, usually in a doorjamb or under the hood. You can check with an MB reference on the meaning of the codes. (But that won’t tell all if any panels have been re-sprayed.)



The classic way to test a finish is to take a cloth or foam pad that is a contrasting color to the paint (i.e. a light colored towel for dark cars or a dark one for white) and polish the surface with a product that has some cutting ability. If you get pigment transfer it’s colored paint, if not it’s clear.



It’s always really obvious with black paint but on very light colors you may have to look very closely. I like to use Meguiar’s ScratchX for that test because it does cut but it will always leave the paint looking good. (Old fashion orange rubbing compound will tell you if it’s single stage but will haze the heck out of the finish.)



A car that age is likely to have at least a few stone chips in the paint. If you look very closely at chips, perhaps with a magnifying glass, you can often see the edges of the paint layers and you should be able to spot if the top is clear layer or not.



But really, as Mike and Accumulator point out, the paint’s workability is what’s important. Whether it’s ss or bc/cc is almost incidental. Either way, the approach is the same. You try a test spot with a mild product/process and see if it gets the results you’re after. If not, you step up the aggressiveness of the process and keep doing so until you hit the process that gives results. That way you have the least aggresive process that gets the job done.







Mike,



Maybe we could use M105 to do an extreme makeover on my white truck on Thursday night. :D





PC.
 
the other pc said:
Mike,



Maybe we could use M105 to do an extreme makeover on my white truck on Thursday night. :D



PC.
Click to expand...



Sure, bring it over tomorrow night to the Open Garage.



We also have a guy bringing a Mini Cooper that he wet-sanded the hood thinking he could get the sanding marks out using a Porter Cable. Said he read it on a forum somewhere...



Now he finds out he can't get the sanding marks out with the PC and he's stuck with a scratched up hood. So we're going to show him how to do it the right way using a rotary buffer at tomorrow night's open class.
 
Mike Phillips said:
Sure, bring it over tomorrow night to the Open Garage.



We also have a guy bringing a Mini Cooper that he wet-sanded the hood thinking he could get the sanding marks out using a Porter Cable. Said he read it on a forum somewhere...



Now he finds out he can't get the sanding marks out with the PC and he's stuck with a scratched up hood. So we're going to show him how to do it the right way using a rotary buffer at tomorrow night's open class.
Click to expand...



With a 4" pad, some Menzerna IP, or PG, you should be able to remove wetsanding marks without issue with a D/A buffer such as the Porter Cable. You should even be able to remove it with a 6.5" pad.



EDIT: I watched the video - I can't recall if it was you or not - where you were attempting to prove that the D/A buffer did not have the ability to remove sanding marks. You used too much polish and did not give the product adequate time to break down and it was clear using that technique would not remove those marks. A smaller pad with less polish and the speed set to max will remove sanding marks.
 
Holden_C04 said:
EDIT: I watched the video - I can't recall if it was you or not - where you were attempting to prove that the D/A buffer did not have the ability to remove sanding marks. You used too much polish and did not give the product adequate time to break down and it was clear using that technique would not remove those marks. A smaller pad with less polish and the speed set to max will remove sanding marks.
Click to expand...



You must have me confused with someone else. I've never produced a video in which I try to do the things you claim. But just for fun, post a link to the video you're talking about so we can all see who actually was saying that just so there's no confusion.



I am in a video that shows how to remove defects and produce show car results using a PC as well as a lot of other tips and techniques. It's about 2.5 hours long but no where in it, or any other video have I ever tried to prove the DA polisher won't remove sanding marks.



Just for the record, I know full well what the capabilities are for a DA polisher, I've never said that sanding marks can't be removed using one but it is beyond most enthusiasts skill and knowledge level not to mention out of range of most people's product collections.



Regardless of whether sanding marks can be removed using a PC, the BEST way to remove sanding marks and the way Pro's remove sanding marks, especially when they're sanding out entire cars, is with the tired and true friend called the rotary buffer.







Anyway....



Hey Paul... see you Thursday and we'll have plenty of rotary buffers and dual action polishers on hand and you can give the M105 a try on your truck.
 
Mike Phillips said:
You must have me confused with someone else. I've never produced a video in which I try to do the things you claim. But just for fun, post a link to the video you're talking about so we can all see who actually was saying that just so there's no confusion.



I am in a video that shows how to remove defects and produce show car results using a PC as well as a lot of other tips and techniques. It's about 2.5 hours long but no where in it, or any other video have I ever tried to prove the DA polisher won't remove sanding marks.



Just for the record, I know full well what the capabilities are for a DA polisher, I've never said that sanding marks can't be removed using one but it is beyond most enthusiasts skill and knowledge level not to mention out of range of most people's product collections.



Regardless of whether sanding marks can be removed using a PC, the BEST way to remove sanding marks and the way Pro's remove sanding marks, especially when they're sanding out entire cars, is with the tired and true friend called the rotary buffer.







Anyway....



Hey Paul... see you Thursday and we'll have plenty of rotary buffers and dual action polishers on hand and you can give the M105 a try on your truck.
Click to expand...



No one questions the superior ability of the rotary buffer. However, the PC is able to perform some of the same things as the rotary.



YouTube - Wetsanding part 3 of 5



Forgive me as I am not that familiar with the Meguiars organization. If that is not you, who is that?
 
Mike Phillips said:
We also have a guy bringing a Mini Cooper that he wet-sanded the hood thinking he could get the sanding marks out using a Porter Cable. Said he read it on a forum somewhere...
Click to expand...



I've seen a few threads suggesting full sanding jobs where pc's were used for scuff removal, it would be out of taste to question it on these threads, but I would hate to see the finish in person.
 
VaSuperShine said:
I've seen a few threads suggesting full sanding jobs where pc's were used for scuff removal, it would be out of taste to question it on these threads, but I would hate to see the finish in person.
Click to expand...



I would hate to have that job...
 
Holden_C04 said:
I would hate to have that job...
Click to expand...



That too, the reason I bring it up is the work was supposedly done with a pc/orange pad and I don't recall the polish. I did a few test sections on my b pillars with a four inch pad and the pc tackling 2k scratches, it performed well but not 100%. Initially it looked great, I ended up going back over it with my Makita.
 
VaSuperShine said:
That too, the reason I bring it up is the work was supposedly done with a pc/orange pad and I don't recall the polish. I did a few test sections on my b pillars with a four inch pad and the pc tackling 2k scratches, it performed well but not 100%. Initially it looked great, I ended up going back over it with my Makita.
Click to expand...



Sounds about right.
 
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