Wool virgin requests advice...

B

Bigpikle

New member
Well today i received this little lot :cool:



wool.jpg




I've never used wool before so am really looking for some tips from the masters around here. I have a scrap bonnet/hood as my first victim, but am wondering how these compare in technique to the foam I am more used to eg RPM's, # of passes etc?



Polishes I already have and plan to try out are:



MarkV Mystique - my current favourite polish :D

Menz 3.02

Menz 3.01

Menz PG - if I'm feeling brave enough :lol:

Menz 106FF - not sure this is really suited to wool?

Presta UCCL

Presta 1500

Megs #83



Thanks for any tips to speed my learning curve. First 'real' car will be my Audi A3 with some light swirls since its last polish last year....
 
Greg, I'm doing a GM Prizm over the next few days, and it looks like it's gonna be a good candidate for me to finally use the M105 on. It's going to be my last car for a while. I'm *finally* going back to work this week. The FAA finally got all their paperwork together. I'm gonna miss the detailing, though. I've had a busy spring so far.



Bigpikle, I'll see if I can find some posts on wool...I've been on a "wool rant" lately. :)
 
Thanks Supe... it was partly your rants that pushed me to the opportunity for wool.



I'm just seeking to learn what sort of speeds, ressure etc to use to get the technique right, as I'm assuming it is a little different from a typical foam polishing pad?
 
Yes, it is.



1.2k is about the sweet spot for speed. I never go higher than this unless the polish directions say to, or unless the clear coat is really hard.



Remember to use about twice the amount of polish with wool as you do with foam.



Also, your working time will be cut in half with wool. It really does do all the work of foam in half the time.



I don't use any more pressure than slightly more than the weight of the machine. Using too much pressure with wool will cause major hologram problems.



Spur your pad often. I spur after every application.



Enjoy that new wool!
 
SuperBee364 said:
Yes, it is.



1.2k is about the sweet spot for speed. I never go higher than this unless the polish directions say to, or unless the clear coat is really hard.



Remember to use about twice the amount of polish with wool as you do with foam.



Also, your working time will be cut in half with wool. It really does do all the work of foam in half the time.



I don't use any more pressure than slightly more than the weight of the machine. Using too much pressure with wool will cause major hologram problems.



Spur your pad often. I spur after every application.



Enjoy that new wool!
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Perfect - just what I needed to get me n the road :2thumbs:



I really appreciate your time and hope you dont mind as I inevitably come back with further questions once I get stuck in...
 
....already!



Just read about caring for the pad. It says 'dont wash' which I'm glad I saw - is spuring all that it needed to remove polish residue and mess, even if you change polishes?
 
I wouldn't use the same pad if you change polishes. I've left my edge 2k wool pads soaking in Snappy Clean in a five gallon bucket for several days before. You definitely will want to have some sort of washing system for them. Just spurring them when you're done isn't good enough.



As I mentioned, I use Snappy Clean pad cleaner in a five gallon bucket. Then I rinse them out thoroughly in a sink, then put them on the rotary and spin them at 1.8k for a few minutes, then either let them air dry, or put them in the clothes dryer on low heat. Once they are *completely* dry, I then seal them up in Ziplok bags. You really do need to make sure that they're completely dry first, or else they will get moldy in the plastic bags.



Here's the only pad in the Edge 2k wool lineup you didn't get. The white finishing wool:



IMG_1003.jpg




Notice how the wool fibers aren't twisted into looking lilke yarn. It's the softest fibers I've ever felt.
 
thanks again



dont have Snappy Clean over so will search out a pad cleaner... just need to order a spur as well.



Just found DP pad rejuvenator which seems like the same stuff from the same manufacturer, so that will do nicely.



I think the white may have been OOS when i ordered, also why I got the 8" green, when i would prefer the smaller pad... Having said that I LOVE the 3M Ultrafina SE blue finishing pad so am going to stick with that for the moment anyway.



Roll on tomorrow when i get out and play :D
 
Out of those products. I'd start off with the 106FF and the blue wool pad.



Even a beginner would not be able to damage the paint with that combo. So you should be fine testing it on your own or customers vehicles as you will still get good results.



It should give light swirl removal and should not hologram if you keep the pad flat.
 
OK - first hour clocked :D



Mixed results...



1. pads are a joy to use - glide over the paint, not really any grabbing, panel stays nice and cool



2. swirled up an old Audi hood pretty heavily then hit it with the blue wool and MarkV Mystique - got good results considering its a finishing pad. Lots of swirls removed and gloss improved, but only about 60% correction. Nice and easy though :) 1-2 passes at 900rpm, then 4-5 at 1200rpm.



3. stepped up to the 8" green pad, and just as nice to use but I didnt really see much improvement in the correction???



4. then stepped up to the 6" yellow and much the same :( Did a couple of sets with both using first 1200rpm and later 1400rpm, and got slight improvements, but only about 75% correction, and not the paint ripping I expected from more aggressive wool :confused:



5. followed each of the sets above with the black 3M foam and Mystique and removed some of the very light marks obviously left from the wool, but the improvement was slight, making me think the wool was still leaving a lot behind, and once i cleaned up the swirls put in by the wool, the finish was still much worse than i expected... Even tried following the yellow wool with the green wool after 1 set, to see if it needed a 3 step process, but again, no real difference :think:



So, some highs and lows for sure. Only had an hour and only tried 1 polish for simplicity, but I hear this polish works well with wool, so was hoping for better TBH. Still, I have some time next week so will persevere and see what I find. It was Audi rock hard clear, so maybe it just needed a little bit more, or maybe a more aggressive polish...



Any thoughts much appreciated, as I REALLY liked the feel of the wool on the panel, so am keen to perfect the cutting as well ;)
 
Glad to hear you're liking the wool so far, bigpikle.



Some polishes really scale well according to what pad you use with them, others not so much. MPG is one that can have a modest amount of correction when used with the blue wool, yet it does alot more correction with the black wool. While SIP pretty much stays the same regardless of what pad you use with it. What should really be changing, though, is the way the polish finishes. You should be getting a noticeably better finish with the blue wool than the yellow. I haven't ever used Mystique.



If you had a softer CC to work with you'd probably be seeing a really noticeable difference. That Audi clear is so very hard.



Do you have some other polishes to try out?
 
SuperBee364 said:
Glad to hear you're liking the wool so far, bigpikle.



Some polishes really scale well according to what pad you use with them, others not so much. MPG is one that can have a modest amount of correction when used with the blue wool, yet it does alot more correction with the black wool. While SIP pretty much stays the same regardless of what pad you use with it. What should really be changing, though, is the way the polish finishes. You should be getting a noticeably better finish with the blue wool than the yellow. I haven't ever used Mystique.



If you had a softer CC to work with you'd probably be seeing a really noticeable difference. That Audi clear is so very hard.



Do you have some other polishes to try out?
Click to expand...



interesting...



I have some 3.01 and 3.02, as well as PG and Megs 80 and 83. I also have some sample pots of the Presta range which I know some like with wool.
 
Since the Audi cc is pretty hard, I'd start out with one of the more aggressive pads, something like a 4 ply twisted wool pad and the Mystique ( obviously if you didn't know how hard the paint was you'd have to work your way up the scale rather than start near the top). You shouldn't have any problem removing the swirls and most scratches with this combo, but on severely swirled/scratched paint a second pass may be needed.

The next step for me is to switch to a cutting foam pad, something like a 50ppi grade, again with the Mystique. This step will remove any marring caused by the wool pad and start to bring the paint up to a glossy finish. After using the foam cutting pad I like to check the paint for any further swirls/imperfections, so that if need be I can go back to the wool and deal with them before repeating stage 2 and moving on to the final stage.

At this point the paint should be looking pretty good, so the last step is to go over with the Mystique and a soft finishing pad (80-100ppi). You should get really good results like this.

Hope this is of some use to you
 
There is one more drawback to practicing on that Audi hood (with its hard clear coat). I think it's going to give you a false sense of security and false sense of how wool and polish really react on the majority of clear coats out there. As has been said over and over, Audi clear is hard, hard, hard. Really hard clear coats just don't respond/react to polishing (with either wool or foam) like regular clears do. Often times you can get black cutting wool (the heaviest hitter I have) to finish down darn near LSP ready on really hard clears. Whereas this same pad would leave a regular clear riddled with holograms and compounding swirls. It's also harder to damage hard clears. You might want to consider trying to get ahold of a test panel with a softer clear coat. It would be a much more accurate representation of the results you could expect with wool in the real world.
 
cheers guys



well aware of the pros and cons of the Audi clear, but as I have an Audi of same model and vintage as well, it does have an advantage :D



I also detail 4 classics and 3 of those have single stage paint as hard as the Audi stuff at least, so practicing on this for me isnt as bad as it might be for somebody that then goes to play on a Honda ;)



I do want some more panels anyway as I've nearly killed most of mine now learning with the rotary, with very limited amounts of clear left on themain sections. A couple of hits more with the wool and they will be D E A D !



Charger - I believe we have a mutual friend - Marc at Krystal Kleen ;) Hope to see you in July at the gathering at his unit. Thanks for the tips - really like Mystique and interested in other MarkV stuff as well....
 
Bigpikle said:
Charger - I believe we have a mutual friend - Marc at Krystal Kleen ;) Hope to see you in July at the gathering at his unit. Thanks for the tips - really like Mystique and interested in other MarkV stuff as well....
Click to expand...





Yeah Marc and I used to work for the same company, allbeit in different places but we both worked with the same guy from time to time. Does that make sense?



I'm looking forward to the meet in July, I'll have to make sure I have lots of samples with me:up
 
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