5.5 year old thread revival, but I suppose this is just as good as starting a detailing thread.
The search for the toothbrush inventor left some nice pin stripes on my truck. Nothing terrible, but definitely some pin stripes in the clear coat. An orbital buffer and a Mother's cleaner wax took care of most of those....at least the visible obvious ones.
Most of these actually came off with just a wash:
The deeper ones are still visible in the clear coat, but you have to get up close and really look for them. Those along with some other "normal" scratches and I decided to see what I could do to make some improvements.
I started with a Bauer DA polisher from Harbor Freight. I've since replaced the 6" backer with a Meguiars 5" backing plate. I'm now using the Chemical Guys HexLogic buffing pads. I started with some Meguiars Ultimate Compound on the orange cutting foam pad and then moved on to some Meguiars Ultimate Polish on the white light cutting/polishing pad.
Some of the pinstriping that I expected to be fully removed is still there, but some of the deeper appearing scratches that I expected to remain are gone. Not sure why or how the difference, but it is what it is.
It's hard to find "good" information online about what speeds to use the DA polisher. I've gone down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos and I think I ran the polisher too slow for both the compound and polish.
Couple things about DA polishing that I've learned/figured out/watched/read:
1. the slowest setting on the DA polisher should only be used for spreading the compound or polish
2. most use should be around the 4.5 setting (I think this is relatively consistent across polishers and translates to 4500 rpm) regardless of compound or polish. Step it up to 5 or 6 if the 4.5 isn't getting the job done.
3. slight pressure should be applied. recommendations seem to be anywhere from 1-2 lbs of pressure up to 16 lbs of pressure. I don't think all these idiots (myself included) actually know how much pressure they are applying. My current general rule of thumb is that there should be some pressure, but not so much that the pad stops spinning.
4. make sure the pad is flat. angles are bad
5. match the right pad to the product. Chemical guys seems to be consistent with generic pads as far as color and purpose of pad is concerned. Adams and Meguiars are proprietary in terms of color/use.
I finished it off with some 303 Graphene Coating spray. It was a bigger PITA than I was expecting to apply. It isn't a
true graphene, so we'll see how long it lasts. The bottle says 1 year, but I've read a lot of people state that it is more like 6 months.
Here's the finished product on the hood.
Now I want more garage lights.
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