TooMuchBoost
Comp Diesel Sponsor
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2006
- Messages
- 2,072
Sorry for the delay but here is my homemade how to high speed compound/polish:
What you will need:
A high speed/high torque 0-3000 RPM polisher
A foam polishing pad such as this Blue Presta Pad
A medium cutting compounding pad if you have deep scratched or plan to we sand:
A rubbing compound such as Presta Ultra Cutting Creme
Presta 1500 Polish (not shown)
Wet Or Dry paper if you plan to wet sand (1500 grit shown)
When you wet sand preferably use a soft foam or rubber block to prevent fingering the finish. You want to very directions as you wet sand/block the surface in order to remove imperfections and/or the coating being sanded at an even rate. Meaning sand left to right, at 45 degrees going up and at 45 degrees going down. Just vary the sanding motion.
In this up close notice how you can see shiny spots within the dull spots. Normally you would sand until the surface is evenly flat/full looking. Since I was sacrificing a perfectly good oem paint job for this demo I didn't sand the surface perfectly flat which will leave some orange peel in the finish to match the orange peel in the rest of the panel. Had this spot been sanded perfectly flat it would look slick while the rest of the panel still had the factory orange peel to it. Then I would risk the chance of a sharp sales manager picking up on it and trying to say the vehicle had been repaired then talked diminished value smack. Rare but not totally uncommon nowadays.
Notice this pad now. To clean a previously used panel I spurred it with a large flat-head screwdriver by carefully holding onto the screwdriver with a firm grip then pulling the trigger of the buffer. Starting at the center I then worked my way out to the edge of the pad cleaning it in the process. Be careful!!!
Start with a quarter sized glob of Ultra Cutting Creme per 2'x2' area and 1200-2200 rpms. Start the buffer with the glob on the center of the pad to prevent slinging. Similar to wet sanding/blocking very the direction of the compounding which will prevent swirl marks in your finished product. With Presta UCC it takes about 6 passes over an area to totally remove the scratches and end up with all but polished finish.
Remember how we want to totally remove all sand scratches in the compounding process? Well the odds of doing this on your first trying each area you compound is slim. You will always find something minor once you examine the panel from from various angles of light. As I find these areas I put a little dab of UCC on them to mark them then spot compound these spots. It happens I promise.
Once all scratches have been removed (or assuming you have a finish you just want to polish and make slick like a 3 yo p/u) switch to a foam and use a product such as Presta 1500/Polish. (This product and foam pad isn't designed to remove serious scratches as the aforementioned step is.) Presta Polish goes a LONG way so use it conservatively or roughly 5 dime sized globs will do a whole hood once a new pad has been wetted a little with product. This process may be repeated over and over and over again IF a show car finish is desired. If not desired do it once over the whole panel as I did here.
After working the initial area I polished the rest of the tailgate using the same method in the above polishing video with this result and roughness you see is factory orange peel which I wanted to keep for inspection/resale purposes:
Outside view:
Once again sorry for the warehouse motif and the noise you heard in the background was SE Freight picking up an outbound order 2 hrs earlier than anticipated but that's how we pay the bills around here.
I hope this helps you and please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay but life and work happens!
Also, these videos which recorded in 320 size look great on my Mac but look a bit large and fuzzy using an other viewer so you might need to re-size the video for better quality. I have no idea why this is so....:doh:
What you will need:
A high speed/high torque 0-3000 RPM polisher
A foam polishing pad such as this Blue Presta Pad
A medium cutting compounding pad if you have deep scratched or plan to we sand:
A rubbing compound such as Presta Ultra Cutting Creme
Presta 1500 Polish (not shown)
Wet Or Dry paper if you plan to wet sand (1500 grit shown)
When you wet sand preferably use a soft foam or rubber block to prevent fingering the finish. You want to very directions as you wet sand/block the surface in order to remove imperfections and/or the coating being sanded at an even rate. Meaning sand left to right, at 45 degrees going up and at 45 degrees going down. Just vary the sanding motion.
In this up close notice how you can see shiny spots within the dull spots. Normally you would sand until the surface is evenly flat/full looking. Since I was sacrificing a perfectly good oem paint job for this demo I didn't sand the surface perfectly flat which will leave some orange peel in the finish to match the orange peel in the rest of the panel. Had this spot been sanded perfectly flat it would look slick while the rest of the panel still had the factory orange peel to it. Then I would risk the chance of a sharp sales manager picking up on it and trying to say the vehicle had been repaired then talked diminished value smack. Rare but not totally uncommon nowadays.
Notice this pad now. To clean a previously used panel I spurred it with a large flat-head screwdriver by carefully holding onto the screwdriver with a firm grip then pulling the trigger of the buffer. Starting at the center I then worked my way out to the edge of the pad cleaning it in the process. Be careful!!!
Start with a quarter sized glob of Ultra Cutting Creme per 2'x2' area and 1200-2200 rpms. Start the buffer with the glob on the center of the pad to prevent slinging. Similar to wet sanding/blocking very the direction of the compounding which will prevent swirl marks in your finished product. With Presta UCC it takes about 6 passes over an area to totally remove the scratches and end up with all but polished finish.
Remember how we want to totally remove all sand scratches in the compounding process? Well the odds of doing this on your first trying each area you compound is slim. You will always find something minor once you examine the panel from from various angles of light. As I find these areas I put a little dab of UCC on them to mark them then spot compound these spots. It happens I promise.
Once all scratches have been removed (or assuming you have a finish you just want to polish and make slick like a 3 yo p/u) switch to a foam and use a product such as Presta 1500/Polish. (This product and foam pad isn't designed to remove serious scratches as the aforementioned step is.) Presta Polish goes a LONG way so use it conservatively or roughly 5 dime sized globs will do a whole hood once a new pad has been wetted a little with product. This process may be repeated over and over and over again IF a show car finish is desired. If not desired do it once over the whole panel as I did here.
After working the initial area I polished the rest of the tailgate using the same method in the above polishing video with this result and roughness you see is factory orange peel which I wanted to keep for inspection/resale purposes:
Outside view:
Once again sorry for the warehouse motif and the noise you heard in the background was SE Freight picking up an outbound order 2 hrs earlier than anticipated but that's how we pay the bills around here.
I hope this helps you and please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay but life and work happens!
Also, these videos which recorded in 320 size look great on my Mac but look a bit large and fuzzy using an other viewer so you might need to re-size the video for better quality. I have no idea why this is so....:doh:
