Paint correction

[Tbonem3]

From everything I've read, the G9 is the hands-down best enthusiast/hobbiest tool you can buy. I've only turned mine on for a minute to observe how much quieter and gentler it is than my cheap no-name d/a. Gonna wait another month or so before I use it (on my e90).

[simon_c]

Yup I have the G9 and I think it’s great. No issues on my end with it but I don’t know what’s good or bad but for the price it’s been solid. The BOSS creams have been amazing for me.

My back hates me now though.

[Tbonem3]

No worries, makes sense now since Griot's has their own color coding. All the different pad colors makes it hard to glean advice/best proceedure from people's posts online/SM re: paint correction. Generally, yellow/orange is the foam for cutting and white is the firmest polishing pad, then green/blue, then red, then black no cut so my advice above would be for common colored pads.

Boss stuff is fantastic though, so you're all set. Are you using their G9? I just picked one up!

[simon_c]

Tbonem3 Super late reply here since I forgot about this thread but I’m using the Griot BOSS pads. White is the most aggressive per their chart: https://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-...-and-pads/amp/

[Tbonem3]

Not sure what brand pads you have but yellow is usually coarse, not for finishing.

White pads are also not usually for cutting, so that could explain why scratches are not coming out. Feel for heat in the panel after you finish. It should be be quite warm.

[simon_c]

Great advice Tbone. Pads are new although I’ve noticed my white pad is starting to get loaded up so just cleaned them all out. White + fast correcting cream seems to be the money combo for me and then I finish with the yellow pad and perfecting cream.

I’m a newb at this but have keep mostly working a 2x2 area and applying light to medium pressure and going at a slow pace. I’m probably chasing perfection a bit too much and using a light to look for all imperfections. Finding a lot of scratches that I can’t catch with a finger nail that I thought would come out but probably just going to leave them alone for now.

[Tbonem3]

The orange pad is coarser than white so there's another variable at play as to why white worked better for you. Perhaps the orange pad was too loaded up and not enough heat could be built up. Perhaps you worked too large of an area (not building up enough heat).

Heat = paint being removed. You work in small sections to build heat up. It takes quite a bit of time and effort for a DA to remove much paint with a foam pad (of any color).

You need to learn how to tell how deep a scratch is. There are scratches that will never come out. There are some scratches that can be taken out, but their impression in the base coat below will always be visible such that you think you see the scratch still.

While a DA + foam may not be able to take scratches out as well and as quickly as a forced rotation tool and wool or MF, the part that will give you the look you're after is the polishing step or last step. You could play it safe and not really take out anything that deep, but once you do the final polish, whatever scratches are still there will be almost invisible.

A car with the clear taken down almost too far might have all the scratches taken out YAY! Not so fast - You'd rather have plenty of clear coat left, only having taken out half the scratches. More clear coat = deeper appearance, more gloss not to mention leaving the opportunity for more corrections in the future . The final polish is what will make it sing. The scratches that are left will only be visible in certain light anyway.

I prefer foam over MF as the MF pads are thinner and I don't like the feel on the surface. I prefer how foam follows the body's contours better than the thinner MF pad. Even with a DA, if you hang it up on a high spot, the MF pad will burn through where it'd almost be impossible with foam. I'll only use MF pads on a flat surface like my slicktop roofs if I want to be faster. Or I'll use the MF pad in 3" flavor for more acute corrections in bad places like around door handles for example. I'll use MF on forced rotation when I want to take out sanding marks from wetsanding. Foam pad on DA will not take out sanding marks much below 2k.

The cutting foam pad I use is Lake Country's hydrotech euro foam (Cyan color). Cuts just as well as orange if not better, holds more moisture near the surface for more work time, in my experience. Finish is supposedly better (for a 1 step), but I always follow it up with a final polish anyway.

White foam pad is too aggressive for a final polish. It'd be better for a one step where you're not chasing every scratch, but want a fine finish. I would pair a light green or a blue finishing pad for the final step when you've already done a first cutting step.

The BOSS fast correcting cream is fantastic, and will never be the problem in any equation.

[simon_c]

I can reconfirm that the orange pad with the Boss correcting cream doesn't do enough. I've moved over to the white pad and fast correcting cream and am getting much better results. I haven't tried the MF pad yet since I'm not sure how much clear I have to play with. First time doing paint correction myself and it's fun but also bringing out the worst of my OCD. Can't help but try to chase perfection but know that it's a lose lose situation.

I have deeper marring that I can't seem to get out with the white pad and fast correcting cream. Maybe the microfiber pad will do the trick? Just worried that I may not have enough clearcoast left as mentioned above. Overall car is looking much better now.

[Mystic3]

Original paint.
will update after next session.

[K-Dawg]

Is that original paint?

The general rule of "thumb" is that if you can feel it with you fingernail, you won't be able to fix it.

[Mystic3]

Yeah, i know it will not be perfect, just looking to get a little improvement.
thanks for the responses.

[Tbonem3]

I wouldn't keep going necessarily. Pics are hard to see, but they may not be removable. What's the history on the paint there? Best to measure thickness, if possible. If there's clear to spare, I'd go with the fast cream on megs mf 5.5" and just make sure you're genetating some heat on the panel (not too much ofc). But even then, you may still be disappointed, esp the longer you stare at it.

[Mystic3]

Not scratches, more like pitting.
I will give the fast correction cream a shot.
Microfiber fast cutting pad or just their Microfiber pad ?

[Tbonem3]

An orange foam pad, despite being referred to as a cutting pad, is still quite weak, esp when used on a D/A, esp on our somewhat hard paint.

Feel the panel after a few passes, if it's not warm/hot, you're not cutting. You're just polishing.

You want a deeper cut, you can use a MF pad, or more speed/pressure (to a point), or better still, use forced rotation.

That said, not all scratches come out. Be careful not to keep chasing perfection.

Also, the BOSS correcting cream is great, but it's not going to cut that quickly. I use their fast correcting cream. It's fantastic.

[Stack]

Well I finally got around to doing the paint correction, used griot orange foam boss pad and boss correcting cream did some but not near the impact that I was expecting. I guess I'll have to go to a more aggressive cream and Pad updates to come

Take a picture of the scratches you want to get out


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