Super newbie with question about holograms.

[The Guz]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

I have to disagree with you on the MT300 not being for a newbie. It's a great tool for a newbie.

I had my brothers girlfriend use the MT300 on her car to give her an idea of how it works and what the various products. Basically a test spot. She has never used any kind of DA tool. She picked up using the machine rather quickly. She actually preferred it over the PC 7424XP that I also have because of the lighter weight of the MT300 and the comfort of the MT300.

One thing to note is that the PC 7424XP is completely transformed with the new thin foam discs. It transfers the tools power better.


I would definitely pick up M205 over UP. It's much more versatile and is still user friendly. Compound wise I would stick with something user friendly in ultimate compound.

[BillE]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

I have to disagree with you on the MT300 not being for a newbie. It's a great tool for a newbie.

I had my brothers girlfriend use the MT300 on her car to give her an idea of how it works and what the various products. Basically a test spot. She has never used any kind of DA tool. She picked up using the machine rather quickly. She actually preferred it over the PC 7424XP that I also have because of the lighter weight of the MT300 and the comfort of the MT300.

One thing to note is that the PC 7424XP is completely transformed with the new thin foam discs. It transfers the tools power better.


I would definitely pick up M205 over UP. It's much more versatile and is still user friendly. Compound wise I would stick with something user friendly in ultimate compound.

Ain't the truth! It's like a whole new machine.

Bill

[Top Gear]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

^^ Better still with DAMF I may never use foam again.

[Bobp823]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

This is all great info.Seriously appreciated.

[The Guz]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

^^ Better still with DAMF I may never use foam again.

Not by much.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

Lots of great info in this thread but also some things that are a bit..... um..... debatable.


Let's look first at factory OEM paint versus body shop paint. From a chemistry standpoint they are night and day different. OEM paints are applied to the body of the car well before assembly actually begins, and they are baked in ovens generally in excess of 300F for extended periods of time. This baking does more than merely force the solvents out of the paint - it actually causes the crosslinking and curing to happen. The chemisty of this paint literally demands that it be baked at high temperature for a fairly long period of time for it to cure. Body shop (ie aftermarket) paint does not need this high heat. In fact, not only does it not need it, but it wouldn't like it. And no body shop on the planet could afford the cost of infrastructure or energy needed for such a facility. Not to mention that a fully assembled car, full of plastic, vinyl, leather, wiring harnesses, rubber, etc could never withstand the harshness of an OEM paint department oven. When a body shop says they "baked" the panel or car all they did was put it into a hot room ("hot" as in the Mojave Desert in August, not the oven in your kitchen) to help speed up the initial out gassing process and get the paint to a point where you won't put a fingerprint in it if you touch it.

As far as hardness goes, OEM paints are all over the map here, even within the same brand. BMW Jet Black paint has a reputation for being stupidly soft, delicate, scratch sensitive and haze prone. I've personally worked on BMW Jet Black that fit that description perfectly. But I've also encountered BMW Jet Black that was, and remains to this day, the single hardest paint I've ever encountered in my life. Like, mind bogglingly, you've gotta be freakin' kidding me hard. How is that possible? BMW builds cars in more than one country, uses more than one paint supplier, and will even change paint suppliers over the life of a specific model. Heck, if they have a problem with their primary paint vendor on Monday, they'll swap to their secondary vendor until the primary resolves the problem. That means you can have two identical cars produced on the same assembly line during the same week, and they'll have very different paint on them. And that's not just BMW, that's everyone. Now look at body shops and you've got an almost endless string of variables. And not just from their paint suppliers, but how they mix the paint. Remember, they need to mix paint not only to match color, but to match the paint manufacturers mix ratio of hardeners and other ingredients. And if the body shop misses that mixing ratio by a little bit it can have a big impact on how long it takes the paint to cure, how hard it ends up being, etc. What's even more fun is that different countries have different regulations governing the use of chemicals, paint included, so aftermarket paint used in the US is different than that used in Europe, which is different than that used in Asia, which is different than that used in most of Latin America. Remember, NONE of these are even close to what's used by the OEMs from a purely chemistry standpoint. Then there's the variable of how heavy they lay down the paint, where there environmental extremes during the time they painted a specific car (super high or low humidity or temperature, etc) and as you can see, we're easily wandering blind all over a map with no real coordinates on it!!!

So, here's what we're up against. You've got a vehicle that was at least partially repainted and there are defects in the paint. That these defects are holograms is almost beside the point. They are below surface defects, plain and simple. Regardless how bad they look, they may actually be quite shallow, but they could be quite deep, too. Holograms can indeed be very deep, but they don't have to be, so we can't just say "hey, I've got holograms so what's the best liquid and pad to get rid of them?" because of that huge variable described above - the paint. Great, now what?

Removal of any below surface defect by hand is possible, but it's usually a ton of work on modern, catalyzed clear coats. As a general rule, these modern clears tend to be quite a bit harder (ie, more resistant to the polishing process) than good ol' single stage lacquers from the 1960s and earlier. A good DA polisher like our MT300 is a lifesaver in these situations. They get the job done faster, more uniformly, and with less aggravation and pain than doing it all by hand. Trying to correct defects by hand, especially on really dark colored paint, has it's own unique challenges. And the softer the paint, the greater the risk of a whole new kind of defect; cheetah spots.


The damage seen in the image above comes from improper use of a foam applicator pad, by hand. The spots are pressure points created by fingertips grinding into the clear coat. You can't do that with a DA.

There has been mention of a test spot in the discussions above, and that is the single greatest bit of advice given thus far in this discussion. Why? Because nobody here as the slightest clue just how the paint in question is going to respond to any input - hand, DA, or otherwise. Anything anyone says about the hardness or softness of any paint is completely anecdotal. TopGear talks about how crazy hard the paint is on his Genesis Coupe, and we have no reason at all to doubt him. But that's on his particular car. We've worked on others that were a total breeze to work on. We constantly hear about how crazy hard Audi paint is, but even when presented with a new black Audi TT just loaded with holograms, we found that a very quick pass with Ultimate Compound on a yellow foam pad with a DA (in this particular case, our old 7" pads with the G110v2) totally removed the defects. This looks pretty horrible, doesn't it?


But here's a 50/50 of the same area after a single pass with our old pads, old tool and Ultimate Compound.


Remember, the Interwebs will tell you all day long that Audi paint is crazy hard. This one sure as heck wasn't. And if we could get this level of correction in one step with such a mild process, why in the world would we reach for the big guns on this car?

So, do a test spot first. Do it right there in the middle of the panel, even if that's the hood. You want to perform a process on the panel and gauge your progress to an area of the paint immediately adjacent to your test spot that exhibits the exact same sort of issues you're trying to resolve. Be really methodical here or it tells you nothing. If using a DA buffer then cover an area no larger than 2' x 2' and use slow overlapping passes going side to side, then up and down, then repeat both directions. Wipe off the residue and compare the area you just worked on with that adjacent area you haven't touched yet. Does it look different? It doesn't have to be flawless at this point. On softer paint we often trade out an initial mess of swirls, scratches, water spots, etchings etc for a nice uniform but light haze. That's fine as we now have a very light defect that will clean up easily with a finishing polish and softer pad.

What pad/liquid combo do you use for that initial test spot? That sort of depends on how nasty the defects look and what you're ultimate goal is. Ultimate Compound on a foam polishing pad is a great starting point; you can use a moderate speed on the tool like 4800 OPM and use just moderate pressure to start, and bump that up if need be. For example, if you've got moderate to heavy swirls and a test spot as described above with UC on a yellow pad at 4800 OPM removes 80% of the defects, that's great news. You've got a bunch of power in reserve without changing pad or liquid. Bump the tool speed up a bit, increase your pressure, slow down your passes, shrink the work area a bit, or do some combination of those and you'll see a noticeable gain in defect removal without changing liquid or pad. If, on the other hand, your initial pass gives just a very small amount of defect removal, you may want to look into a more aggressive liquid and/or pad. You might even want to consider the DA Microfiber Correction System. But give that UC and yellow pad a shot first. In dozens and dozens of Saturday Classes here we've seen that combo correct all kinds of defects on a huge variety of paints. And you just don't know how the paint on a given car is going to respond until you do something to it. But let that initial something be very controlled, very repeatable, and start a bit easy. The good news is, the vast majority of paints can be corrected with essentially the same liquid/pad combo, just with small alterations to various aspects of technique:

tool speed
arm speed
pressure applied
size of work area

[davey g-force]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

^^ Great post!

[BillE]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

Well stated Mike!

Bill

[Bobp823]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

So what wod be the beat method and product to use to clean it before I do this.Thanks!Lots of great Info.

[davey g-force]

Re: Super newbie with question about holograms.

Well you'd want to wash it first - do a search for the two bucket method or 2BM.
Then you would clay the surfaces (glass included if you like).
Then you're ready for your first test spot!