swirl marks question
 

I am trying to piece this together in my mind. The finish on my 83 cab looked great for a 25 yo car. The rear deck had been replaced at one point with a non-tail unit. The paint match looked pretty good though.

So a few weeks ago, I finally decided to REALLY clean the car up and I clay-barred the paint. Everything turned out great... except the rear decklid. Now, it looked somewhat dull and I could see bad swirl marks... looked to be in the clear coat - I think;)

I finally got the gumption to go ahead and buy a better buffer and went to work on it with Meguiar's Swirl Mark 2.0... looks a LOT better. I have not put polish or wax on yet. And that got me to wondering. Could the reason that I never noticed how crappy this looked be that wax and helped mask it, and the clay bar removed the wax? The swirl marks were so bad I was really tempted to do a wet sand with 2000 first.

I am posting this in Paint and Body as well.

Thanks

Could be a glazing compound was used by you or a detailer. These temporarily fill swirl marks. Paint looks swell until the next car wash. Better to remove them with Meguiars or 3M product. Be careful you have enough paint thickness before you start. Clear coat?

Sherwood

yes on the clear coat.

The Meguiar's swirl mark 2.0 seems to be helping a lot. I wrestled with whether or not to go to the I think they call it Machine Cut light or something like that. It is the next step up in abrasiveness from the swirl mark 2.0 stuff. I decided to go with the lessor cut. Anyone use the other? I have never tried it before. Is it any harder to work with than the Swirl Mark 2.0?

Thanks

yup...wax can temporarily hide swirl marks.

I would do all the steps and start with a 2k wetsand then 3 stage 3M buff and finish with a hand glaze. If your going to spend the time buffing its worth it to wetsand IMO. I always start with a wool pad then as I move to a finer cut and machine glaze I use foam pads. A good paint supply shop will give you good advise on what products to buy.

I went through the exact same process and ultimately used the 2k (or was it 3k) sandpaper and then the 4 different formulas of Maguiars buffing compunds. It was a black car so it was ultra sensitive to getting it right. It took forever becuase I tried to get away with the least abrasive compound and when I realized that would not work I had to start over. It was a long process in my case but it came out great. Meguiars web site has some good videos to walk you through the process and they point out the potential issues. You can also purchase all the products you need from their web site - many of which I could not find at my local auto parts store.

Good luck!

To piggyback on my earlier post, I'd do some research and find out the typical film thickness of clear coat on your MY 911 and use that as a guide to how aggressive the treatment. You can purchase an inexpensive mil gauge to establish a reference point for a similar area of your car. For example, if the clear coat is typically 3 mils thick and you're treating the hood, measure the roof and deck lid to arrive at an average total film thickness, then measure the trunk lid coating thickness to see what's left, then try not to remove more than 3 mils of clear coat.

Once past the clear coat layer via sanding, compound, cleaner, etc., the paint tone changes. Then you'll have a nice, smooth and shiny but multi-tone paint job.

Sherwood

I would also try www.autopia.org

I have single stage paint, GP white and my Porter Cable with agessive pads and polish didn't even touch the paint!! Just took off the oxidation and gave nice reflection but zero correction.
The paint is awesome for a 21 year old car but never had a good correction done.

Wet sanding is nice, to be safe try 3000 grit Meguires sanding block soaked in water.
The thing with wet sanding is you take off just the peaks of the paint instead of rounding it off with a wool pad and taking off a lot of paint. You get way nicer reflection.

I am about to order a Makita rotary with some Menzerna polishes from Germany and some Lake country or ccs pads.

Hopefully this will do the trick!

Thanks guys. I think I am going to finish up with what I have at the moment (#7 baby on the way any day) and then maybe on my off time for baby, I can get a little more involved with it. Thanks for the tips. Have not looked at Meguiar's site in a while. i will check out the videos.