Sorry for such a late response and update on things with my first attempt at paint correction. I was able to finally get started on this and give this a try, words can't even begin to describe how nervous I was to do this. I've heard sooo many horror stories of burning through paint. That alone has had me kinda finding excuses to put this off one more day lol. Well this morning I woke up and put my big kid pants on and set out to try as well as learn this process. My goal today was not to do a whole car, it was to focus on the hood, try different techniques, and learn the process in general. I started this morning by doing a strip wash on the entire vehicle, followed that by visco claying the entire vehicle, and then just to be anal I strip washed the car again. With the help of my sidekick blaster I got the car completely dry and got started. I pulled up the video yet again on the paint correction process and watched it one more time to build some confidence lol. I started small with just the correcting compound and the orange foam pad, it didn't really seem to do much. I stepped up to the heavy correcting compound and blue foam, this didn't do much. I was getting a little discouraged and then the light bulb went off, this car had a generic ceramic coating applied at the dealership.
I moved to the microfiber cutting pad and the heavy correcting compound and worked slow constantly checking my work and progress to see what different sweep speeds did for me. I used speed setting 5 on the 15mm swirl killer initially and bumped up to 6. After getting into a groove with things I was starting to get it dialed in and things started progressing nicely. Once I got done with the microfiber cutting pad I moved to the blue foam and gave it another quicker pass. From there I moved to the orange foam and correcting compound and was REALLY starting to see some great results!!! Once I was satisfied with how things looked after the orange pad and correcting compound I decided to go for the gusto and use the finishing polish. The orange correcting compound and orange pad had the paint looking pretty damn good, especially considering how the paint looked before I started. After the polishing compound and white foam pad, all I can say is HOLY CRAP!!!! This hood looks amazing and I couldn't be happier with the results!!! The paint looks sooo smooth and clear and a foot deep, almost like you could stick your hand into it.
I want to thank everyone who provided tips and input for my first time at paint correcting, I'm VERY happy with the results even though it's just the hood at this point!!! Here are some before and after pics to show off the results. The only bad thing with the pics is they really don't give you a true sense of just how fugly the paint was prior.
Again, thank you all for your help, tips, and input!!!
Tony
