Help, getting very frustrated!

[Zman12]

I am working on my black 2010 camaro. I have been polishing for about 6 hours already and still not happy with a small sample area.

 

I first did one fender all the way through that was about

 

4 passes sshr

2 passes shr

2 passes fmp

This was all on 4" focus pad mainly on pc. I did try drill for a little while to work on one scratch.

I still wasn't perfectly happy with the fender, but just thought maybe that was the best I could get, I know it's black.

 

So I moved to the hood and front bumber, in some places I have went 4 or more passes with SSHR with big pad on PC. I still see long scratches that I just can't seem to get out I understand I will have small swirls when using the sshr but these are still somewhat big.

 

So I guess my question is when do I give up? At this rate just polishing is going to take me 40 plus hours.

How many passes would be considered normal for SSHR?

Am I expecting to much for black. I really was hoping for perfection.

 

Do I need to try and go pack to the 4" pad?

 

I have tried speed 5 and 6 doesn't seem to matter :help:

 

I didn't really think my car was this bad? It only has 6k on it. It's not like it leads a hard life.

[Zman12]

Thanks for the encouragement! Everyday I curse o why did I have to find a black car with a whipple dirt cheap. I would have taken green, yellow, red, silver! After my 98 black cobra I swore never black again, I can't believe I forgot how bad it truly is.

 

It will look good when I am done but it won't be perfect:(

[lawson4450]

Do yourself a favor if you can video what your doing and post it up then we can see exactly how your technique and also maybe some pics of what your going over that would be very helpful for us to help you.

[Zman12]

In Disney world for the next 10 days without camaro. I will try and get some pics when I get back.

[Zman12]

Well I finally finshed last week. It is not perfect and I am really second guessing my purchase of the PC, thinking I should have went flex. I have also received a few messages telling me I will need something more aggressive than SSHR to deal with some of this.

 

Maybe I can send PC back and purchase a flex since I am not satisfied. I just dont know what to do. But It looks alot better, most everything turned out pretty good except hood, and bumpers.

 

Now one thing about the hood is that when they previous owner added the green accents they were painted and the hood was recleared so I am thinking maybe the hood has a much harder clear coat and that is some of the problem. Also do I need to worry that the clear could be thinner or most generally it is thicker.

[Chewy]

Well I finally finshed last week. It is not perfect and I am really second guessing my purchase of the PC, thinking I should have went flex. I have also received a few messages telling me I will need something more aggressive than SSHR to deal with some of this.

 

Maybe I can send PC back and purchase a flex since I am not satisfied. I just dont know what to do. But It looks alot better, most everything turned out pretty good except hood, and bumpers.

 

Now one thing about the hood is that when they previous owner added the green accents they were painted and the hood was recleared so I am thinking maybe the hood has a much harder clear coat and that is some of the problem. Also do I need to worry that the clear could be thinner or most generally it is thicker.

 

Looks good man! Black is the DEVIL!!! lol

 

The Flex most definitely makes the job faster, but the outcomes are the same.

 

Chris

[Odds and Ends]

Looks good ZMan! Even if you move up to a Flex, I'd hang on to the PC. Now that you've got the car baselined so to speak, you shouldn't have to go to this length again so long as you keep it maintained properly. With black, always do two bucket washes and use good, high quality towels such as the Single Soft and Double Soft.

 

To answer your other question about the hood being re-cleared after the paint accents, it's entirely possible that a harder clear may have been used, there's really no way to tell unless you know what they did.

 

Also, with regard to your original post, that's an insane amount of polishing to still not get rid of scratches and swirls. My guess would be that some of the defects you are trying to remove are in the original paint which is now UNDER the new coat of clear and if that's the case, you're pretty mush hosed unless you wet sand to level everything out and then clear again. I see this a lot with clear bra applications - people put 3M clear bra on a new car to protect the paint but never bother to do a paint correction process prior so they put clear bra over scratches and swirls and then wonder why their clear bra is scratched.

 

- Darryl

[Mels SS]

Awesome looking car great job. Maybe you will need to wet sand the hood to get it perfect.

[Zman12]

Looks good ZMan! Even if you move up to a Flex, I'd hang on to the PC. Now that you've got the car baselined so to speak, you shouldn't have to go to this length again so long as you keep it maintained properly. With black, always do two bucket washes and use good, high quality towels such as the Single Soft and Double Soft.

 

To answer your other question about the hood being re-cleared after the paint accents, it's entirely possible that a harder clear may have been used, there's really no way to tell unless you know what they did.

 

Also, with regard to your original post, that's an insane amount of polishing to still not get rid of scratches and swirls. My guess would be that some of the defects you are trying to remove are in the original paint which is now UNDER the new coat of clear and if that's the case, you're pretty mush hosed unless you wet sand to level everything out and then clear again. I see this a lot with clear bra applications - people put 3M clear bra on a new car to protect the paint but never bother to do a paint correction process prior so they put clear bra over scratches and swirls and then wonder why their clear bra is scratched.

 

- Darryl

Wow had not even thought that these could be under the clear. I have seen pics of what was done. Here is a link to the pics of what was done to my car. I may try and call them and see if they can tell me anymore.

 

Flickriver: Photoset 'Black 2010 Camaro Gets Some Synergy Green Color ' by CCCSTL

[Guest Eric@Adams]

That is a ton of passes... How much pressure were you applying when working the polish? How much product were you using? And finally how slow were you moving the polisher? Also, could you post some pictures of the effected areas you were working on?

[HPR]

lt's still a nice looking ride. And under the hood...that's a bad boy!!