One for the shiny car brigade

Maybe a mop and g3 comppounds coul dbe the way to go. My sister had it done or her manky corsa and it looked great! She had it done at a bodyshop they did the whole car for £200 and had it back to her in a day and a half.

Or could be an oppotunity to by a mop for future use and do it yourself ?

T-Cut and a couple of coats of wax.

Buying a mop is tempting - 'No jobs worth doing unless it requires a new tool' and all that.

Had a quick look - polishers seem to range from £10 at Maplins to ridiculous, separate mops from £5 to ridiculous (I see a theme developing)

Are the cheap ones worth it or do they die after a few minutes? What am I looking for in a mop? Speed, power, quiet, consumable fittings/size?

Cheers

Contact one of the local colleges that hopefully runs car maintenance modules. Often they are on the lookout for cars to use as a final end module trade test vehicles. Whatever action you agree to, they (from past experience) do an A1 job with a long lasting finish. Often free or token payment for some materials :-)

Obviously the colleges have just started back so not the ideal time, but then again with the onset of winter and dark nights / mornings neither is it perhaps the ideal time to start the project?

Gio

Check out

and the forums there, you should find what you're looking for.

hth

Mike P

perhaps might give an idea. It's red and Japanese and it's looking ok .

Mike P

I have a Meguiars G220 Random Orbital machine polisher. It was £180, pads are about £6 each :-) When compared to a £10 polisher, it's worth every penny if you want a proper good result, and don't want to be there for a month. Of course, if you're just doing it once, then you could pay someone for less, but not much less if they go the whole hog (arches, under the bonnet, interior, paint correction for swirls etc etc). If you buy a cheapo one, and it's a rotary, it's not impossible you'll damage your paint. With a good rotary, it's very doable, although most cheap ones won't have the power to correct the paint, or damage it. If you happen to get a powerful cheap one then it's doable. With an RO moving about 1inch per second when correcting is right - I've never used a rotary, as ROs work as well for amateurs, you know, perfect mirror paint correction, but takes longer than a pro using a rotary. I reckon I'd be up to using a good rotary, but I wouldn't wanna try on my car, just in case ;-)

Rotarys just go in one circle you see, and so that bit gets hot quickly and you can over polish through to primer or worse. Random Orbitals do as they sound, the pad isn't attached central so it spins and then moves round the polisher as well, so you get a slightly different orbit each time, so you're far less likely to 'over cut' an area - but you can still get a perfect result, just takes a little longer for being a lot safer for an amateur.

For your Mrs car Paul, well I reckon G3 is too abhrasive, I think AutoGlym SRP (Super Resin Polish), a microfibre, and a load of elbow grease is capable of getting good pink to redness. Your arm will be burning so bad by the end, but it'll only cost a few quid! Or get a cheapo one, get some SRP and try on a panel out of site! You might find with a cheapo polisher you have to go on full whack and press quite hard to get a result, but you don't wanna move slowly if you're doing that, just in case. Quick passes and just experiment to see how well it works, how fast you have to move and how hard you have to press. Maybe worth getting, if you can, a red panel from a scrappers that's faded...? Although, it'd need to be a Mazda panel from around the same year. Seriously, as different manufacturers use different hardnesses of paint, which obviously changes a lot. Honda for example use very soft paint, so are quite easy to correct. VW on the other hard, quite hard paint, takes more time to correct - SEAT too.

Really, for all this effort, maybe worth just finding a local place and paying a man :-) But actually, getting it machine polished for £100 seems unlikely. Place in York called Finest Car Detailing charge £55 an hour for machine polishing paint correction. Doesn't sound too bad, until you realise, it takes 5 to 7 hours :-) They seem like standard kinda fees from decent places. I'm sure there are loads of places aroung where you are though, must be some cheaper ones about. But if they're gonna do a crap job, and it's pink next month, what's the point?

I'd give it a shot at manually doing it, if you're really suffering a huge amount of failing, then ring around some places, get some terrifying quotes, and then buy her some tights :-)

I had good results on a car by T-cutting every single sodding panel then waxing it with one of those Turtle Wax coloured waxes. I also used a "chip stick" to fill the numerous scratches that erindoors diamond ring had made on the pain around the driver's door handle.

Go to motor factors or automotive paint supplier and buy a yellow bottle of G3. (its a meduim fine compound) and on a light coloutr all yeu really need. If you want the ultimate shine or are polishing a dark colour then use a bottle of G10 afterwards. Its ultra fine... Its made by Farecla

Same as sort of thing as Tcut exept its about 3 times as easy to do without getting a smeary panel that needs waxing to cover it up and leaves the paint so smooth it hardly needs waxing. But wax it anyway.

It is designed for power polishing mainly though and if I had a whole car to do I would but a new tool...

While you are at it.

>

And if you are really serious... You dont need wax after this stuff... Leaves a mirror glass like finish that feels freshly waxed without wax... I use it if I ever see and swirl marks in the sun.

I have a rotary. It was from Netto IIRC, and works fine. I use Farecla Mops and Farecla polishes. However, unless you intend to polish up a fair few SOCs, it's not worth the bother IMO. You'll spend £50 on a rotary polisher, a mop or two and some polish quite easily. And there is some skill involved. It's not super easy to get down to primer, contrary to what most will tell you, but you can manage it if you're thick. It is however, difficult to polish well, so as to work the polish at the right rate to leave a good finish rather than a load of swirls and polish stuck to everything in a 10 yard radius.

Once that process has really got a hold nothing you can do will reverse it. A good compound and polish will help - but you'll never get the panels to match again. The only real answer is new paint.

My local Halfords sells it.

All of those problems are due to the fact it's a polisher from Netto I should think. And with that, I bet you can't get down to primer...

Is it the large angle-grinder type with a rotary speed control on the side ? If it is, how hot does yours get after long use ? I use mine for polishing aluminium but it gets too hot to touch after a while. I reckon when it's running at slower speeds there's not enough airflow to cool it properly.

Still works mind :)

If it's the same Netto special I have then it's not a toy, imagine a decent angle-grinder with speed control :)

Then I stand corrected :-) Our Meguiars one does the job so beautifully, and quickly, though, and without any effort or risk. I stand by it and it's lunacy of a price tag, although we did split it 3 ways which took the sting and guilt totally away :-)

Yours sounds a bit hardcore to be honest hehe! What rpm does it go to? Ours doesn't get 'hot' at all, nicely warm (it's wonderful on cold days) and it somehow doesn't really vibrate, despite going 6900opm's (orbits - dunno why they don't just say rpm heh, same thing..), and all at 55db :-)

Could be a crude speed controller - these very much reduce the efficiency so the heat goes up.