A thought just struck me after I bought my last 500ml bottle of T-Cut for the princely sum of 10 quid and that is, has anyone tried generic kitchen scouring cream as a substitute? It too has a mild cutting action and I'm guessing Aldi or Lidl do their own generic stuff for a small fraction of the price of T-Cut. I'll try it myself if no one knows and report back on my findings. 50 quid for five litres is taking the piss a bit.
T-cut is designed for paintwork. Scouring cream is designed for steel or ceramic surfaces. At a guess it?s probably an order of magnitude more abrasive.
Please do try it though and post before and after photos. ;-)
Tim
Brasso works as well as T-Cut. Or the lidl/Aldi equivalent. Anything made for the motorist is priced to say it must be good.
But IMHO the best cutting compound is Farcla.
That must be even more expensive, though!
IIRC, Car Mechanics magazine did a test on several of these cutting polishes only very recently. I don't recall that one being on the list - unless it's one they now call G3 (or similar) for some reason. If so, it's rather more abrasive than T-Cut IMO. In theory, if you had sufficient time and lived long enough to get the perfect finish, you'd re-do the car over and over again with progressively finer polishes before a final waxing. BICBA.
I've got an old Land Rover I'll try it on first just for safety's sake...
The G number gives the coarseness of it. But all grades may be difficult to find.
Have you tried using a clay bar before ordinary polish? That removes the traffic film etc in I think a more gentle way than T-Cut. In other words, it usually just shows the brown sort of colour of traffic film on the cloth, rather than the paint colour. I'm quite a convert after trying it - thinking originally it was just some US fad.
Right, Farecla with an acute accent over the 'e' is what I thought you meant but couldn't be sure. I used to use this stuff back in the day (40 years ago). It got the job done quicker than TC, but you had to be careful with it; not too much pressure!
Traffic film isn't an issue where I am, fortunately. But surface layer oxidation is. I'm going to give the scouring cream a try just out of curiosity. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
If the paint really has oxidised, any cutting back is likely only a short term fix.
Can't say I've ever had that issue myself. BTW, it was the October issue of CM in which 9 cutting compounds were compared. Meguiar's ME came out as the best buy with 5/5 ticks, TC came out with 3/5, Quixx scratch removal came out also very highly (5/5). Farecle came out with only 2/5 for some reason (seems a tad unfair) just ahead of Turtle Wax's abysmal offering, so looks like the newer makes are currently performing better than the old established names.
I've had more than one old car where the paint had gone dull. Compound and polish did work - but didn't last. Might be different with modern paints, though.
Interesting. Not read CM for ages, though.
Our red Sierra Estate went pink over it's years and whilst a good going over with a 'Colour Restorer' type cutting paste helped, as you say it didn't last long.
Cheers, T i m
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