Recieved my new Porter Cable 7424XP....Time to tackle these swirls!!

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Fire0nic3FX

Member
I decided to not go to a professional detailer since I'm always busy and never really have the time to leave my car with them. I was suppose to go to Big A detailing, but I really don't have time at all on the weekday/part of the weekend anymore. The only real time I have is in the middle of the night lol and Sunday morning. I actually went to Andrew at Big A Detailing to schedule an appointment and let him see the FX last week, but I had to end up canceling it.

So I was a little stumbled on what to do since I'm so busy. So I eventually invested my money into a new Porter Cable 7424XP, backing plates, polishing pads, and a whole bunch of other detailing products and do it myself on my free time. Everything was $200 something. So eventually I'm going to get my money's worth out of all of this and feel good at the end of the day knowing I did it myself :D
Porter Cable and Various other things arrived yesterday:

detail3.jpg


And here are the teasers. I used a Porter Cable 7424XP with a 4" white pad and Meguiar's M205 Finishing Polish with 3-4 passes on speed 5 and 2 finishing passes on speed 3. Not bad for my first time!!. I bet if I stepped it up to an orange pad for more bite I could remove more defects.

Pretty amazing none the less:

detail1p.jpg


detail2l.jpg


This was just a test area. I have more to come within the next week or so when I have time to finishing the rest of the FX. I noticed one thing about this damn scratch shield paint. It's very very hard to correct!! The clear coat is very soft and scratches easily, but when it comes to wanting to polish it, the clear is hard as a rock!! I've seen a few others that have polished scratch shield paint have had the same problem too. It takes a real aggressive pad and polish to even make a dent in these swirls. For the rest of the FX, I'm going to have to step up the aggressivness of the pads.
 
Nice! Curious to see your progress.

Want to pull the trigger myself on a PC kit... but scared to test it on the FX haha
 
Thanks! I will post up more results within the next week or two. If your scared to test it out on your ride first. Go to a junkyard and buy a POS painted panel off a car and practice on there haha. That's what I did at least haha.

The thing about the PC is that its almost damn near impossible to ruin the paint with it. Dual action polishers are a lot safer than rotary buffers. Plus the PC is recommended for beginners :-)
 
It's scratched from letting the dealer wash it. I will no longer let them wash it lol. The past two times I've been there, I made sure they put it down as a NO for a wash.

---------- Post added at 01:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 AM ----------

Oh that and just everyday abuse from the outside.
 
it's def is a hard clear to polish but make sure you strip all wax & everything from the paint before you even try to polish it. use a good wax & grease remover or a prep solvent. some synthetic waxes are harder to remove & can really make trying to polish over them much harder too, should strip to bare finish before trying to polish it
 
I thought about doing this cause i got a few scraches on my car. Any good vids that teach you how to properly polish?
 
Fire0nic3FX said:
It's scratched from letting the dealer wash it. I will no longer let them wash it lol. The past two times I've been there, I made sure they put it down as a NO for a wash.

---------- Post added at 01:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 AM ----------

Oh that and just everyday abuse from the outside.
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Touchless or nothing, looking good man! A black car always looks the best when she's clean however black shows everything! After you use cutting compound (1) with an agressive pad, switch to a softer grey foam pad with Swirl remover (2). follow it up with a carnuba based hand polish and you should be happy with your efforts. If you skip step two it's gonna look like the black abyss of smokey waves across the sides. On black cars we go 1 more step at the body shop. We switch the pad to a blue super soft foam and use 3M Ultrafina polish (3), man that stuff turns paint to glass!
Good luck, PM me if you got any questions. :mask:

---------- Post added at 05:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 AM ----------
2010fx35 said:
I thought about doing this cause i got a few scraches on my car. Any good vids that teach you how to properly polish?
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Check on youtube, look up wet sand polish, or exterior buffing steps. If you never have done this before, three tips of advice, stay aways from body panels edges! And beginers should tape extruding parts like handles, mirrors, emblems, mouldings ect... The last thing you want is to ruin your cars finish with a buffing burn. And always stay away from any trim or moulded black plastic on your car. It's next to imposible to remove any wax from it if you've embedded it in.:mask:
 
I'm in a similar situation. Never had time to get to a godo detailer since I use my car pretty much everyday. A buddy of mine details high end cars and offered to do mine for nothing, but I wanted the satisfaction of doing it myself. Bought a Porter cable, and I love the results. Posted a few before and after pictures of facebook, and now people are messaging me asking for a price. My little project has turned into a little business.


Fire0nic3FX - You should try it too. Will pay for your equipment in half the time. Even if you don't compound, you can charge for wash/wax. Done 4 cars already with no complaints.

Cheers!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150172224334531&set=a.19240909530.28197.501319530&type=1&theater
 
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cheechitup88 said:
I'm in a similar situation. Never had time to get to a godo detailer since I use my car pretty much everyday. A buddy of mine details high end cars and offered to do mine for nothing, but I wanted the satisfaction of doing it myself. Bought a Porter cable, and I love the results. Posted a few before and after pictures of facebook, and now people are messaging me asking for a price. My little project has turned into a little business.


Fire0nic3FX - You should try it too. Will pay for your equipment in half the time. Even if you don't compound, you can charge for wash/wax. Done 4 cars already with no complaints.

Cheers!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...=a.19240909530.28197.501319530&type=1&theater
Click to expand...


I tried looking at the pictures, but I can't see them. It says content not found lol. Can you post the pictures up to let me see your results on your FX?


@ Turbocad, I used a dedicated car wash that strips old wax and sealant off of car clear coats. I then followed it up with a clay bar treatment to remove contaminants and anything else on the clear. The damn scratch shield clear coats are hard as a rock!!! But they scratch so easy. It makes no sense:confused:
 
Welcome to the Porter Cable club!!!

I got a sample pack of CCS pads, white, red, orange & yellow. To be straight, I really didn't notice that much of a difference between the pads in terms of cutting power. It's all about the polish used.

I also decided to learn on my 1995 POS and found it pretty easy to remove swirls the first time you turn on the machine. Deeper cutting has been a real challenge for me. I have no real feel for how deep is, "too deep" and to complicate things more, each paint type is different. The panel you learned on is different than the FX, same as my 95 learning car is different than my 1st gen FX.

Definitely keep posting up the particular product & pads you are using along with a little review on what you though it did well and what it did not do well. Sweet thread!
 
PM sent!

@Jumbo, I will definately post up more results! I noticed the same thing too! When working on the practice panel I got from a junkyard it was easier to remove the swirls on that. When I started working on the FX, polishing it was extremely difficult!

---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 PM ----------

I found a write up a guy did on polishing scratch shield paint on an Infiniti G37 sedan.

Interesting read:

https://www.autopia.org/forum/pro-d...ld-paint-complete-detail-unique-car-care.html


I'm having the same exact problems he was having. A heavy cutting polish and pad fixes that though.:tup:
 
Fire0nic3FX said:
PM sent!

@Jumbo, I will definately post up more results! I noticed the same thing too! When working on the practice panel I got from a junkyard it was easier to remove the swirls on that. When I started working on the FX, polishing it was extremely difficult!

---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 PM ----------

I found a write up a guy did on polishing scratch shield paint on an Infiniti G37 sedan.

Interesting read:

https://www.autopia.org/forum/pro-d...ld-paint-complete-detail-unique-car-care.html


I'm having the same exact problems he was having. A heavy cutting polish and pad fixes that though.:tup:
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Wow. That was a good read and lots of photos. It would be great to see some before and after pictures of your ride since I also want to get a 7424XP and have no experience using a polisher.
 
StuLax18 said:
Do you know how much the PC was by itself? I found it for $120, which seemed good.
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Between $120-$130 is a good price. I've seen them go up to $245 in Home Depot which is crazy!


If your interested, you should buy a starter kit. It comes with all the pads, backing plates, weight balance, etc etc you need to start polishing while saving almost $40 at the same time instead of buying them separately.

You can find it here:

PorteR Cable 7424XP Starter Kit
 
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