Paint Correction and Polishing on a Black FX

[Tilley]

Just like the title says, I am correcting the paint and getting rid of all those swirls in my clear coat! The original owner of this thing definitely didn't do my any favors by the way he/she took care of this thing. Oh well.... This is not a one day project so I will be updating this as I go along.

First up, the hood; I spent about 5 hours and still couldn't get every little scratch out. Some of them will require wet-sanding, but it still looks 100x better.

Steps:
1. Washed the hood with dish soap to strip the wax.
2. Claybar. ...and claybar some more!
3. Cut- using a Porter Cable 7424XP with a 5.5" orange hex-logic pad and Meguiar's Professional M105 cutting compound. (Did about 6 totals passes in a cross-stitch pattern)
4. Polish- using a 5.5" white hex-logic pad and Meguiar's Professional M205 polishing compound. (Did about another 6 total passes in the same pattern.
5. Wax- using a 5.5" black hex-logic pad with Chemical Guy's Deep Reflections XP


Before:



After:



I'll post up some better pics in the sun tomorrow. But for now, all I've got are these taken in the garage

I'm planning on doing the front bumper this weekend, so I'll be updating soon...

 

[Dracula]

wow! nice!

 

[santiagodraco]

Good luck Tilley! Should be a fun project. I've been bitten by the detailing bug and while it's a lot of work it's also very satisfying to see the results of that work "reflected" in the car (pun intended).

 

[RIPnFX]

Wow that's a huge diff man, good job looks real shiny

 

[la_fx35]

:good: Excellent job. The shoots from your garage shown your paint was flawless already, what's there to correct anyway.... j/k. :smile (2):
I have the same polisher, pads and polishing chemical. Forgot what kind wax I have. Gotta play with them this spring!

 

[angryfx]

Holy crap that looks good

 

[soonster]

nice work, I need to set myself a reminder to polish my ride this coming Spring.

 

[Ed@TunerStore]

Great job:good:

 

[FXradar]

oooww ..that's gonna look shiny on a black car.

I would only use wet sanding for deep scratches.
For the few spots left try going up to a yellow hex-logic pad. It should be the most abrasive pad.

 

[Tilley]

Thanks guys! It is definitely a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to the finished results. I'm going to attempt to do my wheels as well... that should be a huge PITA lol
@FXradar- I will give that yellow hex-logic pad a try for those scratches. Thanks for the info!

 

[bmakkanic]

Hey, Tilley-

I just moved to Tucson from Virginia. I have the same exact problem. Teach me your ways!! My black paint is a piece of sh*t.

 

[Tilley]

^What side of Tucson do you live on?

 

[blackfx]

Did you use a little spray detailer to help lube the pad when you were polishing?

 

[Tilley]

^Yes I did. I would do 3 passes, and then use detail spray and a waffle weave towel to clean in off. Then I would repeat as necessary. FYI to anyone that's going to do this- DO NOT use detail spray that has wax in it while doing this!

*Edit* I read your post wrong lol After I primed the pad, I would spray the pad with detail spray, and then again after every break between passes. This also makes the polish last a lot longer!

 

[Tilley]

Ok, I lied.... too busy and hungover to get any work done this past weekend lol I'll update with more progress pics this weekend though!

 

[jdTrader]

Great post, thanks.

 

[Tilley]

Finally had some time to get some more work done. Got the passenger side front quarter panel and front door done. I couldn't get the scratches/swirls to show up in pics... but here is the "after" shots. (The swirls were just as bad as the ones on the hood that I posted above)

 

[ShadowFox]

Any holograms with this process? I know Infiniti paint is famous for being soft and tough to work with. Back with my G35 I had Todd from detailed image do a job on my car and it came out BEAUTIFUL, he did spend about 5 hours on it though and was about 500 bucks. I have a porter cable orb and some pads, white, black, and blue. Looking to buy some stuff soon to detail my new baby and give some TLC to my EX35 as well. I do hate webbing but holograms drive me crazy! Your paint looks great, really nice deep black finish you got there.

 

[Juiceup]

Megan's spray wax works great to remove swirl marks


Sent from my iPhone

 

[santiagodraco]

Megan's spray wax works great to hide swirl marks


Sent from my iPhone

Corrected :smile (2):