Paint Correction Question

So today I got all dings out (hell of a deal) on my 05 black a4 and started prepping for paint correction did a little bit tonight. This is my first time doing legit paint correction and I have a couple questions. Here's how I started:

Wheels with Sonax (This stuff is crazy, first time using it)
Tires with Zep Citrus 3:1
Wash with Megs Hyper Wash plus some Zep Citrus to strip LSP
Iron Cut (This stuff is the coolest stuff in the world)
Clay with Uber Blue and Megs Last Touch 3:1
Taped Off

Ok so I started compounding tonight with M105 and Uber Green with Griots DA 6'' Pads on Speed 5, how do I know when I've compounded enough?
I'm planning on using M205 and PO85RD and then Powerlock. Should I be polishing multiple times with just the M105 for severely swirled paint or will the other steps take care of this?

Also, I realized now I definitely need a 3" backing pad. I'm using the Griots DA with 6 Inch Pads. Any place locally I can pick that up or do I need to order it? I have the 4 inch pads.

Also do also these steps look right?

Thanks guys,
Alex

 

First of all....Phil carries a 3" backing plate (here).

Generally speaking swirl marks are not as deep as other scratches and Random Deep Scratches (RIDs). The compounding step is essentially removing anything that is deep in the clear like RIDs and straight line scratches.

A medium polish will remove the swirl marks.

And a finishing polish will remove haze.

 

It should also be added that a green pad is not a particularly strong pad. For compounding you will need at least orange or yellow pad.

An even better option than that....is the Meguiar's DA Microfiber pads for their rotary like power for DA machines.

 

I was gonna buy them from Phil if like I couldn't pick up a pad at like homedepot or something. Could I pick up the backing plate at home depot or a store like that? How do I know what I am able to compound out? is there a general rule on that?

Thanks for the help Chaseme

 

I haven't seen 3 inch backing plates at Home Depot.

 

^lol.....

 

lol I thought maybe for DA sanders or something like that. I just ordered one off your site thanks phil. I wish I thought about this before I got started haha. Btw Phil your site and write ups are sweet. Really great for learning. I just ordered some stuff off you guys a couple days ago (iron cut, sonax, prima nero, clay) and all of the products are just awesome. Thanks a lot

 

You might find the backing plates you need at an auto body and paint store. Maybe. They might just have Rotary plates too, best to find a sherwin williams auto paint store and call them.

If not, you will always find exactly what you need here at Phil's awesome website store.

I did a black A4 and a red A4 awhile back, the paint was pretty hard, but it was not a match for my Rotary.

Can you post up some pics of the paint? It will help us advise you more accurately the first time.

If its all swirled, scratched, etc, up, you definitely need a more agressive foam pad, or as advised, the meguiars microfiber pads and their cutting polish D300 I believe.

Meguiars 105 is not exactly user-friendly; you need to keep it damp and get past its initial stage of wanting to dry out quickly and dust on you. It will get better with a little more work time and start to finish down, and thats when you need to be watching carefully, and perhaps stop, wipe it off and see how it looks. If you removed the defects in the paint to your satisfaction, then move to the next section and repeat until you are done with that panel.

You can keep going or start polishing down that corrected panel with the next stage foam pad and your Meguiars 205, your green pad or perhaps a white pad which has a little less cut than the green.
Meguiars 205 is going to play so much nicer than the 105, you will be amazed. Polish it down, check it, when it looks even more clear than the first polish step, you go on, or repeat until it looks good enough to you.

Menzerna PO85RD is a really nice finishing polish, that may ore may not be needed, it all depends on how good you finish with the M205, and if you feel you want to improve it some more. This polish has a cut of 1 so its not going to be doing any real correction that the M205 did, and it will need a softer pad, but you could use any pad with it if you wanted to. Its all up to how it looks to you after the M205 stage.
Perhaps next time get some PO106FA Super Finish which has at cut of 2.5 and still finishes down to a gloss of 5 like the PO85RD.

Be really careful, it helps if you have an idea how much paint you have to work with. Has this car been detailed a lot in its life? If not, and you know for sure about this, then you are probably pretty safe with a good amount of paint to work with. Stay away from sharp edges, around the door cups, door edges, just be gentle in those areas and dont spend a lot of time on them. If you think about it, an edge is not going to be improved much anyway, because there is so little paint on it to begin with. Just go by it and you are done.

You will not find anything you need to detail at Home Depot, etc...

Good luck
Dan F