3M Ultrafina SE - Correction & Filling by Rotary

Dave KG · Jun 20, 2011

3M Ultrafina SE is an oily light cutting finishing polish that was designed to remove holograms left by more aggressive cutting compounds. The product can also be used for light correction on many finishes as well when used with a polishing or finishing pad. The product is marketed as being free from dedicated fillers, however many have reported a filling effect from the polish suggesting the product does actually contain fillers, or at least the capability to fill.

Our thoughts on this have been that, being very oily, Ultrafina has the capability to mask machine marring... But only under certain conditions. If the polish is thoroughly worked, the abrasives broken down so that the finish is well refined then the oils will have nothing to mask so you do not see any filling effect. However, if you do not thoroughly work the polish then the abrasives or pad leave light marring which the oils can then fill, thus giving a filling effect. We decided to put this to the test, comparing a long work time with a short work time on the effects from the finishing polish to see if this idea has any merit.

So - with the help of 3M Fast Cut Plus on a cutting pad, we have put in to a red Golf door some lovely holograms (fully wiped down to ensure any filling effect from FC+ removed):

Panel taped up so that a short set and a long set can be compared. Both sets use a finishing pad with 3M Ultrafina SE with the aim of refining out the Fast Cut holograms.

Long Set

This would be what I would describe as a traditional rotary set for finishing that I would use - the Zenith point as it is often referred to, starting slow and working up to speed and working the polish thoroughly before stepping down through the speeds for refinement. Set length was around 4.5 mins. Also, note that this set has been done by a novice rotary polisher - so many thanks to Allie for doing this set under Gordon's guidance ... Video of the set:

And now the results, the following pictures taken before any wipe down:

Then, after two wipe downs with IPA in this case:

Carefully examining the finish showed no evidence of machine marring being revealed following the wipe down, and for us at this stage we felt that the abrasives had been worked thoroughly enough so as not to leave any marring that the oils in the polish could have filled.

Short Set

Now, again following the Zenith point technique, but this time keeping the working time much shorter - this would be a far shorter set than I would even recommend for machine polishing by rotary! However, we were wanting to see if making the set much shorter resulted in Ultrafina SE filling in any way... Video of the set:

Results, firstly before any wipe downs carried out:

Now, following two wipe downs with IPA:

Arugably at this stage, there was still little difference between the finishes before and after the IPA wipe downs, perhaps very slight tails and marring becoming evident in the short set. In person as well, it was tough to see, but we were pretty convinced the finish was not as good after the wipe down.

More Aggressive Pad

To see if we could get more conclusive evidence of Ultrafina SE masking, we set up a heavy polishing pad, and polishes the area again using a short set similar to the video to get the following results before an IPA wipe down:

You could argue at this stage that slight marring and hologramming was evident before the wipe down. However, the comparison after the wipedown was an eye opener: following to IPA wipe downs:

Thoughts

Clearly, as shown by the more aggressive pad, Ultrafina SE does have the capability to mask marring under certain conditions. This is a lot more evident when using a more aggressive pad than it is for a short machine polishing set, which points out to me that a lot of the marring for the aggressive pad comes from the pad itself and not the abrasives of the polish not fully working - something to be aware of when using more aggressive pads with lighter polishes, especially oily ones which have the ability to mask under certain conditions. However, also, slight evidence of marring with the short set also highlights to me the importance of a long machine polishing set... thoroughly working the polish not only has the benefit of getting a sharper finish through jeweling, it also helps to avoid machine marring that can be inflicted with short set and inadvertently masked by the oils of the polish.