I'm new to this. Phil recommended I go with ths Griot's DA and Menzuma kit. https://www.detailersdomain.com/Gri...Orbital-Polisher-Swirl-Remover-Kit_p_704.html My car is black and has a clear bra on the nose of the car, not sure what brand . Do you guys buff that at all, or mask it off? In general what do you mask off? Any tips would be greatly appreciated .
It is ok to buff the ClearBra carefully and not get it hot, which means you dont put weight on the machine and carefully keep it moving quickly over the plastic. You will need to mind the Edge where it ends on the painted surface and try not to get product embedded in that edge, because you will have to clean it out carefully and risk placing minor scratches along that edge. Sometimes depending on how thick the plastic is, I might run a 1/8" wide masking tape line across the entire edge to insure I dont get any product in that space.. The plastic will correct and look great if you do this carefully. Please be careful, you dont need to use aggressive compounds, just something that has a little correction ability and it should remove any defects that all ClearBra's get after awhile. I have had them on all my vehicles since way back when they were invented. I love having no paint chip damage on my front end! Good luck with this ! Dan F
Thanks Dan. I think my paint is in pretty good shape with just some very minor swirls so I don't think I'll need to be too aggressive. I took a few pix but I'm not sure it even shows up enough to post. Is there any way to know if my car has hard or soft paint? Do you mask off the chrome and head and tail lights etc?
What year and make of your vehicle ? I have had black vehicles for over 30 years, so I have pretty much seen everything black many times. You can decide how much clarity you want to see in your paintwork and go to that point and stop correcting. It is not always good to remove all defects without knowing how much clearcoat you are removing vs how much is on there to start. Reason is you will eventually have defects again, so keep that in mind, especially if this is a daily driver. Another option is to get the paintwork really clear, then apply a more semi-permanent coating over this and now any correcting is done on the coating and not your paintwork.. I never mask off chrome. Chrome can be made to look better with compounds anyway.. I want to correct the scratches on the clear plastic headlights and taillights so I leave those out to work on. You want to be careful about getting compound or compound marks on any plastic or rubber trim, and this is what I might tape off. I use a Rotary so I have to be more careful around these plastic/rubber parts so I don't leave a mark there that I cannot remove, hence, the tape... Dan F
I just "polished" my clear bra. There wasn't really defects in it, but I just cleaned it up since I was doing the rest of the car. I just used Prima Amigo and two or three light passes. That product has the lightest abrasives in it. It came out "newer" looking. I don't have any pictures of the clear bra itself, but you can see it in the front of the above pics. This was my first detail on this car were I really gave the clear bra any attention. Before this I never went over it with a buffer. Like others recommend, just work very carefully using light polish / pressure / speed.
Thanks for the tips guys I started it yesterday and it's turning out great. Dan I did tape off the edge of the bra and it worked great. I'm having trouble posting pix for some reason but if I can figure out what the problem is I'll post some. Do you need to have a certain number of posts before you can post pix? Some forums have a minimum before you can.
