HOW TO POLISH YOUR CAR: For Beginners & Enthusiasts (Step by Step)

hello everyone this is zay again from carnauba detailing a few weeks ago i received a comment requesting me to make a video on how to properly compound and polish a vehicle and something a little bit more tailored to the beginner level when it comes to polishing and compounding so in order for me to do that i'm going to take everything step by step for you guys and girls and i'm going to list out also everything that you will need right here right now so the first thing you're going to need is a dual action polisher now you don't need the specific dual action polisher this is chicago electric dual action polisher from harbor freight did a review on this before it is a great option for beginners it is very affordable and also provides wonderful results even in beginners hands but obviously there's other options out there for dual action polishers on the market now you can also use a rotary polisher that's going to require a little bit more expertise knowledge and time with it's a little bit i wouldn't say hazardous or anything like that but it's a little more difficult and tedious to work with a little bit more um tailored towards somebody with experience so today we're just going to be looking at dual action polishers when it comes to compounding and polishing the next things next thing you're going to need are some towels dedicated just to buff off the access polish and compound i have those right over there and then also some other microfiber like general purpose microfiber towels to clean off your pad or any other like residue um from some of the products that we're using okay obviously the next thing you're going to need is going to be your actual compounds and your actual polishes okay so right here i have maguire's 105 it's a heavy cut compound and i have meguiar's 205 which is a light cut polish okay now the differences between the two polishes um when it comes to consistency are usually a little bit more liquidy um their consistency consistency is a little bit thinner reason being there's probably more solvents and oils and polishes than there are in compounds while compounds have more abrasives that's why compounds are heavy cut meaning they cut very um heavy and strong throughout the polishing process and polishes are usually more of a light cut like a finishing polish or a jeweler's polish okay um you do also have the option of doing a one step polish like meguiar's one step over here that's what i got in this little bottle um it's it's like it states it's a one step you won't be needing two pads like you would with a two-step process such as meguiars 105 and 205 you only need one pad probably either heavy cut or medium cut pad for something like this and you'd be able to take care of your vehicle with that one product and that single pad and when i mean single pad i mean type of pad you might need multiple types of that same exact pad in order to complete your car because pads do get dirty throughout the process but as long as you're cleaning them throughout your polishing process and maintaining them you should be okay with about one or two the next thing you're going to need let me just put these back over here is going to be some type of lubricant for your pads and also the surface of the paint i'm just using a mix of distilled water and optimum no rinse that's probably one of my favorite options some people just go straight up water honestly it's all personal preference i just believe this works the best for me personally okay the next thing you're gonna need is also some kind of paint prep i go with the classic fifty percent isopropyl isopropyl alcohol excuse me and fifty percent distilled water just a regular ipa mix but any kind of automotive paint prep will substitute for that you will also be needing some type of clay bar i have this one right over here you would need this in order to properly decontaminate the surface of the paint prior to polishing and compounding okay and obviously another thing that you will be needing are your pads for your dual action polisher polish you do i can't talk today guys i am so sorry you would be needing your pads for your dual action polish polisher wow i have a heavy cut right over here so the heavy cut obviously is going to go with your meguiars 105 and then a lighter cut type of pad such as this one over here i label all my pads as well is going to go with our maguire's 205 okay now like i said if you decide to go with the one step polish such as this um and you're still looking for a decent amount of cut obviously this won't have the same exact cut as mcguire's 105 would but you will still be able to remove a lot of defects with a one stop all right but it does save you time going this route you will be able to remove more defects and scratches and swirl marks with a two-step polish such as these okay but if i'm using something like this i'd probably go with a heavy cut pad or a medium cut pad i will not go with a light cut pad because i'm still looking to get some type of defect removal now the differences between the pads and why one's heavy cuts and one is a light cut is just the stiffness the consistency of the pores this is a lot harder it's not as soft as this pad over here and it gives it a little bit more cut throughout the polishing process okay the colors of the pad honestly all depend on the manufacturer if you go to chemical guys an orange pad might mean light cut while you go to meguiars a blue pad might mean heavy cut it all depends on the manufacturer so look at who the manufacturer is and go off of what they are telling you okay so that's pretty much all you will be needing oh yeah and i need an extension cord because the harbor freight wire is way too short but there are polishers that do come with like a 12 foot core nowadays so that all depends on you and what type of polisher that you have but we are going to move on to the actual claying process now so i'll be right back with you guys if you need to click or if you want to figure out if you need to clay your vehicle wear a pair of rubble rubber gloves or maybe a ziploc bag over your hand and go ahead and just rub the surface of the paint i don't know if you guys can hear that but i can i can also feel some friction between the glove itself and the paint as well so there are some embedded contaminants in the surface of this paint that we're going to take care of with the clay now when you purchase your clay um it usually comes into like a cube or a square um you're going to want to fold it into a patty shape such as this and then you're going to take your lubrication whether it be soapy water or onr in water or just water um it's all up to you i usually use onr and distilled water for my type of lubrication and just spray the surface real quick a lot of some people work in a two by two or three by three area i mean honestly at the end of the day if i'm trying to get things done i might do half the hood all at once because you will be polishing the vehicle and compounding it so as long as you're removing the embedded contaminants from the paint you'll be okay now when you're claying the vehicle you have to remember that claying it is an abrasive process you are scratching the surface of the paint but not to worry because you are going to be compounding and polishing it right after so you don't want to clay the vehicle after like every wash or you you only play the vehicle when you need to play the vehicle okay when you when you feel and you hear that there's a lot of contaminants in the surface of the paint that's when you clay the vehicle now what the clay does you gotta imagine the paint as skin and the clay is basically exfoliating the skin it's removing any type of dirt or contaminants out of the pores of the paint all right when you clay the vehicle you just want to go up and down straight lines do not go in circular motions okay you have to remember this is causing some type of abrasive action onto the paint all right so you don't want scratches that go in circles those are harder to remove and they're a lot easier to see with the naked eye when the sunlight reflects off of them straighter scratches are easier to move and harder to see with the naked eye so as you're claying you will notice the paint getting smoother throughout and you might be hearing less noise because you're removing those embedded contaminants right this process does take some time it's very tedious once in a while but sometimes it does have to be done depending on how bad the paint really is honestly this paint wasn't too bad it was kind of borderline whether i would have to clay it or not but better to be safe than sorry all right so after that you just take your clay and now what was once um more of a bluish clay is now turning gray in certain areas show you real quick i don't know if you guys can see that so the paint was honestly not too bad but i do see some areas with some brown and gray spots throughout the clay uh so now you would just take your general purpose microfiber towel and you're just going to wipe down the area that you worked on okay just like that all right so now if you just want to go back and test the surface again there is onr still on here so it's causing it to be slick but let that flash real quick and we'll get back into it so now the paint is a lot smoother i don't hear as much noise as i did before so this part has been properly decontaminated um the next thing you would have to do is move on to your ipa stage or your paint prep stage okay all right guys and girls so i went ahead and i clayed the rest of the front hood on the kia but now we're just going to move into our ipa stage or a paint prep stage remember i'm just using 50 water and 50 alcohol not jameson isopropyl alcohol i know what you guys are thinking okay um so all you have to do is spray the area that you clayed after you're done drying the area of your onr solution while you're claying spray the area down with your ipa or paint prep solution and all you have to do is just wipe it down i always like working in straight line motions when i do a lot of things because it's alcohol and water it should flash really fast and that's what it's doing right now perfect so now your paint is prepped and ready to get compounded and polished and that's we're going to move on to next okay all right guys and girl so i'm just going to go over how to um get your pad ready and how to prime the pad as well so i did use this pad just yesterday on another client's vehicle so i will have to clean this but that is good because i get to show you guys how i do it on the spot if i don't have access to flowing water or any kind of pressurized air so there is compound or polish whatever i was using on the at the time still in the pores of this pad so what we have to do is clean that out and all i do is spray my o r solution onto the pad like that then i would take one of my general purpose microfiber towels open it up like so and i just place the pad in the palm of my hands wrap the towel around the pad itself i bring the rpm at around level three hold on tight just wipe it down so it removed any kind of embedded polish or compound and any of the dust that was left over in the pad now we have a nice clean and ready to go pad now we're just going to have to prime the pad itself as well so i'm going to be going over a two-step process with you guys and girls because it's a more in-depth process that you have to go through rather than just the one step and um the one step is pretty much the same thing you just eliminate the the second um type of polish you're just using one type of polish and one type of pad all right so we're gonna want to do is shake up your compound i'm gonna be starting off with mcguire's 105. we always start off with a heavy cut whoa that exploded on me sorry about that snap crackle pop all right well i'm gonna clean that up in a little bit um you just have to take your compound and i just start off with about three to four dots make it five and just rub the compound i recommend to use gloves while doing this by the way just rub the compound into the pad itself all right you want to cover the whole pad with the compound or polish okay the reason why you do this it gets all the pores and fibers of the pad ready immediately when you start polishing okay that's the idea behind this and it does work pretty well so just take a little bit more and just rub that all in so when you have the whole pad covered with compound and polish you are pretty much set to go when it comes to the compounding process so i'm going to bring you guys back to the car real quick so we we um prepped and primed our pad and now we're gonna go compound okay and before we start compounding the actual paint i did forget to mention if you do get a chance grab a permanent marker and draw one black line on your backing plate of your dual action polisher what this is telling you what this does if this line stops spinning consistently or it should be the other way stop spinning it means your pad is not um working for you any longer and the reason why this happened is dual action polishers have a safety mechanism in them where it stops suspending rotation when you hit any kind of concave or convex surfaces or any high points on the paint so you don't burn through the clear coat or the paint itself so that's why i love dual action polishers so much really great and helpful so just make sure to draw a line so you know whether your pad is actually spinning and doing work or if it is not but after you're done priming the pad you can also put some other two or three other piece size dots if you like into the pad but you don't have to because the pad is already primed for the most part and all you do is i just dab it i'm going to just be working on this one section over here about a three by three if you're working on some more um heavy um defect paints maybe a two by two section and i start off at level one all right just to spread out the product okay [Music] all right guys and girls so i spread out the product and always remember never turn on the dual action polisher when it's not touching the paint the reason why i say that is you're gonna have polish and compound slinging everywhere if you do it okay so when you turn it on put it on the paint then turn it on um when you're turning it off keep it on the paint turn off let it stop spinning and then remove the actual polisher itself alright so i'm just gonna boost it up to about four or five and we're going to actually start the compounding process on the hood [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right i'm just going to remove the pad real quick and then i'm just going to take my polishing buffing towel that i showed you guys before just dedicated to remove excess polish and buff off the surface all right just straight lines when you're removing your polish okay flip to the other side and keep on going until you removed all the polish on the surface of the paint now if you are working in um warmer weather if you're working outside in the sun sometimes these compound and polishes give you a tough time when removing them on just a little spritz of your paint prep or your 50 50 alcohol with water your ipa can help you remove them okay so i'm going to take you further into the paint just to give you a closer look and see what's going on between this side and the side we haven't touched yet with the heavy cut of the compound okay all right everyone i don't know if you guys can see this very well but i really hope you guys can so this is the side that we just compounded and polished and then i'm moving on to the side that we haven't yet i don't know if you guys can see the swirl marks on this side and the lack of swirl marks on this side now this is metallic black paint so it's a little more difficult to see the defect removal and the swirl marks but there is a big difference between the two when it comes to defects and also gloss and shine so that's just the first step of the compounding process obviously if you have more defects that you would like to remove i'm not going to go too heavy on defect removal on this car because it's not really a big deal for me but you can go another round with a heavy cut and then move on to your light cut or your jeweler's polish okay but that's the difference between the two sides as of now all right guys and girl so i went ahead and i primed the light cut pad with the maguire's 205 um the light cut polish and we are going to move on to the polishing stage on the left side of the hood real quick so same thing guys um just go in slow motions it should take you about 40 to 60 seconds throughout the process itself start off at level one go and up and down zigzag not up not zigzag but up and down chris cross and hatch motions um i mean i should just say cross hatch motions excuse me um throughout the whole process make sure you're taking it slow light pressure to no pressure at all let the polisher do the work for you okay just dabbing it remember to start off at level one in order to spread the polish out so all right so i did get a new um buffing towel i really don't like using the same towel for my compound and my polishes i really don't want to do any kind of cross contamination between the two so i got a fresh new buffing towel all right i'm just gonna buff off the excess residue okay oh yeah that looks a whole lot better yup awesome the little baby kia's getting a little makeover all right i'm sorry guys i honestly do not show too much attention to this car compared to my others so okay so i'm gonna bring you guys back into the paint once again to show you guys the difference between the side that we've completed both with the heavy cut and the light cut and then the side that we didn't do anything to okay all right so i got my flashlight on me again so that's the side that we were just working on no real visible defects throughout for the most part okay and i'm going to move to side that we didn't even touch yet you could see a lot more swirl marks there's a lot of water spots and etching throughout the side of the paint it's just a big difference when it comes to shine and gloss as well now we're moving back on to the side that we've completed okay that's the difference between the two all right guys so basically that's the kind of results that i was looking for now you can take it a step further it's very close impossible to get perfection especially on oem paint especially from something like a kia rio but you can get pretty darn close if you put just a little bit more time and effort into it but this just goes to show you you don't need a 350 dollar rupes dual action polisher and a bunch of fancy equipment and lighting and tools i'm just using two regular led work lights a harbor freight dual action polisher um the two types of polishes and compounds that we're using were professional gray polishes and compounds but mcguires does have more of a consumer level line i believe it's called their ultimate and they have an ultimate compound ultimate polish i have used them before they do work really good obviously not as good as the professional stuff but they do get you really good results okay you might not get to as close of a defect removal as we did on the kia rio today with the um m205 and m105 but you can get um pretty close to the point where it's not really noticeable unless you're really paying attention to it and looking at it with a flashlight or something like that okay i really hope you guys enjoyed this video obviously after you're done polishing your vehicle throughout make sure to apply some type of protectant to it if you're using a one step such as the one from meguiars i showed you prior in the video it does have some type of protection along with the polish itself it's more of a sealant last a few months but it's nothing really special i recommend maguire's ultimate fast finish that's a great sealant i personally use for my clients mckees 37 sio2 enhance coding and also maguire's gold class is a pretty good on consumer level wax if you're looking for a little bit more depth depth and gloss um besides that one of my favorite waxes that i purchased for my vehicles and some of my other clients they're looking for something a little bit more high-end in quality shine gloss and protection and longevity is p21s really good stuff it's about forty dollars or so but it's honestly all worth it there are other waxes and sealants and coatings that are far more expensive but work what's within your budget and what results that you require from yourself in your vehicle okay i'm not looking for protect perfection already told you guys before when it comes to this car but no problem giving it a little bit more gloss and shine okay i really hope you guys enjoyed the video if you have any questions comments or concerns put them below in the comment section if you guys like the video leave a thumbs up and remember to subscribe thank you so much and i hope you guys all have a great day bye

Channel: 48 Detailing Co.

Views: 1,815,062

Keywords: 48 Detailing, 48 detailing co, arizona detailing, Dr. Beasley's, Dr. Beasley's NSP, Dr. Beasley's Ceramic Coating, Ceramic Pro, SB3 Ceramic Coating, Owners Pride Ceramic Coating, P and S Ceramic coating, PPF, Flexshield, Ceramic Pro PPF, Ceramic Pro Kavaca, matte car paint, matte paint coating, car detailing, auto detailing, bmw, arizona, paint correction, tesla ceramic coating, tesla ppf, berate jackson, berate jackson auction, mecum, mecum auction, scottsdale cars

Id: eEQoi4AKfoo

Length: 28min 5sec (1685 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 31 2018