Paint POLISHING tutorial for BEGINNERS !!

hey what's up guys welcome to another episode of pan the organizer so today is a paint polishing tutorial for beginners so I'm gonna teach you everything you know to start you off in the paint polishing world so we're gonna talk about the polishers themselves so da polishers I'm gonna be presenting the different tools you're gonna be needing to do a proper job so we're gonna talk about swirl finder lights the brushes all the pads that we're going to be using so foam pads microfiber pads and all that good stuff I'm gonna go through compounds through polishes some all-in-ones and including the final prep before your protection which is an IPA so we're gonna talk about all that stuff you guys are gonna be able to start polishing your vehicles so without further ado let's go ahead and start the show so hey guys I'm pan welcome to the show I hope you're having a great day so today is a paint polishing tutorial for beginners so essentially it's a beginner's guide for paint polishing so essentially we're gonna be presenting the da polishers so I'm gonna explain what they are and what they do we're also going to go through some compounds through some polishes some all in ones including IPA so isopropyl alcohol mixes so what they are what they do we're also gonna show you how to condition and clean your pads we're gonna talk about the pads so some foam pads and microfiber pads show you what the differences are among them how you use them so you're also gonna see me do a demonstration on a Chevrolet Equinox that we have here today so essentially well what is paint polishing well before I start I just want to make sure that you guys don't worry about the equipments and the products that I'm talking about because I'll link them in the description down below for you guys to check them out at a later point so just focus sit back relax and enjoy the show so first of all what is paint polishing well the general term of polishing means that we're gonna correct the paint on the vehicle more precisely the clear coat so that's the top layer that's the shiny and glossy part to remove any defects such as swirl marks a big scratches or lighter scratches some marring that you might have we're also gonna increase of the gloss obviously and shine and make colors pop a lot more especially those metallic finishes so essentially you're correcting the paint before you go ahead and apply a protection on your paint such as a wax a paint sealant or a ceramic coating so the general term of polishing usually comprises two steps so number one is a compound so that's the more aggressive version for those deeper scratches and swirls arcs and that's followed by a polishing step so that's the finer abrasive of the two and that's usually one of the final steps of paint polishing so first well we're going to talk about the machine so we usually use a DA polisher or a dual action polisher and those are great for beginners because they're super safe for your clear coat because why well usually they have two movements so they have the circular movement and they also have a figure eight random orbit hence the random orbit da polisher so they kind of imitate the movement of a hand the great thing about da polishers and why they're so safe is that because they don't generate a lot of heat at the same spot unlike the rotary polishers that you may you see many professional use in some professional detail shops or again in body shops so this is very very safe there are many different alternatives now this one here is a professional-grade flex 3401 da polisher I also have my group as lhr 15 march to DA polisher so those are more on the high end for professional work but you can start off with very good da polishers anywhere from the hundred dollars $275 mark so don't worry again I'll drop some alternatives in the description down below you can get some very good da polishers to start off so this is your machine so essentially you're gonna apply some pads onto the backing plate and usually most of today's polishers or da polishers come with these hook and loop backing plates they're made kind of like this velcro material so there are some pads that attach to them so first of all let's talk about a principle of polishing so essentially when you're polishing your a very thin layer of the clear coat so you can expose a fresh and new layer that's free and exempt of any deep scratches any swirl marks or any marring so essentially what you want is to create a flat surface as much as possible that way when you have a corrected paint surface the light reflects very equally on it and you get an increased shine and gloss and that's what you usually want so if the slicker and smoother the surface the better the light will reflect off it and that's where you get your true increase in gloss and shine so the first step of a paint correction if your paint is heavily scratched or has a lot of deep swirl marks well is to use a compound so essentially a compound is a liquid that has a lot of abrasives inside and that helps you to remove those layers so when you're done with the compound you go ahead you wipe it off and then you move on to the polish so the polish still has some abrasives inside but they're much much smaller in diameter and those are good if you want to skip the compound exhibit for example you have less scratches or swirl marks on your paint or they're very small you can go ahead and just start with the polish and that way you'll have a clear and perfected surface with which to work with at the end and then you go ahead and do an isopropyl alcohol wipe down or an IPA so there are some commercially available IPAs such as Jeon prep which I like and of course car pro eraser so essentially what these are or as I said IPA mixes so they're essentially roughly a 50% rubbing alcohol and 50% water mix and what they do is they remove the polishing oils off the surface because when you're compounding and polishing well for lubrication those compounds and polishes have oils inside them to help with the lubrication so at the end you need to remove those because you want to be able to apply a paint protection item at the end without having it to interfere with those oils so if you want to have your waxes and paint sealants or ceramic coatings a bond better to your paint you go ahead and remove those polishing oils with an IPA wipe down so just a quick recap number one we're going to go ahead and do a compound so if you have those heavier and deeper scratches and swirl number two is a Polish so that's going to remove any light swirl marks or any scratches or marring left by the compounding stage and number three is an IPA wipe down or isopropyl alcohol to remove any polishing oils and then at the end you go ahead and you apply your paint protection item so when we talk about compounds well there are of course many many different ones out there but there are a couple that I like a lot like this car pro clear cut so this is a more advanced paint correction compound a classic that I love for beginners and even for professionals I use this a lot this is one of my favorites it's the Maguire's da microfiber correction compound and why I like this guy so much is that it produces little dusting so when you're doing a compound typically the lesser quality compounds generate a lot of dust so this generates very little of that and McGuire's developed a complete system for people to use so in combination with your da microfiber correction compound you can have the Maguire's cutting discs so these are microfiber cutting discs that they develop specifically for use with their compound and if you look at them well as the name States they're made out of microfiber they're made out of foam in the back so it can support it and of course it's in velcro so you can apply it directly to your da polisher so you simply Center it as much as you can and there you go you tap it in and it's ready to go so very simple so this is a six six inch disc that's perfect for the backing plate found on my Flex 3401 so usually you want to make sure if you have a five inch backing plate to have a five and a half or a six inch disc so you always want to give yourself a bit of leeway if you see here on the side so that way the backing plate won't come in contact with the paint so it's kind of a bit of added protection and then once you're done with the compound stage you can go ahead and do the polishing stage so that's the final finishing so you're going to any scratching or marring left over by the compound stage because yes you are removing defects or you're removing a part of the clear coat and you want a jewel or finish that off to get perfect gloss and clarity and obviously you want to have a lot of depth in your color so you're going to go ahead with a polish now the one that I use and I like a lot is the men's Erna super finish SF 3500 now this is a finishing polish I also love the Sonax perfect finish so those are some great polishes again I'm going to leave all the products in the description down below but essentially this one has a little less cut but more gloss enhancements so this is a finishing polish it creates a perfect deep gloss it enhances the color and honestly this is a very good one and you use this in combination with a finishing pad so you have the choice to go ahead with a foam tag or again McGuire's thought about you guys because they have their finishing discs so microfiber finishing discs so if we look at them again they're made out of microfiber but this time the foam is a bit thicker than the compound one so if I take the compound and I show you the difference as you can tell the compound one is a lot thinner because you want a lot more contact with the paint for defect removal and this here is a thicker foam because for the finishing stages you don't need as much cutting capabilities so that's it for the microfiber pads but of course there are foam pads as well so that's a question of personal preference I like foam pads for the finishing aspect but as you can tell there are usually many colors available in this case we're talking about Lake Country CCS foam pads and they go from the most aggressive to the least aggressive so here we have the yellow pad and the orange pad now this is the most cut and a bit less cut so these are for the compound stage we then move on to the white pad or black pad now these are polishing pads so they're made for a deeper polish or a lighter polish so a finishing polishing pad like the black one for the mane zurna or again the sonnax perfect finish and then we move on to the two last so the blue for liquid paint sealants so this is for protection and the softest one of a red pad now this is made for liquid waxes so if you have a look at the structure of these guys so again in the back you have a velcro so it's an easy hook and loop system for the backing plates and in the front these here have these little holes to help with venting so to dissipate the heat all the pads are quite thick and you're gonna ask me is there any difference other than the color yes of course so the extra cut ones are thicker and more dense foams and they're a lot stronger and stiffer so they're gonna transfer a lot more energy from your da polisher onto your paint because you need those for heavy correcting and the further up the ladder you go the plush and soft where they are so this red one here if you look at it this is very soft so as you don't need cutting power when you're applying a wax or sealant obviously this has no cutting ability so the polishes have lighter cutting ability and the biggest cutting ability is the orange and yellow because these are the densest and most strong pads so that's the difference between the foam pads and the microfiber pads usually if you want the strongest cutting power you go ahead with microfiber pads because they're quicker at removing defects so I personally love to use the da microfiber pads from McGuire's with the da correction compound by McGuire's and then I move on to something like a black finishing pad if I'm using foam or Rupa's have a nice yellow and white finishing pads that I also can use with a finishing polish such as the Sonax perfect finish or a man zurna super finish and then we have a third type of paint correction item and that's an all-in-one so essentially an all-in-one is something that's gonna give a light correction to the paint and apply either a layer of a polymer sealant at the end or a wax so it's an all-in-one that's good for the mobile Detailers that are out there that need to do a job quickly or if your customer doesn't want to pay for full-blown paint correction meaning they don't want to go through a two or three-stage pain Corrections such as a full compound a full polish and then a finishing polish so it's a quick way to add to increase the gloss on the vehicle remove some light scratches and swirls and apply a thin layer of protection at the same time now the all-in-ones that I like or 3d HD speed which is a very good one and there's also this grills garage finishing sealant this is their boss system so this is a very good one and I use this in combination with the grilles garage five and a half inch foam pads these are the perfecting pads so they're part of the boss system again so these are the yellow pads so they're not too aggressive but they're good for some fast cutting and you get the benefit at the end of having a thin layer of a paint sealant that's applied with this product so this is a quick way to have an all-in-one do the job if you don't want to go through the two stages or three stages of compounding and polishing now there's another new product to the market when we're talking about polishes you guys know that I love ceramic coatings so if the vehicle doesn't have too many defects and you want to go ahead and increase the gloss amazingly well there is car pro that has their essence so this is an extreme gloss enhancer basically what this does it has fillers inside that will fill the light scratches and swirls arcs so it's a very quick way to remove those light defects so there are some semi-permanent fillers in there and there's also a great gloss boosting capability and it also serves as a primer for the ceramic coating so you can apply this using the car pro white gloss pad now this is a pad a foam pad that was specifically designed to be used in combination with the essence polish and what this does well essentially you're going to apply it you can let it once you buff it off you can let it cure for about 24 hours and then you can go straight to applying your ceramic coating or you can do your polishing buff it out and then you do an IPA wipe down so to remove any polishing oils and then apply your ceramic coating so this is a great product to increase the gloss and to mask some light defects because there are some fillers inside so this is a great one for use with ceramic coating so once we're done polishing it's very important to do an IPA wipe down the knives Oh propyl alcohol wipe down so as I said before with something like Jian prep or car pro we eraser or you can go ahead and make your own mix at home essentially 50 percent rubbing alcohol and fifty percent distilled water very important to use distilled water because you don't want any minerals or other stuff of crap that might be in the water and interfere with the work that you've just done on your paint so you spray the IPA on the paint and then you wipe away with a clean and dry microfiber towel and then it should feel squeaky clean and that means it's ready for you guys to apply a paint protection so when you're done with the paint polishing stages you want to go ahead and protect your finish from the damaging of the UV rays and of course of the elements so any harsh winters the chemicals the salts and all that bad stuff so you can apply a traditional carnauba wax which lasts roughly two to three months great gloss natural shine if you want increased durability you can go ahead with a paint sealant now that will last anywhere from five to six months it's a synthetic product and then last but not least third is the ceramic coatings those will typically last anywhere from a year to two years or more great gloss great water beating and sheeting great UV protection so a lot of advantages and of course you can find out how to do all of those stuff in some tutorials that I have on my channel so I have a tutorial on how to wax your vehicle so you can click the video up there or again I'll leave the link in the description under the video and the next one is my tutorial on ceramic coatings so if you want to check that out again click the video up here or the link in the description down below so you guys can learn how to properly apply a ceramic coating to your vehicle okay so what are the steps that we need to do before we get to the paint correction stages well number one you're going to start by washing your vehicle and then you're going to move on to the decontamination of the paint so usually there are two forms of decontamination number one you're going to start with a chemical decontamination using a tar remover and an iron remover to remove any embedded iron particles that are inside your clear coat so those are the orange spots that you'll see on lighter colored cars which is essentially brake dust and iron fallout that oxidized and rusted with time so you got to remove those and number two you're gonna go ahead and do a clay bar so a clay bar will remove any of the leftover embedded contaminants that are in the clear coat so remove those off the surface and you know that you need to perform a clay bar and use a clay Lube when you run your fingers on especially the lower parts of the vehicle and you feel the sandy texture or you feel that there's grit well that means that there are imbedded contaminants that are inside the clear coat that you need to remove now once you're done with the paint cleaning and decontamination make sure that you properly rinse and dry your vehicle and then you're going to go ahead and inspect the paint I can't stress this enough you always have to assess what you're working with so how deep are the scratches where are the bigger ones what do you need to address when you're inspecting your paint use something like a swirl finder light personally I use this roof has led swirl finder light so you can see here it imitates the color reproduction of the Sun so you go ahead run it on your panels and then you can see exactly where the defects are and what kind of defects you have to deal with once you're done assessing the state of your paint you're going to go ahead and tape the trim so you're gonna use some painters tape or masking tape so some white one that doesn't loot and leave a lot of glue residue like this 3m that I absolutely love now you have a choice to use some green tape or blue tape but essentially some that doesn't have a lot of adhesive in the back because you just want to protect your black trim or your window trim or any other plastic trim on your vehicle from that white marring that you might get with your compounds and your polishes also very important I can't stress this enough again always work in a garage or a shaded area especially when you're doing paint correction you never want to work under direct sunlight because this affects the polishes and the compounds dries them out way too clicky and way too quickly and you can't use them to their utmost performance on the vehicle so that's a big no-no so always work in the shade or ideally in a garage every time you finish a section pass on a panel make sure you clean your pads so for example if you're using a microfiber pad you have a pad brush that looks something like this with stiff bristles so if you have a close-up and what you do you essentially run it on the pad to clean off any used compound or polish or any dried up gunk that's on there so it's very important when you can also use compressed air if you do have an air compressor so you just below the pad off so every time you lift your machine off because you finished a pass go ahead and clean your pads that's very important what's cool about the microfiber pads well when they're still on your machine what you can do is while you spin it at low speed we can we run your dress over it like that and there you go that's how you remove the gunk now what you usually do is also switch pads for fresh ones so usually every panel or two I'll use one or two pads for those new sections and then you gently remove your pads and then you replace them with some fresh ones and you'll get better performance this way because you're not gum king up all the fibers that are there or same thing with a foam pad the more you use them the more the pores become clogged up with compound or polish and you want to switch them out and use a fresh one so you're going to be going through let's say I don't know five six pads for a typical vehicle may be a bit more seven or eight if you have a larger vehicle so always to make sure you have the biggest and best performance out of your pads so you clean them and of course you switch them out every now and then for some fresh pads for the foam pads before you start using them it's very important that you condition your pads using a polishing pad conditioner so essentially it's a spray you missed a couple of spritz onto your pad this way it will moisten it up and it will help the compound or polish better add ear to the pad so you're spreading it out and you won't have a dry surface that might scratch or Mar your paint once you're done using your pads of course you have to wash them now a quick and easy way is to use a polishing pad cleaner again this is an easy to use spray you basically spray it on you let it dwell for roughly five minutes and then you run it under some lukewarm to hot water and you just simply squeeze the products out of the pad themselves and then you lay them down flat for them to dry or what you can also do is put them in your washer so very low temperatures and then you can clean them just as I do with my microfiber pads and if you haven't seen so yet the way I wash these pads in the washer is the same way I wash my microfiber towels and I have a video tutorial for that so you can click the video up here so you can learn how to do it or again I'll drop the link in the description down below so essentially you always want to clean your pads after you use them so you have some fresh and clean pads to use for the next time all right so using our swirl finder light or the LED pen light we're looking for any defects so any scratches swirl marks any marring in the paint so we can assess what we're dealing with so it's very important to look for all those and that way you can establish your technique so if they're very deep they're gonna go ahead and start with a compound stage and if it's only light scratching or marring you can go ahead with just the polishing stage so whether you're compounding or polishing always follow the instructions on the bottle so essentially for the demonstration we're going to use a cutting disc so this is a foam cutting disc and we're gonna use compound so apply a couple of pea-sized drops onto your pad to make sure you get good coverage so you don't need that much product so as you can see this is the kind of stuff that you want for microfiber pads the prep is just a bit different you add a lot of product and make sure you prime the pad by spreading the product all over with your fingers and make sure you cover every single fiber once the pad is primed then add your pea-sized drops then you're gonna go ahead take the cord always put it over your shoulder that way you're not scratching the paint as you're polishing you're always gonna start off with applying the product using some slow speeds so on the polishers usually you have a dial so you have a speed dial you want to set that to a low speed so in this case too and then you're going to spread the product onto the paint then you're gonna ramp it up to higher speeds so usually a four and a half to five is a good point to start when you're compounding or polishing so in this case we're gonna put it on speed number two you're gonna work in two by two sections slow arm speed and very important you gonna keep your pad as flat as possible on the paint so make sure you control your arm movement so very slow speed and then we're going to do cross hash patterns so we're gonna go left or right and then top and down we're gonna repeat that a couple of times for a full section pass and then we're going to go ahead and buff off with a microfiber towel so now that I've dabbed the product on to the paint I'm going to go ahead and spread it out on low speed [Music] so now that the product is spread out we're gonna ramp up the speed so I'm gonna put it to setting number four and a half and then we're gonna go and do some section passes so again slow and steady arm movement up to down left to right keep your pad as flat as possible on the surface don't apply too much pressure because you don't want your pad to stall so that's very important you always want to keep the pad moving and we go ahead [Laughter] [Laughter] all right so now we did roughly three passes on this section pass so we did left to right up and down and left to right again so steady arm speed very slow movement let the machine and the product work for you and then we go ahead and assess the result so we're gonna buff it off with a clean and dry microfiber towel now to assess your work even further if you're done take another towel and then go ahead and spray an IPA isopropyl alcohol and this will remove any fillers if there are any any polishing oils as well so you can have the true effect of the finish so as I can tell this is defect free very high gloss and now if we come back with our LED swirl finder light all this one is defect free so perfect we did a good job and then if I touch the paint while it's very smooth it's glass like and it's squeaky clean meaning we're ready for the paint protection stage so now I can go ahead and apply a wax a paint sealant or a ceramic coating also if you noticed when I was doing my section passes I'm overlapping my strokes by roughly 50% so when you're moving down to another pass you're roughly covering what you just did by roughly 50% that way you make sure you get even coverage of your product and you're removing the defects very evenly on your paint so the key again the key points are you're using very slow and steady arm speed you're letting the pad and the machine do the work for you so don't put too much pressure because you don't want to stop the pad from rotating that's a big no-no you also start by putting a couple of pea-sized dots onto your pad you spread it quickly on your paint using a low speed and then you ramp up the speed to four and a half to five or whatever setting is on your machine and then you go ahead and you do a full section pass you're gonna stop you're gonna remove with a microfiber towel a your work and then if it's good enough I PA wipe down to make sure that you remove all the polishing oils and then add a paint protection item so guys here are some examples of the results of some cars that I worked on so doing some light paint correction or deeper paint correction depending on what's needed so today we covered the preparation that you need before you go ahead and you do the paint polishing steps so you usually clean the vehicle make sure you go ahead and do the decontamination steps so chemical decontamination with a tar remover and iron remover we moved on to a mechanical decontamination using a clay bar and clay lubricant to remove any embedded contaminants you then make sure that you rinse your car you dry it off and then you move on to your actual paint correction through paint polishing steps so the first step if you have deep scratches or deep swirl marks or heavy oxidation you go ahead and you perform a compound so that's the more aggressive of the two methods and then you move on to the actual polish stage using a polish and that will further improve the gloss and clarity of your clear coat and also make sure that you get the best reflectivity and best color reproduction from your paint so make the colors pop as we say in the business and after that you go ahead and you perform an IPA wipe down to remove any leftover polishing oils and contaminants before going ahead and applying a paint protection such as a wax a paint sealant or a ceramic coating so it's not that complicated if you follow the steps and take your time you guys to can achieve such results so go ahead and enjoy doing these steps so guys I hope you enjoyed this beginner's guide to paint polishing let me know in the description down below if you want me to continue to make videos like this one with maybe some more advanced painting polishing techniques if you want to see me go more into depth with product demonstrations on heavily scratched vehicles and see how we can remove all those defects again show me your support by smashing the thumbs up button and also as usual thanks for being present thanks for watching by the way again I'll remind you that all the products and equipment and tools that I talked about today I'll link in the description under the videos will click the show more option if you guys want to check those out also if you want to continue to learn more about car detailing sold tips tricks products equipment and techniques make sure you hit the subscribe button that's found under this video and that way you'll subscribe to my channel and never miss my future videos and the meantime guys don't forget keep it tight keep it clean and I'll see you on the next one you

Channel: Pan The Organizer

Views: 855,680

Rating: 4.9500756 out of 5

Keywords: paint polishing tutorial for beginners, paint polishing, compound, polish, how to polish car paint, how to polish a car, paint polishing techniques, paint polishing kit, paint polishing for beginners, paint polishing compounds, paint polishing pads, paint polishing machine, how to polish paint properly, car detailing, auto detailing, how to remove scratches on paint, how to polish black car, remove swirls, paint correction, scratch removal, car polishing, pan the organizer

Id: X2qjO5xZZ2E

Length: 32min 7sec (1927 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 09 2018