I'm in the process of color sanding the clear coat and wondering what speed I need to use when I move on to the buffer for the compounding and glaze coats? I'll be buying a 3M "waffle" pad for the compound and glazing and just bought a high quality Milwaukee variable speed buffer to replace my Craftsman "homeowners" waxer/buffer

I use Presta with a 6.5 in wool pad for the initial cut, then Use Sure Finish with an orange pad for the second cut then a soft black pad for the swirl remover. I got mine through the ABS site. 1500 RPM on the first and second stage then 2000 on the final.

Thanks for the input. I just "had" to try the buffer and a foam pad to do some compounding (before buying the 3M foam pad). Should I go back and use a wool pad? Or is this good enough to move on to the machine glaze? It does seem to have a little "haze" to it. Do I want to get that all out before using the glaze? see this pic:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/ ... e30f4e.jpg

Wool pads cut really well, but they also leave some major scratches behind that are difficult for someone not used to buffing to get out especially if you are doing a dark color... If buffing a dark color I use the same pad as i do for polish/glaze... Of course I use seperate pads for compound and polish, jus the same soft pad for the whole job... It takes a little longer than even using a more aggressive foam pad, but you can not beat the look

BK

I was surprised at how much it buffed up with just the foam pad. Thanks for the tip on using foam pads for both buffing and polishing. I've got another one that I'll use for the polishing. Still wondering about the "haze". Is that normal for the compound stage? I'm using Mequiars 184 rubbing compound to start.

Yeah, I used wool for years but I started using foam a year or so ago and will never go back. As for your picture it looks about right as far as the "haze" goes at this point. When you move up to finer compounds or polishes it will diminish and go away. By the time I hit a machine glaze (or hand glaze in some cases) the color and reflectivity will "pop." I was razoring a few clear runs in some hard to access places on a year old base/clear job the other day and had to cut and polish the areas completely by hand. Even doing the steps by hand you can gradually see the haze disappear as you move up in the process. Boy, I'm glad I don't have to cut cured urethane like that everyday by hand!

It sure seems easier to buff with the foam, plus the possibility of buffing through the edges seems less likely. Having said that, I noticed a new problem during the buffing process. There are a few areas that seem to show a shiny silver steak or arch under the clear? I'll try to show a pic of it but I doubt it will show on my camera. A freind who used to manage a dealer body shop says it "looks like you got something between the base and the clear", but I didn't touch the base (other than clean it) before I applied the clear. It still looks like I'm buffing the clear, but is it pssible that these are areas where I've buffed through to the base coat? Or possibly the pearl flakes showing through?

Not sure about your streaks.........

I recently did some buffing, and tried to go directly from Meg Diamnd cut to machine glaze, but there was a haze there. I went back and bought a bottle of swirl remover, making it a 3 compound process, and it seemed to work pretty well. The bottles of compound have an abrasiveness (is that a word?) scale on them .... obvisouly you want to go coarse to smoother.

As for the foam pads....I never used a wool one, but the foam ones seemed to work really well for me.

This whole process it a ton of work......buffing is the icing on the cake...I love it!

I never heard it better than once before... I was told it was not custom painting, it is custom sanding...

Sounds like you have something between the base and clear... This is why we strongly urge peole to leave the base alone before clear... The more you mess with it, the more likely you are to have problems.

BK

Again, thanks for the replies. As I said before, I did NOT do anything to the basecoat (other than wipe it clean) before applying the clear. Is it possible that these are areas where the wiping cloth deposited some of the pearl flakes after being wiped? I don't know if you can see this pic very well, but the spots on the top front of the door almost look like what you would see at the end of a "wipe" with a cloth? Or, is it possible for the pearl to "pop" or change after the clear has been applied (or maybe before)?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/ ... specks.jpg
Regardless, I'm not going to settle for this since it's in such a visible spot and basically "ruins" the paint job (at least in my mind). So......sand it back down to the basecoat, and spray the basecoat again?
After taking a closer look and taking a better picture, it looks like I may have buffed through the clear coat to the underlying basecoat pearl either with the color sanding or the wool buffing pad. From the looks of the half moon spots, probably the buffer.