Polishing and Buffing (picture intense)

Anthony Orosco said:

Sorry to say that a PC is not going to do nothing for that paint. In fact a rotary won't do anything either.

Buffing is what many professionals define as using a rotary high speed polishing machine to "level" down the paint. "Polishing" can have several meanings. Some use the word to define using products like Meguairs #7 or 3M's Imperial Hand Glaze, which add alot of wetness and gloss to paint. Others use the word to define the process of again, leveling the paint. Leveling the paint means you are removing a microthin layer of paint, the layer where scratches reside, to reveal a fresh layer of paint. The danger here is that you can remove too much and thus "burn" the top coat, which is obviously bad.

From the pictures you posted up though your paint is toast. The scratches look too deep to be leveled out. If your fingernail catches as you pass it over the scratch then it is too deep. The reason it can't be removed is that there is not enough paint to safely work with.

Anthony

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RacEoHolic330 said:

A light color sanding and buffing could help to get rid of those scratches. It's very labor intensive though and you run the rish of sanding through the clear coat.

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Turbo92PGT said:

I just stayed at my work from 8am - 1:30AM wetsanding and buffing a two toned lincoln mark LT truck. The whole time i wasn't buffing, but from 2PM - 1:30AM I was. It was so much work. But looked amazing when we were done. Use some 2500 or 3000 grit paper, over the factory clearcoat. Wet it down with some water with a tiny bit of soap in it and wetsand. Then go over it with meguiars Heavy Cut cleaner (4) and then with a machine glaze or something and you should be good to go. Use a high speed buffer

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Turbo92PGT said:

I just stayed at my work from 8am - 1:30AM wetsanding and buffing a two toned lincoln mark LT truck. The whole time i wasn't buffing, but from 2PM - 1:30AM I was. It was so much work. But looked amazing when we were done. Use some 2500 or 3000 grit paper, over the factory clearcoat. Wet it down with some water with a tiny bit of soap in it and wetsand. Then go over it with meguiars Heavy Cut cleaner (4) and then with a machine glaze or something and you should be good to go. Use a high speed buffer

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Dusstbuster said:

So i was talking to a friend of mine who's working at a dealership and was asking about what they do for scratches and other paint defects on cars they see. The method they use is extreme (scrap the part be it a fender, hood, bumper, whatever, paint a new one to match it, and put that on. They do that for larger scratches and dents) but he said they polish/buff minor scratches. He said that they do it on ones like those that are on my car and said i should just polish and buff it and they'll be gone. So i went out, spent $20 or so on some stuff, and went to work on it today. Nothing changed, it looks no different. So my question is...is there a certain process you should go through to remove scratches and other blemishes and exactly what is Polishing and Buffing, and what are some good products to use? I was doing it by hand because i dont want to buy an orbital/rotary buffer because id probably ruin my paint beyond recognition. I spent about an hour reading up on autopia too and still am sorta in the dark as to what the difference between buffing and polishing is as well. So ANY help at all as to what i should do, if there even is anything i can do non-professionally to remove these blemishes or are they probably going to require professional help.
Hey I own a detail shop in atlanta and have been detailing for about seven years now. Those scratches from what I can see look like they cannot be buffed out. I have always told people and always heard that if you can catch your thumbnail in the scratch that it cant be buffed out. Basically that means that its all the way through the clear coat, so the car will probably have to be painted
I used the following:
http://www.autopia-carcare.com/vk-101.html
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v75/Dusstbuster/Meguiars.jpg

Pictures of Blemishes:








And yes it is dirty, and this is just 2 days after i did a full wash/clay/wax on it too. Lack of garage space sucks.

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