TopOMichXL

Okay, I did something stupid. Clay barred my truck, first time, and must have picked up a little grit and had a few light scratches. Maybe a ten by ten inch area on my door. I tried polishing compound and it did help the problem but not quite what I wanted. I then, reluctantly, tried a little rubbing compound. Bad idea. I now have a little hazy area maybe four inch circle. I hit again with polishing compound but it still looks a little hazy! Have I done irreparable damage to my clear coat? I feel really stupid for doing this. Any advice from some of the more intelligent detailing experts on this site? Thank you.

Jamieat

Some M205 should get it out or some swirl remover, follow up with some good wax.

You've not damaged it beyond repair, should be an easy fix.

BarmanBean

iTrader: (1)

It helps to understand what you've actually done. What you've done is put in large enough scratches that you can see them in the clear coat. The idea behind fixing it is that you want to make sure the scratches are consistent across the area and then you want to work towards making them consistently smaller and smaller until the surface shines up again. The shiny surface still has scratches, they are just VERY small and fine and the result is a mirror finish like normal clear coat.

You need to work your way to finer scratches with finer and finer compounds, the rubbing compound was just pretty aggressive. Good luck!

chickenwire

3M Finesse it II will work BUT if you're not experienced using a lambswool buffing wheel I don't recommend it. (You can do damage with it if you're not careful.)

Otherwise I agree with the two previous members - time and patience and you'll gradually get it back. A dual action buffer with Meguiar's 83 or 85 polish should get you where you want to be.

TopOMichXL

Thanks folks. It has been years since I have messed with rubbing compound. So long ago, on a '55' f100 I bought in 1979, so a while ago, before clear coats. I 'did' try a couple treatments of regular polishing compound and it helped quite a bit, just not back to flawless, basically, as the rest of the truck.
Truck is Blue Jeans so flaws stand out almost as much as black. Was crushed when I saw what I had done. I'll try one of the recommended methods to bring it back, and will be careful.
One question, I'm a finish carpenter, and have a Porter Cable, #7345, variable speed random orbital sander, if equipped with proper pads, is that model suitable for auto detailing? It can be slowed way down, by setting to the lowest speed? Thanks again for the advice. I'll try to report back with results when I've made some progress.

leopold

I have a PC 7335 that I use and does a pretty good job. I think yours is just a newer version considering I have had mine for about 25yrs.

TopOMichXL

After tips discovered from the fine folks that commented on this thread, I was able to remove, or 'rub out' the haze in my clear coat.
The product I could find was a Meguiar's product. Scratch X2.0! I hand applied and worked it in for quite a while. I can not spot the defect described in my earlier post. Thanks again, everyone!