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Polishing the paintwork
Introduction
Polishing is the process by which a tiny layer (of the order of microns) of paintwork is stripped away to expose a fresh layer and give the paintwork a shine. This shine then needs to be protected with a wax stage or followed up with a glaze to deepend the shine before waxing. Ideally, the polishing step should be preceeded by a clay bar treatment as described here.
The tools
There are two options when it comes to applying polish - hand or machine using a rotary or random orbital polisher. This page describes the hand polishing process, which is not as effective as machine polishing since the machine has a much higher speed of operation compared to the human hand and therefore can extract a better shine from the paintwork.
The tools I use for this stage (since I don't have a machine) are a Meguiars polish application pad, Autoglym Super Resin Polish and an Autoglym Perfect Polishing Cloth.
There are more expensive and fancier products out there but I want to use up some of this stuff and perfect the art before splashing out on the proper gear.
The process
The polishing process I am describing involves spreading fine abrasive particles contained in the polish using the liquid in the polish as a transport mechanism, working these particles into the paintwork until the polish is broken down. Too little work and the polish won't penetrate the paint and you will be left buffin off a powdery residue.
Taking the rear drivers side door as an example, load up the foam pad with a bead of polish.
Spread the polish around the panel by dabbing the pad a few times to distribute the product
Like a painter, "cut in" the edges so that all of the panel will be polished and there will be a nice neat finish to the panel edges.
Now work in the polish using circular motions for a few minutes until the polish breaks down (if this was with a machine polisher, I would wait until it had completely broken down but I'm only human so a bit of working in will do). Finally, lay off the polish in straight lines.
After a while, buff off the excess polish (AG Super Resin Polish is quite a dusty product due to the fillers used to fill in small swirl marks). I usually work a panel behind (due to our crappy climate - you don't wanna gett stuck with a load of polish on and it raining, the stuff will take ages to buff off). Working a panel behind means starting by polishing two panels and going back to buff the first one, then polish an additional panel and buff the second etc. This should reveal the shine.
If Luis Figo (No. 7 for Portugal) happens to be knocking around the garden, get him to take a photo of the shine
As Mr Myagi would say, wax on....
wax off....
Not bad for a product that costs about 12 euro and is applied by hand.
The paintwork is now in great shape, feeling like glass and ripe for some glazing or waxing protection to really bring out and maintain the shine.
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