Has that panel ever been repainted? The only time I've ever seen sanding marks under the clearcoat was from a poorly prepped paint job.

 

Scratches should not be "under" the clear coat... when clear coat is applied, it will fill in the profile of the surface beneath it, therefore if a scratch is in the base coat, it will be filled with clear coat and perhaps leave an uneven finish on the surface.

AGAIN... photos would be extremely helpful here. As someone who has photographed defects in paint for many years, I can tell you that if you manipulate your lighting and camera settings properly, you can capture any type of paint flaw on camera.

Also, as I had mentioned earlier,
It seems you are still using the same product and pad combination... you bumped up the machine speed and saw better results, and now it is time to change something else... ie use more pressure, make more passes, use a more aggressive pad and/or product. Fast Correcting Cream has some serious defect removal, so I would recommend a microfiber or wool cutting pad at maximum speed on the porter cable.

Microfiber Cutting Pad
Wool Cutting Pad

Make 4-6 overlapping passes at SLOW arm speed. I would do this once, check my results, and if needed, do it a second time. If after the 2nd time the defects remain, I personally would not give them any more thought. I don't like to wetsand OEM clear, and if I cannot get a defect out of the paint after 2 heavier cutting attempts, then I consider it to be a permanent defect that is not worth chasing at the risk of compromising the clear coat, or at the very least degrading the clear coat beyond it's intended thickness.


-Zach

 

No. Never. The car has 6K miles on it. I bought it new.

 

Wow, thank you again. I tam using Griots fast cream with both the orange and yellow hex pads.

 

You're welcome... I know that you are using the orange and yellow pads as it has been mentioned many times in the thread. What I am suggesting is that you use a more aggressive pad as those pads are clearly not "cutting it" (pun intended )

-Zach

 

Zach, how do the carpro flash pads compare to the lake country wool and mf cutting pad?

 

Just ordered some microfiber pads.

 

In my brief testing with the Flash Pads, I found them to cut nicely and also finish down relatively well. My major complaint about them was that due to their exceptional stiffness, they were difficult to work with on contoured/curvy panels. I ultimately didn't love them for that reason and therefore never integrated them into our workflow. We used microfiber cutting pads 99% of the time when dong heavier corrections.

Wool pads were our heavy hitters when we needed them (again, 99% of the time microfiber was what we used). Wool had the cutting power, but required some more refinement than microfiber typically did.... which is to be expected with added cut.

-Zach

 

Interesting, I've only had a chance to try flash pads on 1 car, and I loved them enough to order it in different sizes to replace my MF pads. I do agree that they're harder to work with on curved panels, but the cut and finish was enough for me to want to switch.

I was using the buff and shine MF pads, but I felt like the finish with the flash pad was nicer. I'll have to try the LC ones in the future.

I've only attempted to use wool a handful of times and that was over 10 years ago. I never got comfortable using it (probably because I was learning how to use a rotary at the same time).

 

MF pads took 90% of the scratches out. I highly recommend!

 

Great to hear!

-Zach

 

Yeah, it really worked like a charm. The ones that didnt come out fully, are less noticeable, but they look deeper then I thought.