DOH! rubbing compound messed me up!

GBUX · #1 (**permalink**) 05-23-2009, 06:25 PM

so i'd like to say im not good at body work. yea i guess that means i have to place trying to use rubbing compound, but i did. I was trying to remove a scratch left by a branch that fell on my car. It is very similar to a scratch you would get on a truck by driving through brush off roading, so i thought rubbing compound would do the trick. well i ended up dulling the finish in a silver dollar sized area. I tried to use standard turtle wax to no avail. I am not going to try anything else until i get some advice. What can I do to bring the luster back? Clay bar? some other type of detailing thing?

5altima0 · #2 (**permalink**) 05-23-2009, 08:58 PM

use a scratch remover compound, you can get it at autozone

GBUX · #3 (**permalink**) 05-23-2009, 09:38 PM

thank you! ill check it out!

5altima0 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-23-2009, 10:35 PM

your very welcome, its a turtle wax one

STownSaint · #5 (**permalink**) 05-26-2009, 01:46 PM

claybar only removes embedded contaminants (tar, dirt)

to restore a gloss finish, you have to work the clearcoat. chances are when you used the old stuff, you applied it wrong and it was too abrasive. turtle wax scratch remover most likely won't help you.

best case scenario, use dawn soap/IPA (isopropyl alcohol) to best clean the surface of the old compound, then try to use a light polish. worst case, wetsand and use a more aggressive polish.

good luck!

Smitty 3.5 · #6 (**permalink**) 06-07-2009, 08:03 AM

Same as STownSaint said, hand applied polishes and scratch removers will only mask the problem area, a machine applied cleaner is the only way to correct the damaged area.

Bravo · #7 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 06:57 PM

I'm in the same boat...I'm soo angry that I did this

I was attempting to buff out some scratches on my Smoke Metallic Altima, and ended up putting cloudy circles (about the size of tennis balls) all over the car.

STownSaint...you seem to know what you're talking about.

Quote:

best case scenario, use dawn soap/IPA (isopropyl alcohol) to best clean the surface of the old compound, then try to use a light polish. worst case, wetsand and use a more aggressive polish.

I can't risk making these spots worse (although I don't know if I could make them worse unless I removed the clear coat all together).

What kinds of polishes would you guys recommend? I know how to wetsand...but isn't that going to be more abrasive than the Heavy Duty Rubbing compound that I already used to screw it up? Even at 2000 grit, I would imagine that its more abrasive.

I'd like to see what I can do with a light polish. The cloudy are bad, but they could be worse (I suppose...trying to think positively now, haha).

Sooo...any recommendations on polish? I have Plastx plastic polish, but I'm 99.99% sure that I want to keep that away from painted surfaces (as it says on the bottle).

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Bravo · #8 (**permalink**) 06-15-2009, 01:12 AM

SOLUTION TO GBUX's PROBLEM (In case he's still looking for an answer):

Ok, fixed my problem

Went to AutoZone and grabbed a bottle of Meguiar's ScratchX 2.0 and a bottle of Meguiar's Mirror Glaze #7 Polish.

I ended up doing the entire hood for the heck of it, even though the bad spots on the hood were 4 tennis ball sized scuff marks.

I broke the hood down into 1ft x 1ft sections, first appliying the ScratchX 2.0 and then removing it. This looked good enough (the cloudy marks were gone).

I then did the same with the polish. I followed all of this with an application of Nu Finish.

It looks great to say the least. I think I'm going to do this to my entire car. It was time consuming, but I think I'll do one panel a day until it's done.