Dealing with fine scratches

Dealing with fine scratches

Author
Discussion

Jarrett

Original Poster:

100 posts

285 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
quotequote all
Been a bit lazy recently and have been using the local jetwash to get the muck off the Tuscan. Consequently I have a lot of fine scratches in the paintwork where the hose was smacked against it. None of them have gone through the paint but you can see them clearly on bright sunny days like today.

Anybody know of a wonder product for smoothing them out? Haven't had to do this before on a Tiv or for a very long time and I guess that there are better things than T-Cut around these days?

Any help would be gratefully received.

plotloss

67,280 posts

271 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
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There are some waxes and polishes that are designed to remove fine lacquer scratches (Nubbin I think posted the name of it on another thread).

As far as cutting compounds go there are many that are a lot lot lot better than T-Cut. The G Series cutting compounds I have used in the past are very very good but pricey and you need to be very careful as its not overly difficult to rub straight through! Last time I looked a pot of G3 (relatively heavy) and the 3M machine polish that goes with it (which you can use by hand) was about £30. The important thing when using these is dont let it go dry - it doesnt come off!

Matt.

TivHead

6,071 posts

267 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
quotequote all
Yes, stay away from T-Cut, there IS better out there. Although I don't know EXACTLY what you should use, Zymol is a nice product.
I had 'swirl-marks' on my Griff after using Auto Glym to wax it. So I tried Zymol, and hey presto no more swirls. I imagine there is something in their range you could use.
P.s- its not cheap.(Although the stuff I bought was from Halfords at around 7 quid, still good though.)

Cheers
Ged

trefor

14,635 posts

284 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
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FinesseIT from 3M is the best thing I've found. Works very well on our other cars - My Cosmos Blue Chimaera doesn't seem to show the scratches in the same way so I just wax that.

sixspeed

2,060 posts

273 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
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Zymol HD-Cleanse product is a good mild abrasive. You want to start with the least-abrasive product as possible, and work your way up from there. The G3 stuff sounds a bit too harsh. Try some HD-Cleanse and see how you go with that. If thats no good, move up to the Finesse-It product from 3M..


-andy-

tvrheart

285 posts

277 months

Wednesday 27th March 2002
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If you use one of these 'guaranteed we will make your scratches vanish' products, test it on a discrete area first. As other people have said they basically work due to their abrasive properties, so as you rub away at your scratch you are rubbing away at all the perfectly good paintwork around it, even if it may only be the size of a 2 pence peice. What can happen once you've finished, when you catch the body panel in a certain light you can see quite clearly exactly where each and every scratch was by the 'blob' shaped mark left by this rubbing motion - If you get what I mean! I've seen this on several cars in dealers showrooms under their bright lights.
You have to decide what looks worse, a little scratch or no scratch but a slightly dulled patch.
Not saying these products are a waste, just that they aren't magic.
Hope this helps,
Chris