Removing Scratches from your Car

Hey, we are talking about scratches in this segment and when you are dealing with a scratch on a vehicle there is a couple of ways to address it. If it is very light and superficial, you can sometimes remove the entire scratch by hand with a moderately aggressive compound. Most of the time, I address scratches with the same orbital that I used to apply wax. This particular machine is a professional machine that has a variety of speeds. On the maximum speed setting it is rotating at about 3000 rpm and with a proper pad and compound combination, I can remove some serious scratches without harming the paint. You can also use a buffer, but a buffer requires a lot of skill and a great deal of care because you can actually burn through the paint. I always use a dedicated pad for each product; don’t mix products on the pad, so with this example I am using a pad that is just for this moderate compound that I am using. Apply the compound to the scratch and again this is on its very highest speed. So start the process with the pad flat on the surface and don’t put too much pressure on the edge immediately. You are going to use that technique to actually get the scratch out but you need to have the orbital running before you tilt it up. Never let the surface of the pad just dwell in one area, keep it moving constantly. Even though this is spinning at a relatively slow speed compared to a buffer, you can still make a mark on the paint if you just let the pad rest on the area that you are working on without moving it back and forth. After you have removed the majority of the scratch with the compound, I usually use a three or four step method to ensure that the result is of high quality and after a compound I almost always use a slow remover, which is basically just a lighter compound, very little grip, very little abrasion and again we remove the pad that we have used with a compound and we apply another new pad that we are going to use with this slow remover. Basically the same technique is used; we go ahead and apply the product and again we want to start with a pad flat. When you are using the second step with the slow remover, it is not necessary to tilt the pad. Go ahead and just apply wax and again we are using the same orbital but we have turned it down to a more moderate speed and there you have it, the scratch is gone."

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