Cool Polishing

Adam Huber
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

Great write up by my friend Yvan Lacroix

When I started detailing we primarily worked on single stage paints. Back then heat, pressure and speed were the way to do it. Before Dual Action polishers, before coatings, and before clearcoat, we wielded heavy rotary “buffers” turning big wool pads at high speeds. The liquids we used ranged from thinly processed rocks in a bottle for cutting to basically talcum powder in kerosene for finishing.

Over the years many things have changed , we now use Dual Action polishers, we work on sophisticated water borne paints topped with high solids clearcoats. These are on substrates that are not just steel, today we have Aluminum, Fibreglass, Carbon fibre, and many types of plastics. Our polishing liquids are more sophisticated, with micro abrasives, water soluble carriers , and in the case of the Hyper Paint Correction System(HPCS) from Optimum Polymer Tecnologies, they are sprayable.

Despite all these advances some people correct paint as if they were still wearing bell bottom jeans, listening to disco, and with gold chains floating on their prominently displayed chest hair, in other words they polish like it was 1974. They use high pressure, excessive speed, too much product, and in doing so are damaging today’s heat sensitive paint systems and substrates. Not to mention working way too hard to get results they could get faster, with less mess, and with much less effort.

Today’s paint systems should never exceed 140f in polishing. Clearcoat is a plastic, and that heat causes it to break down. You may not see the effects of the damage today, but excessive heat does cause damage. I hear you saying, “wait a minute, a black car in the sun gets hotter than 140f”, true, but not in the same context. In the sun the panel heats and cools as one, slowly, uniformly, and the substrate below it also heats up. When polishing with excessive speed or pressure, this heat is generated quickly , and is done in a small concentrated area, by a machine that’s trying to rip the paint off the car.

When cool polishing you do so at a low machine speed, low arm speed, and only the weight of the tool. This combined with a self cooling pad, like a Waffle pad, keeps the surface cool, and allows the abrasive to cut faster, and cleaner. Back in the bell bottom pants days, if you wanted to cut faster you increased the speed of the machine, and put a little more pressure on it to get the job done. With modern polishing systems like Optimum’s Hyper Paint Correction System(HPCS), the opposite is true. When you create heat, it actually slows down the cutting abilities. Visualize an ice cube and a marshmallow, if you try sanding both, the ice will be easy to sand down, the marshmallow will just move under the sandpaper. When you create heat the paint softens and expands and the abrasives just roll around on the surface instead of cleanly cutting it.

Cool polishing has advantages for you the detailer. It requires less effort on your part to be there to simply guide the machine instead of putting your weight behind it, and forcing it on the paint. Slower machine speeds also mean less noise, and a more relaxed working environment. Creating less heat also means your polishes will have longer working times, and will create less dust.

For the paint the advantages are first less damage, second, with less heat comes less swelling, less swelling leads to less of the polishing oils and solvents( if your polishing liquids contain solvents) being injected into the pours of the paint. Finally your results will be more consistent and longer lasting. When solvents get injected into the paint they act like Botox. The botox effect fills the pours, not allowing the clear coat to return to it’s original state. Instead it stays swolen because the solvents are filling those pours. As the injected solvents get released the swelling goes down, and things like swirls, buffer trails, and micro marring re-appear.

Next time your polishing try reducing machine speed( 600rpm rotary, speed 3 DA) using less pressure, with a Waffle pad fresh from your pad washer , the results may surprise you.