Cannot buff to good gloss

I believe the Megs 105 had fillers in it as well, which is why I switched to the M-100.

In the past when I have had to buff rock hard clear coat. I found the sanding steps to be critical. Got to have everything sanded to 2000 or above. Then using a twisted wool pad with a quality cutting compound start slow just to keep the splatter down and then crank that baby up to 2000 or more RPMs and move slowly across the surface and working a small area at a time. This might blister a softer clear but the hard stuff needs the increased heat IMHO.

If you are going to reclear the car then I would clean it well and then wet sand with 600 grit on a soft block to dull the surface. Some guys will use a Scotchbrite pad to dull which is fine, I just prefer to wetsand it. If you have orange peel you will want to cut it flat prior to shooting your new clear.
 
The question that started this is we used a cheap clear, it got too hard and wont buff to gloss, you have buffed for days, it wont come back, kind of what the original poster is going thru. It sounds like only the 3m stuff is being blamed to stay on the car, so I would assume you are wax and grease removing and scuffing, like a maroon or gray pad at minimum or are you scuffing the whole car. I always see like the sail panel between the quarters that have that gap painted that you usually cannot get into very well and going too coarse you have a chance to take the base off the edges.

No, that wasn't my original question. My question was why can't I get this to buff out shiny like I used to be able to, and questioned a number of variables, wondering if my compound had gone bad perhaps.

Here is an update to this thread--the issue wasn't the clear at all, nor my Chemical Guys compounds going bad, it was the POS CHEAP ASS Gold Label sanding discs I wanted to use AND a little bit of not starting with the V32 compound because somebody was borrowing it.

The next problem was, while I didn't use any 3M compounds (don't own any), I read some bad info on their Perfect-It system page and went 1500 to 3000. Something I never do but tried this time. Big mistake, paid for it. That shitty 1500 paper put so many pig tails I couldn't get them out to save my life even after walking up through the other grits.

I scuffed the entire cart down with 600 wet, recleared with 2 coats. Here's the part that will blow your mind--once I went back to how I've always done it, using the materials I normally always use, it buffed out beautifully. What a concept! Ditched the trash sanding discs, started off with my Meguiar's paper and worked up through every grit like I normally do, then finished it with 3000 Trizact which is not even in the same class as that shit Gold Label 3000 I was trying.

Then I hit it with my V32 again and it buffed out awesome, then buffed with V34 and polished with V38.

Conclusion: Shitastic sand paper and poor method to blame here. Correcting both of these, clear still buffed out great, I got great results. It never pays to try to cut corners from what you know works. Could have saved myself a lot of time had I stuck to my normal protocol.
 

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Here's what I do, and learned this from Shine years ago. It's a lot of work but it works well.

Severity of correction determines the grit I'm starting with, for level light peel starting with 1500 works well.

I use Meguiars UniGrit sandpaper. They just label it, they aren't actually making it.

Grits always in this order, depending on where you start: 1000-1200-1500-2000-2500-Trizact 3000-V32 compound on orange Lake Country foam. After this step I have been jumping straight to V38 polish on black Lake Country Foam, when I could not notice any difference using the V34 and 36 compounds and polishes in between.

My 1200 paper is Indasa and that is really nice paper too, I think it might be a little cheaper than the UniGrit. My block sanding paper is also Indasa.
 
one thing to take note of here is the sandpaper. it makes a big difference. there is a difference between regular paper and a finishing film paper meant for color sanding. a finishing film grit wont be super sharp and cut deep. for its grit size is will cut much more shallow and buff easier. IF you are using a good finishing film on a da with a soft pad, you can end with 1500 then goto 3000 trizact no problem. trizact is a different animal and cant really be compared to regular paper. this is actually 3m's "system". there are no grits between. if you told me you were jumping from wet/dry 1500 to wet/dry 3000 then i would say no way in hell.
 
No, that wasn't my original question. My question was why can't I get this to buff out shiny like I used to be able to, and questioned a number of variables, wondering if my compound had gone bad perhaps.

Here is an update to this thread--the issue wasn't the clear at all, nor my Chemical Guys compounds going bad, it was the POS CHEAP ASS Gold Label sanding discs I wanted to use AND a little bit of not starting with the V32 compound because somebody was borrowing it.

.

So you sanded the bad clear that could not buff, then recleared with the same Urekem products with the exact same time frame between spraying the clear and buffing?
 
So you sanded the bad clear that could not buff, then recleared with the same Urekem products with the exact same time frame between spraying the clear and buffing?

I resanded the clear with 600 and went over it with another 2 coats of the same clear. There was approximately a week interval clearing and buffing in both instances.

The issue here was exactly what Jim said. I was not using sanding film. Once I started using my sanding film it worked great. The clear and compound were fine.

Wish I knew the difference with the sandpaper before this. That was a tough lesson.
 
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