What’s in your Polish? All are not created equal

Most detailers have probably had a debate with somebody, at some point in time, what the best polish is out there. The same holds true with waxes. People are always debating who has the best polish or wax. These debates are sometimes fun and entertaining with detailers claiming that they have, know of, or use the best polish out there and they can make a paint surface look absolutely perfect with their skills and the aid of the product. There are many variables that go into making a paint surface look its absolute best, and all are very important to consider before even discussing the product being used.

Buffing to perfection

There are many things that need to be considered to make a paint surface look as perfect as possible. The type of buffer being used is one. A rotary or high speed buffer should be used if total paint correction is required. This machine will be more aggressive, but also correct the paint much better than the orbital machines and do it far faster. The buffer speed must be carefully chosen as well. If the speed is too high, you will over-heat the clear coat, soften it up too much and this will lead to harsher swirl marks, marring, and even burning of the clear coat. The type of pad is critical as well. If a pad is too aggressive, it will haze and mar the paint surface regardless of how great the buffing product is. The pressure used when buffing a paint surface is very important. Too much pressure will over-correct and lead to swirls and other problems. However, not enough pressure will basically be equivalent to just smearing the product around and not doing much of anything. In addition, the type of clear coat being worked on will add to the way the surface will look when done. On softer, more sensitive clear coats the buffing process will seem more aggressive. On harder, scratch resistant clear coats you will need to be a little more aggressive with everything to obtain your desired results.

So as you probably already know, buffing a paint surface is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Many detailers do it extremely well and many struggle. Your skill and knowledge of everything involved in the process will go a long way toward a perfect paint finish, but the one variable I did not yet mention, and it is a huge part of the process, is the product you are using and what has gone into it which will help make the paint surface shine to a mirror like finish.

The product is THE most important part in buffing

Without a buffing product you would not be able to correct a paint surface. Wax alone is NOT a buffing product. It only gives protection to the paint surface. If you are using wax to exponentially give the paint an added gloss, you simply are not buffing the paint surface properly, or the buffing product is not that good. So, let’s clarify the buffing product categories and see what each one can accomplish before we look at what actually makes a great buffing product.

Compounds

A compound will do the heavy correction. These products are designed to “cut” deeply into the paint surface and “shave” it down and remove imperfections. I have always equated what buffing products do, especially compounds, to a Zamboni machine on an ice surface. I look at compounding today’s clear coats as being similar to the way they resurface the ice between periods of a hockey game. The Zamboni machine “shaves” the ice and removes the deep marks and imperfections made by the skates. Then a thin layer of water is laid down on top of the ice, and the water re-flows into the ice. It then re-freezes, and you are left with a fresh surface. The same is done while buffing. The abrasives “shave” away the imperfection and the heat created while buffing “re-flows” the clear coat giving it an increased gloss. Compounds however are not designed as the final step in the buffing process. The paint surface will still remain a bit hazed and cloudy after a compounding step. The abrasives in compounds are too big and too sharp to leave the paint perfect. To create a perfect paint surface, the polish will always be the key product.

Polishes

A polish is a much lighter buffing product but will still perform light to medium paint correction. A polish will also give the paint surface the brilliance it may have been missing and the perfect gloss that every customer and every detailer desires. Don’t mistake a “glaze” for a polish. A glaze does not have any correctional capability. It will leave a great shine and possibly mask some remaining imperfections, so be careful if you use a product like this.

Waxes/paint sealants

Waxes and paint sealants will spark the most debate on issues like gloss and protection and which wax is the best. But many detailers miss the point. If you are seeing a dramatic difference in the finish after applying your wax or paint sealant, you probably did not do a good enough job in preparing the paint. Concentrate more on the other areas of paint correction and this step will not be a huge area of concern. You should not see much of a difference after applying your wax or paint sealant. The best polishes out there will give you what you need as far as overall paint appearance.

This is why THE most important product that you have and you should concentrate on is your polish. You will not need a compound on all cars and since compounding is not your final step, it’s not the most important product. Again, the wax is for protection only and should not significantly add to the gloss if you have polished the paint surface correctly. Therefore, my biggest concern is always the polish and how good it is. A great polish will make your life a whole lot easier and make the cars look like brand new. Let’s look at why this is so, what a great polish will do, and what goes into a great polish.

Perfection?

A few years ago, I was contacted by David Ghodoussi the President of Optimum Polymer Technologies. We embarked on adding buffing products to his overall line. We created the polish as our first project and it’s turned out to be fantastic product that is one of the best in the industry. We recently developed a brand new version that’s even better because we kept working and seeking perfection. But why is one product better than another? Aren’t all polishes the same? Won’t they all perform? You may think to just buy the cheapest one from a local distributor, or go with a well known name and assume that it’s the best. You may think that its only the skill of the detailer that goes into buffing a car, and that the wax is the most important product and polishes are just a prelude to the wax and it does not make a difference. You must start paying more attention to a polish and what to look for in its performance.

Perfection in any endeavor is very difficult. Only the most special people reach perfection in anything that they do. Certain performers in shows, musicians, athletes, Presidents, and of course, we detailers, all have off days. It’s normal and assumed that perfection may never be attained. So it figures that no product will ever be perfect and perform flawlessly on each and every car, each and every time.

In making a buffing product, most notably a polish, its almost impossible…..Almost! There are certain things that a polish MUST do to be called perfect, or as close to perfect as possible. I have always been very demanding in any product I purchase because I want the vehicle to look its absolute best and I want to be able to get the job done in an efficient manner. In making our new polish, I gave David specifications from technical points of view that were needed in the product. He was up for the challenge from a chemist perspective so we started working again. But my list was long and we had to achieve all the points or we would not have a perfect product.

What to look for

There are certain criteria I demand in a polish, and a buffing product for that matter, and it must meet each and every one of the specified items to be considered a truly great polish. Here is what I demand in a polish

1. The polish must work as advertised. We advertise that our polish will be able to remove up to 1200 grit sand scratches with a wool pad. That makes it fairly aggressive. However we also know that it will finish off near flawlessly. This covers a wide range but if you claim that a polish can do these things, the customer will expect nothing less.
2. The polish should have a fairly long working time. This means that it should not evaporate and go away with just a couple of buffing passes. If the product dries too quickly, you end up dry buffing. This can cause abnormal swirling, hazing of the clear coat, clogging of the pad, and possibly burning of the paint. There always must be a barrier of product between the paint surface and the pad to buff correctly and do a great job.
3. There should be NO dusting. This is a pet peeve of mine and this wastes time and makes a mess on the vehicle. A great polish will NOT create dust.
4. The polish must create a great shine and gloss. Regardless of its correction capabilities, it must leave a flawless shine behind. This makes any remaining buffing steps easier and faster.
5. The polish must be able to work on all paint systems. There are many types of clear coat that are now being used, as well as the older, single stage paint systems that you still may encounter. There is no need to have a polish for all these paints. A great polish will work on all paint systems.
6. The polish must be able to work with ALL buffers. It must be able to be used with a rotary buffer as well as an orbital buffer and accomplish the same things. There is never a need for a polish that will only work with a specific buffer.
7. The polish must work with ALL speeds on a buffer. Buffing at high speeds generally is not recommended, but for detailers that choose a higher speed the polish must still work. If a detailer chooses a slower speed such as 1000 RPM, the polish must still be able to do its job even though there will be less friction and heat created.
8. The polish must be able to work with ALL buffing pads. It should work well with a wool pad for more correction and still be smooth, and it must be able to work with all the different foam pads that are now available.
9. The polish should stay where it’s put. It should not be too watery and run down the side of the car. It should stay where it’s put and not dry up. If you place a stripe of polish horizontally on a side panel, it should stay right there. This makes the entire buffing process proceed much faster with far less mess.
10. The polish should not clog the buffing pad. If you use foam pads almost exclusively, you do not want to keep cleaning the pad or changing pads because they get too clogged. Clogged pads will also cause “buffer bounce” which is annoying and potentially dangerous.
11. The polish has to wipe off easily. After working hard to remove paint imperfections, you do not want to struggle and rub too hard into the paint to get the product off the car. The residue left behind should never dry and harden too much.
12. The polish cannot splatter all over. Some polishes liquefy when heat is created and then they will spray and splatter all over. This creates a huge mess and lots of clean-up after you are done buffing. The polish should have a good consistency and keep that consistency no matter how long you spend buffing an area.
13. Last, but certainly not least, the polish should either leave behind very light swirls if you are being very aggressive with it, such as using it with a wool pad to remove imperfections. However, if you are using it to “remove” swirl marks it must be able to eliminate them, not just fill them in or hide them. The finish should be swirl free and perfect when the polishing steps are completed.

 

So, as you can see, I have 13 specifications that needed to be met in creating a great polish. In our long and exhaustive testing to accomplish this feat, we finally were able to meet every one of these items.

Abrasives

The main “ingredient” to look at in a polish is the abrasive. The type of abrasive, the size, hardness and the shape will determine what that polish will ultimately do to the paint surface.

The larger the abrasive, the more aggressive it will be on the paint surface. In terms of size of the abrasive particles, they are measured in “microns” which is a metric unit of measurement. A micron equals one thousandth of a millimeter. Can’t gage how small that is? Well, an average human hair is 50 microns thick. The abrasive size in some polishes may be 7 microns, 5 microns, 3 microns or less. This is why with today’s polishes you can rub the product between your fingers and never feel the abrasives. This is no longer the gage of determining how gritty or course the polish is. You will never feel the difference between a 7 micron abrasive and 3 micron abrasive on your fingers, but you will see the difference on the paint surface.

The particle shape also makes a difference in how aggressive the product is. An abrasive shaped like a diamond or spur with many pointed edges will be far more aggressive than a round or spherical abrasive. Sometimes even the smallest size abrasive may still have sharp, biting edges and can still behave aggressively. So size does matter, but the shape plays an important role in the aggressiveness of a product. Then there are products that have “diminishing” abrasives which means they actually break down, diminish in size, and turn far less aggressive as more passes are made with the buffer. The “hardness” of an abrasive also makes a huge difference. An abrasive that is extremely hard will mar and cut the paint more than an abrasive that is softer and will break down while buffing.

Some common examples of abrasives are as follows: Aluminum oxide, Kaopolite, Tripoli and Diatomaceous earth, just to name a very few. Even within these categories there are many different types of abrasives. Combine these with their size, shape and hardness you can quickly see that there can be so many different polishes that will do so many different things to a paint surface.

 

I have some of these raw abrasives that I show detail students in my classes. When you open the container and shake some out onto a piece of paper, the abrasives look anything but abrasive. They all look and feel like powder. Even when you pick them up and rub them between your fingers, you will not feel much grit. However, when you take any of these abrasives and rub them onto the paint, they will most certainly scratch, mar and haze the surface. Finding the correct abrasive can prove to be almost impossible. All will work to some degree but if you are looking for perfection, it’s very difficult to find the right one.

The recipe

Once you think that you have the correct abrasive for the product, putting it together is another project. Making sure a polish formula is stable and mixed correctly with the proper solvents, oils, water, and any other kind of additives is a very tricky situation. If you have ever used a polish that has given you a hard time while buffing and left the paint surface not looking its absolute best, it’s probably far from the best polish out there. In working with the dozens of polish samples that we made in trying to create the new polish, I usually found something I did not like. I had to carefully explain to David what the polish was doing and he had to make adjustments. Sometimes the adjustments he made were so minute in terms of a small percentage of an ingredient that I thought would be miniscule and ineffective, but it helped the product overall get to where I needed it to be. We often found that adding agents and additives or removing something helped the formula. We also found that combining different abrasives sometimes either helped or hurt the formula. We changed percentages of ingredients back and forth to dial it in. The changes we made were mostly very small but made a huge difference in how the polish performed.

Can I make my own polish?

We have all probably done this before. We have taken some of this, some of that, mixed them in another bottle and made what we thought was the perfect polish. It just doesn’t work this way and it’s not recommended. Don’t be a “bathtub chemist”! Mixing your own concoction just wont work. Ingredients that were made for one product may not blend well with another product. Abrasives may clump together and produce a much more aggressive product than you may have thought. Solvents may not be compatible and the product may separate. I cringe when guys tell me that they make their own products. Don’t do it!

The bottom line is that there are many good polishes available that will work well. However, to create absolute perfection in a polish, there are hundreds of hours of testing and development and dozens upon dozens of samples to get it there.

How to objectively test

Forget the brand names and forget all the technical stuff I just talked about. The way to judge a polish is by the 13 specifications I have given that are based on ease of use and performance. But to really check to see which polish does the best job you have to have certain controls in place if you decide to test for yourself.

You need to work with the same kind of buffing pad for each polish you want to test. The pad should be fully clean to start. You must be working with the same buffer and work it at the same speed for each test sample and use the same buffing pressure. You must be working on the same paint surface and on a dark color. I do all my testing on a black clear coat that is soft in nature so I can see everything that is happening to the paint surface. I also do all my tests side by side and I tape off the area where one sample ends and the next sample begins. I also place the same imperfections in the panel. If I am testing the level of aggressiveness I put a certain grade of sand scratch in the panel side by side. But they are equal so I can judge which sample does better. If I am testing to see how well the sample will remove swirl marks, I buff the entire area evenly with a pad and other product that I know will leave swirl marks behind in the paint surface. I buff in these swirls equally on both sides of the test area.

Once my controls are set, I start to test the samples.

I test sample “A” right next to sample "B” and then I really start to look closely. I used to just look with the naked eye. But as the samples get better and more similar to each other, that method is not accurate. I used to take my test panel out in the direct sunlight and look at the results. But some days the sun is out bright. Some days it may be poking in and out of the clouds. And never is it at the same angle in the sky every single time. And of course some days there is no direct sunlight. So this is not a good control.

What I use now is a very special light that simulates direct sunlight and I shine it directly over my test panel and I move it around and carefully look to see what each sample has accomplished. I turn ALL other lights off in my shop and only use my special test light. Now I can control the angle and the height of the light and I shine it over both test areas and I can see which sample is better.

As we made our new polish samples better and better, even this testing was difficult. I looked for marring of the clear coat, any hazing, any swirl marks left behind, and the level of gloss. Sometimes there was a distinct difference but as we got closer to a more perfect polish, I drove myself nuts trying to compare. But this really is the only way to objectively test anything. I not only tested our samples side by side, but I tested our better and best samples against the other leading polishes side by side and judged objectively. In the beginning, sometimes we did not win the test. You have to be hard on yourself and your own polish and put it up against the very best.

In the end, all the hard work was well worth it, not only in creating a great polish but in learning all the things that go into making a polish, the chemistry involved, and how monumentally difficult it really is. So, if somebody tells you that they are using the “BEST” polish out there, ask them how they came to that conclusion. Ask them how they tested it and if it meets all of the 13 criteria that I have given in this article. If you need to conduct some of these tests yourself to find the best polish, it’s worth the trouble. Your customers will be happy you did.