2Shiny
01-25-2006, 09:51 AM
Many people don't know the difference between swirls (a.k.a. swirl marks) and scratches.
Swirls look like this: (worst swirls I've ever had to work on)
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/511/SwirlsPSQP_lower.JPG
They are tiny scratches that are uniformly distributed across a large area, often the entire vehicle. If someone has poor washing methods on one section, they're going to use the same poor method on the whole vehicle, and thus create tiny scratches relatively uniformly on the entire vehicle. In this case, they were so unbelieveably numerous that the scratches actually appear to be complete circles around the light source. Swirls are actually tiny, straight-line scratches. Whether you wash/wax in circles or not, you can still produce swirls. This was my dad's minivan, and to wash it, he had always used a sponge from the basement sink, some dishwashing detergent or laundry detergent, and let it air dry. Needless to say, it was severely swirled all over, and hard water spots were very numerous.
A scratch is an isolated bit of damage to the paint. Such as these:
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/Scratch2.JPG
After polishing the van with Poorboy's SSR3 compound via rotary polisher, and then following with 2 rounds of SSR2.5 via Porter-Cable 7424, I was able to come up with this:
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/No_ScratchHere.JPG
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/SwirlsGonePSQP.JPG
Everyone was happy except my dog, who noticed another dog staring back at him, one that looked very familiar... LOL
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/Dog.JPG
Swirls look like this: (worst swirls I've ever had to work on)
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/511/SwirlsPSQP_lower.JPG
They are tiny scratches that are uniformly distributed across a large area, often the entire vehicle. If someone has poor washing methods on one section, they're going to use the same poor method on the whole vehicle, and thus create tiny scratches relatively uniformly on the entire vehicle. In this case, they were so unbelieveably numerous that the scratches actually appear to be complete circles around the light source. Swirls are actually tiny, straight-line scratches. Whether you wash/wax in circles or not, you can still produce swirls. This was my dad's minivan, and to wash it, he had always used a sponge from the basement sink, some dishwashing detergent or laundry detergent, and let it air dry. Needless to say, it was severely swirled all over, and hard water spots were very numerous.
A scratch is an isolated bit of damage to the paint. Such as these:
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/Scratch2.JPG
After polishing the van with Poorboy's SSR3 compound via rotary polisher, and then following with 2 rounds of SSR2.5 via Porter-Cable 7424, I was able to come up with this:
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/No_ScratchHere.JPG
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/SwirlsGonePSQP.JPG
Everyone was happy except my dog, who noticed another dog staring back at him, one that looked very familiar... LOL
http://autopia.org/gallery/data/500/Dog.JPG