Polishing with Southern Shine - How Long Should It Take?

[Herm and Debby]

O.K. I finally bit the bullet and decided to polish our 1970 Tradewind even though my hubby thinks I'm absolutely crazy! He just stands there with a puzzled look on his face while I'm covered in green and black residue!!!

It took about 6 hours to strip the clearcoat using Klean-Strip from Home Depot. I was so excited about how well this part of the process went.

I'm using the polisher/sander from Harbor Freight, the 3M coarse wool pads and Southern Shine. I've attached two photos, the first showing the finish after stripping the clearcoat. The second shows the result after about two hours of polishing. There are still some imperfections but I didn't go in expecting to get an absolute mirror finish, just better than it was before. Here's my question, should it take this long (about two hours) just to get this much done? I was thinking the actual buffing process should go a little faster. Could I be doing something wrong? I've read the prior posts about polishing but I couldn't find any mention of the actual time it takes to achieve the results using SS. Any suggestions from the "experienced" polishers out there?

[Herm and Debby]

Oops, forgot the "after" photo. Here it is.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Debby
(aka Shrek - as my five year old so lovingly calls me! Sorry folks, no photos of me! too scary!)

[garry]

As you noticed you can get a "very" good shine with SS but not the professional look of Nuvite.
As for the time it takes, I found some areas went real fast and others took what seemed like hours and still had to be redone. A lot depends on how well you did the stripping.
I will caution you to wax ASAP after polishing as water streaks are very hard to polish out. I would polish a panel and then wax before going on to the next area.
If you find an area that just doesn't want to polish up like it should try restripping and repolish.

Best of luck....Mine is still looking good after one full year.

Garry

[Herm and Debby]

Garry, Thanks for the info. I did go over the panels with the other 3M pad then waxed. It's a good thing. It rained today. I haven't been over to see how the panels look with the wax but I'm glad I did.

Thanks,
Debby

[Jalina]

Garry,

We are getting ready to polish our's and I was just wondering do you reseal your after you waxed. Or will the seal even stick with the wax on?
Thanks
Jalina

[garry]

Originally Posted by Jalina

Garry,

We are getting ready to polish our's and I was just wondering do you reseal your after you waxed. Or will the seal even stick with the wax on?
Thanks
Jalina

Sorry I don't know what you mean by "reseal" ?

The procudure is strip off clearcoat, polish then wax.

There is a good thread called ~finally got started~ that has everything you would ever want to know about polishing. Several methods are used and links to other url's with additional information.

Garry