I bought a Black 07 FXDC a little over a week ago. The paint has some scratches and swirl marks in it. Does anyone know how to eliminate or at least minimize the damage? What products do you use? So far I just I washed it and then waxed it with Turtle Wax Ice.

 

McGuires scratch x is highly spoken of around here.

 

On mine, I use 3M Products exclusively, and I have a Makita Buffer-if you are going to do it by hand, I would start with a good washing, and then I use this:

http://www.autogeek.net/cleaner-clay.html

then, I use this:

http://www.autogeek.net/3m-scratch-remover-polish.html

then, I use this:

http://www.autogeek.net/3mimhanglaz.html

then, this:

http://www.autogeek.net/3m-liquid-wax.html

I do this at the start of the Season, and then I use Pledge for the rest of the Summer-if I have any more problems, Iwill start back at the beginning-a Black Paint job looks great when it's cared for correctly, but can quickly become a mess-

 

meguiar's M205 Ultra-Finishing polish and a solo diamond ultra finishing 7" pad on a Dewalt rotary. That's my weapon of choice followed by NXT 2.0 wax

 

good info!

 

All I could find was the Meguiar's Scratch X 2.0, so I gave it a shot. It did take some of the blemishes out. I'll keep looking, but the bike looks a lot better.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

 

Meguiars NXT Gen 2.0 Wax

Meguiars Swirl X

Scratch X 2.0

Those are three good products. Sounds like you picked up the bottom one already. Another really good product to put on a foam pad is the following

Meguiars M205 Ultra Finishing

SOLO Diamond Finishing Pad

3M makes some REALLY good products as well as stated earlier. The Harley Plants actually use all 3M products. Even though one bottle of everything I've listed above will run you a total of about $75-85, the same stuff that 3M offers would run you about $115 as their superfine polishing pad runs about $25 instead of $14 and their comparable product to M205 runs about $40-50 instead of $25-30.

Later and good luck,

BM

 

here's a little something from Mike at Meguiar's

Only work about 5 to 6 inches of the scratch at a time, first see if you can make a small section of it go away, then cookie-cutter your results over the rest of the scratch.

Not sure how deep this scratch is, but we've seen similar scratches that look as thought they were put in with a razor blade, so they are thin, but deep, in these case you cannot remove them at all.

When applying to remove a 5-6 inch section, use about a teaspoon of product, in your situation, better to use too much than too little. Spread the product out over the section your working, and move your applicator pad across the scratch, not in line with it, actually at an angel to it is a good practice. You can even rub in two different angles with repeated applications.

Rub using around 8 to 15 pounds of pressure to the pad and move you hand in a back and forth direction quickly, like you're a machine.

"Be the pad"

as Chevy Chase would say...

Apply until what starts out to be an opaque/whitish film turns to an oily looking film then remove. Don't pay any attention to the directions that direct you to let the product dry, these are wrong. See this article,

Then wipe off the residue and repeat until you done this at least 3 times. After each application and removal, inspect to see if you notice any improvement. If with each application it gets harder to see where you applied the product then continue until it's gone you feel to any further could go through the clear coat.

If you see absolutely no improvement after 3 applications, then the scratch is either very deep and you're actually improving it, (this means you're remove the paint surround the scratch but because the scratch is so deep you cannot and will not see any improvement).

Or

The paint is so hard that you cannot remove small particles of the paint by hand.

If you were nearby, we would love to have a go at it just because we love a challenge.
__________________
Mike Phillips
Meguiar's Online Administrator

 

I used Glare auto polish.
http://www.autopolish.net/ecart/products.asp
First the spider then the polish. Worked wonders
on my black Fatbob.