Polishing pastes for cars: types, purpose

2024 Author: Erin Ralphs | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-19 11:41

One car wash is not enough to keep your car clean. In order to get a shiny paintwork that will last a long time in good condition, you need to polish the body. This can be done manually or with a machine. However, regardless of the method chosen, a polishing material (paste) is necessarily used in the work. In today's article, we will look at the types of car polishing pastes and their features.

Varieties of materials

At the moment there are several varieties of this car cosmetics. Polishing paste for cars happens:

• Wax.
• Coloured.
• Protective (with the addition of Teflon).
• Restorative (abrasive).

What are the features of each of them? Below we will look at these polishing pastes in detail forcars.

Wax

They are a colorless polish containing wax. This type of paste does not have pronounced protective properties. However, thanks to the wax, this composition is able to give the paintwork a deep shine. It is universal.

This polishing paste is suitable for metal and plastic. Able to hide scratches and other cosmetic defects on the body. Can be applied by hand or with a sander using a felt wheel.

Color enriched

Their key feature is the presence of colored pigments, which give the bodywork a more vibrant look. There are polishing pastes for different body colors. But they operate on the same principle. For example, on a black car, they make the paintwork deeper and more saturated.

White color-enriched polish will return the snow-white look to the old car. This composition also perfectly hides scratches and other minor defects on the body. However, as experience shows, this polishing paste has a shorter effect than the previous one. As for the scope of application, this composition is universal. Color rich polishing paste suitable for both plastic and metal. However, it does not create any visible transition when processing, for example, plastic bumpers and iron fenders.

Protective

As we said earlier, they contain Teflon. When applying such a polishingpaste on the body begins the reaction with the top layer of paint. This allows you to create a durable protective coating. In addition, these polishing pastes produce a long lasting effect. After application to the body, such a coating is kept on the surface from three months to six months. In this case, the layer is difficult to wash off with a high pressure washer. Also, dirt lingers less on such a body, which is a definite plus.

Abrasive

This type of polish is worth talking about in more detail. What are the features of these pastes? The key difference from all of the above is the presence of small abrasive particles. When applied to the body (during rubbing the paste), they peel off the top layer by a few microns. This composition will smooth out minor scratches and other defects on the body. Thus, this abrasive paste does not mask irregularities, but eliminates them. But everything has a limit. It is no longer possible to remove deep scratches that have reached the primer layer without painting. By the way, with the help of such a paste, you can remove the streaks formed after an unsuccessful garage painting.

Note that such a polish is selected strictly according to the type of paintwork. So, for bodies with a metallic color, there are special polishing pastes. On their label is the following inscription: Metallic Finish Restorer, which translates as "restorer of surfaces painted in metallic color."

What are the pitfalls of such a paste? Experts say that it should not be used often. Since the material peels off the paint of a certainthickness, with frequent use, bald spots may appear. It is impossible to remove them with the help of even the most expensive color-enriched polish (only painting). Therefore, motorists use such a composition no more than once every five years.

By the way, you can apply this paste locally on the body. In this way, we will maintain the thickness of the undamaged paintwork material. But after all the processing, you still have to cover the body with a regular polish (for example, wax).

Automotive optics polish

Among the assortment of car chemicals, you can also notice polishing paste for headlights. It is intended to restore yellowed plastic. Since the glass for the headlights of most cars is made from this material, this polish is very relevant. However, if the coating has deep defects, it is recommended to additionally treat the area with abrasive compounds.

How to apply headlight polish?

Before applying this paste to the head optics, you need to make a number of preparatory measures. First, thoroughly wash and then degrease both headlights with white spirit or anti-silicone. Then, unnecessary areas are pasted over with masking tape. These are the bumper, grille and wing edge. The hood can be raised during the operation (so as not to waste time on pasting it).

Next, surface grinding is performed. This should be done with fine-grained sandpaper. It is necessary to process the headlight by regularly wetting it with water. The thickness of the sandpaper should be P1200-1500. Before grinding, it is recommended to soak it in water for five minutes. When processing, you need to make cross movements. You need to clean it with short movements in order to exclude large scratches. Rinse off the remaining plastic with plenty of water.

After that, the restoring paste is applied. It must be applied to the polishing wheel. The latter should be clean and slightly moist (so that the paste does not dry out prematurely). Then we turn on the grinder and keep the circle strictly parallel to the site in order to avoid streaks. You need to start working at low speeds so that the paste is evenly distributed over the headlight. The rotational speed should not exceed 2.5 thousand revolutions per minute. At a higher value, the material will heat up. This is harmful both to plastic and to the material itself (it will simply dry out). At the end of the work, you need to rinse the surface with water and remove the masking tape. That's it, the work on restoring the car's optics is completed.

Conclusion

So, we found out what types of polishing pastes are. As you can see, the range is very large and each composition has its own scope. What to choose an ordinary motorist? If the goal is simply to give the car a better look, you can use wax-based compounds or color-enriched polishes. But with abrasive should be careful.