How long to spend on a panel polishing

[Robti]

Hi I have a das6 with hex logic yellow pad and chemical guys v32 extreme compound, using it on an '03 ZTT in anthracite which looks as if it hasn't ever been polished.

So how long would you take to do say the bonnet on this ?, don't want to say I did a bonnet in 5 minutes when it should be 20 lol

Thanks

Robert

[Jordan Apex]

Depends on how good you want the finish? The answer is as long as it takes, some panels will be up to your desired finish in 2 passes, others may take a lot of work!

It takes about 15 minutes to completely cover an entire panel from my experience which is limited, doesn't mean it is done though. If you want perfection you'll need around 50 hours on the machine...

Oh and a bonnet should be classed as 4 panels when machine polishing, it's a lot of surface!

[Robti]

Originally Posted by Jordan Apex

Depends on how good you want the finish? The answer is as long as it takes, some panels will be up to your desired finish in 2 passes, others may take a lot of work!

It takes about 15 minutes to completely cover an entire panel from my experience which is limited, doesn't mean it is done though. If you want perfection you'll need around 50 hours on the machine...

Oh and a bonnet should be classed as 4 panels when machine polishing, it's a lot of surface!

Thanks Jordan
I know about splitting the bonnet down into suitable sized sections, so when you say as a start to spend about 15 minutes a panel does this mean 15 for a bonnet or if I split it into 4, 15 minutes a section so 1 hour for a bonnet.

I know that it will take a lot more in the future but for a start would this do

Thanks

Robert

[Jordan Apex]

An hour or so for the bonnet in total, but again it is very subjective, it might only need half hour because it improves very quickly or wasn't bad to start with or it comes up well enough for you to be happy with.

I don't go for perfection, takes a serious time investment for that and you have to have quite the skill level to get it there! Rear quarters have always taken me less time as they seem to improve quicker than other panels, but that's just what I've noticed on the 4 cars I've done so definitely not guaranteed!

[Supervinnie40]

Just to add:
There are SMAT polishes and DAT polishes.

SMAT polishes are finer, but keep cutting. If you spent 15 minutes making a checkered board, you will have 15 minutes of polishing.

DAT polishes degrade. After 10 minutes orso the polishes has deminished so much that there is nothing left. So 15 minutes of polishing won't give anything more then 10 minutes (give or take) of polishing.

If you have a rough area that needs a lot of correcting, the SMAT is better. Because it will keep polishing as long as you keep using the machine.
If you only have to do a touch up, you can just use DAT and finish with a better finish, because the polish gets finer and finer after longer use.

[Jordan Apex]

Oh yeah forgot about that! I use smat and don't have any dat and never used it so I forget sometimes