T Cut discolour

[ktclm06]

Now I know why they advise to test before you apply.....damn!.

Used T Cut on a bonnet scratch this morning and I now have a discoloured patch where he damned stuff was applied.

Nightmare.

I've re polished which has slightly improved the situation but.......

Is there a rescue? or have dropped an almighty clanger.

Suggestions appreciated. Please.......

[dhdove]

T-cut the entire bonnet?
But then, will it match the wings.......
Hmmm
T cut the whole car?
TonyS

[Brakebuster]

we need more details

is the car a solid colour, is it lacquered , was the scratch in the paint or the lacquer etc etc

was this ' proper ' T-cut or another brand ,

any small scratches in lacquer can be remedied using the old forecourt trick of apply.....more lacquer.... use an ultra fine artist brush direct to the scratch , they will magically disappear , as a rule of thumb , if the scratch is ' white ' then its in the lacquer ,
just buy a can from halfords, spray some into the lid after shaking, and apply with the brush very lightly...direct into the scratch...

you would be better off spending money on getting the car ' mopped ' to restore the finish


BB

[ktclm06]

"Proper" T Cut I am pleased to say......no Aldi b******s in this household!.

Thanks for the thoughts, plan to take her into the dealer and a friendly body shop for a post mortem.

Very, very annoyed (with myself) and majorly p****d off as you can imagine!.

[ptjs1]

Try using a fairly gentle cutting paste such as Farecla G3 or even a Meguiars paint cleanser. It can bring back the dullness caused by excessive use of harsh cutting compounds.

I wouldn't be thinking about relacquering yet until you've explored some more remedial options.

Good luck

Paul

[ktclm06]

Thanks Paul, will have a look for some of the Meguiars tomorrow.

Still very, very annoyed with myself.......

Will report back.

K.

[Brakebuster]

i dont think he need to go as far as re-lacquering the car, just fine fill the scratches


BB

[ktclm06]

Scratches are still there, its the discoloration caused by the T Cut which is the issue.....better than it was after a polish but you know what its like?.....for me now its like a bloody luminous runway on one side of the bonnet........

Damn, damn, damn.....why don't I learn????

PS F*****g T Cut is in the bin and staying there.

PPS NEVER again.

[davidr]

Don't despair!!
Assuming that you haven't polished so hard that you've gone through the lacquer it can probably be brought back by mopping.
I had some quite deep scratches in the side of my X350 caused by one of our peacocks getting too amorous and attacking the side of the car where he could see his reflection.
Took it down to my mate on Saturday and we went over it first with a 2000 grit pad on a mopping machine followed by a 3000 grit pad. This took the scratches out of the lacquer but left a dull finish.
Next step was polishing with foam pads on the mopping machine and successively finer polishing pastes. We had to go very fine with the paste and put more time into this as the car is black and anything less than a mirror finish shows up.
Anyway, about an hours work produced a beautiful finish all the way down one side of the car. In fact we started to think that it was so good it made the rest of the car look bad (and I'd already spent a day going over the rest of the car with a clay bar, polish and wax and had thought it looked pretty good).
But you do have to know when to stop so we went to the pub for lunch instead!
I was doubtful we'd get the marks out before we started but I'm really pleased now we've done it.
One word of caution - you wouldn't want to do this more than once or else you'll have no lacquer left!

[J44EAG]

T Cut has ammonia in it. It can burn a paint or plastic finish very easily.

I`ll never use it on a white fibreglass boat.It gets absorbed into the gelcoat micro structure and unless used quickly and sparingly, will turn white fibreglass orange or brown within days in the sun. Worse is suntan oil spilt on a deck. That type of damage is even harder to rectify.

Restoration of either form of damage, whether partly or completely successful is usually achieved by removing a few microns of surface finish to get back down to some virgin new material. Flatting and polishing brings it back up providing there is sufficient depth of material available to stand the treatment without breaking through down to the core construction.

If you still have a decent depth of surface finish left on the car, you might try wet flatting with P1200 grade wet and dry production paper followed by buffing with either Faracla G3 or Autoglym colour restorer. Neither of those products have ammonia in them and are water soluble making residual buffing slurry easy to remove from the paintwork after polishing operations. If you can achieve an acceptable result, then you may well have to do the complete panel to achieve a uniform finish. If that cannot be achieved then a day or two in a paint shop will probably be the most successful and least stressful way of repairing the damage.

T-cut is an old type buffing compound. As a boy I remember the stuff on a shelf in my Fathers garage. Seemingly the formula has been around unchanged for at least fifty years. take a sniff of it. You will smell the amonia which can be very destructive. Fortunately modern cleaning mixtures are rather more advanced in the way they are brewed and concocted.

Mike

[BigCatXJS]

Hi,

You might want to consider the following, if you are struggling to get the finish you require for the impacted area. You would only need to perform on the one panel that has the damage.

A few years ago I followed the current "trend" of clay bricking my XJ-S. This process essentially rips off the ingrained dirt caused by pollutants. I stupidly did not follow the instructions about ensuring that the car body panels are cool and out of direct sunlight. As a consequence, I achieved deep streaks across the the paint-work (especially the roof) that simply would not polish out by hand or with any light cutting compounds using the Porter Cable. The supplier of the product could not offer any helpful advice - apart from helpful comments such as " oh - bad luck".

Never mind, I already had a Porter Cable oscillating polishing machine (note oscillating - not rotary) as mentioned. Armed with info from various US websites, I purchased a bottle of 3M "Green tip" fast cut (available from many websites - http://www.polishedbliss.co.uk/acatalog ... -plus.html for example). This stuff saved the day!! I applied and polished following the instruction and all of the dreadful streaks / damage were removed and mirror like finish was achieved. Perfectionists would probably follow-up using a finer cutting compound.

Hope that this might help.

Thanks, Rich

[ktclm06]

Thanks Rich but this is WWWAAAAYYY beyond my ham-fisted capabilities as has been aptly demonstrated by getting to this point in the first place.

I am afraid that a trip to my local body shop/finisher is in order....

Nightmare.......

Thanks again for fueling my inadequacies!

[ptjs1]

K,

Farecla G3 is so worth a try! Give it a go just to satisfy our curiousity!

Good luck

Paul