 Hi, I'm Michael Stoops here at Maguire's and today on Shop Talk I want to talk to you about doing a test spot How to do one what to look for and even why to do a test spot? You know before you start working on any vehicle You really need to figure out how that paint is going to respond to whatever input you're going to give it Really what you need to do is figure out what that paint wants to get to the point that you want to take it to Whether you're doing a one-step process because you just need to make the paint look better Whether you're doing a full-on paint correction because you're going to apply a coating at the end of the project Or maybe you're working in a body shop and you've wet sanded and you've got some new things in and you just need to Find out how that paint is going to respond now We know a lot of you will go online on the social media and you'll ask hey I'm working on this year-making model of car. What's the paint like? Well manufacturers use different paint suppliers. They will change paint suppliers as the years go on paint can actually change With time as it ages so to try and ask somebody what's the paint like on a Make year and model car unless they've worked on the car right in front of you They can't really tell you exactly what that paint is going to be like. Is it really soft? Does it haze really bad? Is it really hard and it's very difficult to correct? Or is it like really the majority of paints on the market that the same kind of basic process? Will get you to the goal that you're looking for but you're not going to know that unless you do a test spot Okay, you don't want to dive in with the most aggressive process that you can find because really the goal here is to achieve The target that you're going for while maintaining as much of the integrity of the paint as possible So what you don't want to do is just dive in with the most aggressive process you can find I know a lot of people think that's going to get the job done faster But in reality you could be taking off more paint than you really need to but maybe more frustratingly is You can create what we call destructive paint repair and that is you're putting in your own defects You're creating your own marring that you need to go back and correct again with a second step If you can avoid that happening you're that much ahead of the game okay So what you're doing with the test spot really is talking to the paint and finding out what the paint wants now That could be as complex as Which specific pad and which compound or polish and tool speed and all the rest of that or it could be as simple as Well my go-to works for me 85% of the time. Do I need to do two passes or three? Do I need a little bit extra tool speed or a little bit less tool speed? So the test spot is to find out what's going to work to get you to the goal that you want to achieve on the paint So let's take a look at how we would do that Obviously you're going to wash and dry the car maybe clay it if it needs to be clayed Maybe even a full iron decontamination if that project deems that that is necessary But you want to get all of those above surface issues taken care of first so that we can properly address All of the below surface issues remember claying and a paint decontamination are not going to take care of swirl marks They're not going to take care of etchings and stains and oxidation It's just going to remove the bonded contaminants and some of that embedded iron you want all that gone so that your Machine polishing or even hand work Will get that paint looking the way you want without having those other issues in there So after you've done all that we want to pretty critically evaluate the paint So as we look at the condition of this paint, there's a lot of swirl marks in here There's some other defects and fine scratches and whatnot. So where do you start? Well experience will ultimately get you to the point where you've got a pretty good idea where to get going But if you're new to this, I think probably the most common mistakes are the people go too aggressive to start Oh, it looks really bad. So I need, you know, the really big guns to take care of this or They're afraid to get in their machine polishing. So they go with something super super non-aggressive They go with a really light polish at a low speed in the soft pad That's probably not going to get you where you want to be when the paint looks like this The idea yes is to use the least aggressive method to get the job done But that doesn't mean to start with the least aggressive thing you can think of because you're probably going to waste a fair bit of time Trying to get where you need to be. What we're going to do here is start with something kind of middle of the road and See where this gets us. I'm gonna lay down a tape stripe on here You don't need to do this when you're doing a test spot either in your shop or at home But for the purposes of this demonstration, it makes it a little bit more dramatic and clear The results that we get or maybe the results that we don't get To get started here. Remember you are trying to figure out how this paint responds It's okay if you don't get a really good result to start because that tells you that you need to change something up let's get in here with a DA and See how this comes about whether you're using a DA by hand or a rotary You've got options and you want to use these options and have these available to you We've got a variety of pads even with the rotary right the different wool pads that are going to be very aggressive cutting a variety of foam pads from a cutting to a polishing to a finishing Okay, if you're using the rotary you're probably going to be starting with either the foam cutting or a wool cutting pad Depending on how bad the paint is okay If you are skilled in the use of a rotary fantastic tool a lot of great options Sometimes can get the job done very quickly if you're dealing with sanding marks. This may be your go-to tool But make sure that you're using it properly that pad is flat to the paint as you can have it That's very important mentioned earlier that destructive paint repair if you're in the habit of running your rotary up At a steep angle like this That's where you start creating that rotary swirl or hologram that you have to come back and fix later If you can keep that pad flat to the paint you can remove those defects without creating your own defects that you have to Fix proper use of the tool is very important when doing a test spot So that you don't trick yourself into thinking that you're not getting the result that you're looking for because you're causing your own Problem okay, and also remember with a rotary that wool pad may cut faster than the foam But the foam pad will generate heat a lot faster So make sure that tool keeps moving doesn't have to move fast But if you do want it moving so that you don't generate hot spots in the paint very important when working with a rotary now you can do this by hand as well and modern clear coat remember tends to be quite a bit harder than Old-school lacquers and enamel paints are so it can be much more labor-intensive when working by hand Clear coat is also pretty scratch sensitive So you need to be very careful how you hold a hand applicator when you're doing your test spot And in fact when doing the entire job on the vehicle you Want to keep as equal pressure or as uniform pressure as you can on that pad So really avoid getting your fingertips into that pad That will create these pressure points almost these little hot spots and you start to create what almost look like cheetah spots in the paint You'll really see this on black paint because you get these pressure points under your fingertips And it becomes very aggressive with whatever liquid it is that you're using So try to keep your hand as flat on that pad as you can and work in that circular or straight line motion Whichever seems to work best for you Okay, so what we're going to use here really for the purposes of our demonstration with working on a test spot is a DA polisher Machine-powered tool. It is not a rotary. It spins the pad, but it also Oscillates as I'm sure most of you are aware This is the tool that we're going to use for the purposes of this demonstration So let's dive in take a look at some of the options that we've got and see what we can do to this paint and find out What this paint likes Okay, so looking at this paint once again Sure, we've got a lot of swirl marks in here and of course we're working on black paint, which is always the big challenge but Let's take a look at what we can do here using the DA and we're going to step in with M110 on a foam cutting disc now You may think that we said earlier don't just go with the most aggressive combination that you can think of Well, this is not the most aggressive combination we can think of We could certainly go with a microfiber pad And probably even a little bit more aggressive compound than 110 but keep this in mind How you use that compound in that pad can have an impact on just how aggressive it is What if I use that compound with a yellow foam pad and the tool at a low speed? It's not going to cut as much So don't be put off by the fact that we're going straight into a mirror glaze compound We can use it in a less aggressive fashion so that we're not just going kind of full bore on this paint if we don't need to So with that in mind What we're going to do is is prime this pad to start with I can put a little product on and just kind of work it in with my gloved hand if you don't have gloves on something like a bondo spreader or even a credit card or a hotel room card key Was a great way to spread that product into the pad get that pad primed and then you can start doing your test spot So let's take a look at getting this pad primed up a little bit here And we'll jump right in now keep in mind That in this process you want things to be repeatable This isn't just the compound that's doing this job It's the compound the tool speed Your pressure your arm speed the size of the area that you're working all of these play a role together To determine the outcome on the paint. Okay, so you want to be able to repeat that As you're working around the rest of the vehicle So let's work a small area here next to this tape line again If you're doing a test spot at home or in your shop, you don't have to have the tape laid down We're just doing that so we can show it to you a little bit more easily on camera here So i'm going to set this tool to about 4,800 oscillations per minute We're going kind of mid-range. We're not just cranking this thing up. I don't want to go that aggressive to start And in nice slow overlapping strokes, just as you should with a da We're going to work an area no bigger than about two feet square This is a starting point. We can't tell you this is exactly what you need to do to fix every paint This is up to you to figure out what that paint wants And this is basically how you go about talking to the paint to figure that part out So we're going to go up and down and side to side both directions twice and stop That'll give us a baseline to see where we're at. We come in and wipe off that residue Now you may be wondering as you're doing this test spot, do you need to do the entire process compound polish and finish? As part of your test spot. Well, that kind of depends if the compounding step yields really really nice Finish to the paint and you think a little light polish may just nicely enhance the gloss and the clarity Then you probably don't really need to do that as part of the test spot But if that compounding step hazes the paint really badly and you need to go back in and correct that You might want to look at what that process is going to be to remove that haze You may even want to try a different compound The same amount of cut with two different compounds could also yield Different levels of haze based on how that paint responds. So if the haze is really bad You are going to want to adjust something in that process perhaps To see what you can do to minimize that haze that may be adding more pressure or maybe adding less pressure It may be using less compound on the pad. It may be changing pads But this is where some of the experimentation comes into play Especially with those kind of outlier paints the really soft stuff that hazes really badly Or the really hard stuff that you do have to get very aggressive to correct Those are the ones where experimentation really comes into play when you're doing a test spot But regardless of the paint what you are looking for at this point is The results that you achieved from the work that you put in just now and if we look at this From the side that we didn't touch to the side that we did Well, yes The original defects are gone. Yes, we've got some haze But is that haze because of the paint or is that haze because we want a little bit too aggressive? We know we can probably clean up the haze Pretty easily with m210 But out of curiosity, what would that less aggressive approach actually do to those swirl marks? So i'm going to lay some tape across this way and run the 210 over both of these sections and see first of all If it cleans up the haze But secondly at the same time, let's see what 210 actually does to these swirls because if that's all we need Remember that then becomes the least aggressive approach to get the job done and we didn't need the compound Or did we let's find out. Okay. I'm going to keep the tool at the same 4,800 opms I might think about going a little bit slower if all I want to do is refine the haze Might go a little bit higher if I actually want to think about removing these swirls But let's start with a baseline and see where that takes us compared to the hazing that we had here The original swirls that we had here when we look at this side The haze looks like it's pretty well gone, but we come over here and we still have Some residual defects some swirls and whatnot in the paint here That tells us that 210 with that pad at that speed Didn't clear everything up, but it's pretty close So what do you do with this? We got rid of all the defects, but we created a lot of haze, but we created some haze We cleared up the haze very quickly with the 210 on a foam polishing pad So that's great. That that looks like it's getting us where we want to go But over here we got really close with just 210 on yellow foam Do we really need to do that first step on this paint? Okay, very important on this paint. This is why you're doing a test spot to find out what this paint wants This looks like we might be able to stay with the 210 And just use it a little bit more aggressively. Now that opens up some options What do we do that's more aggressive? Slow down your arm speed Maybe increase your pressure a little bit Or maybe increase the tool speed a little bit Or maybe use a more aggressive pad Change one thing at a time When you're really struggling to find out what works if you change too many things at once You can start to get lost in what's really causing the changes that you're seeing And then it's kind of it can be very difficult to reset at that point To really figure out what you need so change one thing at a time when you are Struggling especially when that paint's being Not very cooperative with you, let's say What if on the other hand We had hardly removed any of these defects to start And what if the swirls even with 110 what if it looked like we only got about 20 percent correction or 30 or 40 percent correction? You need to get more aggressive at that point using one of those Processes here. We started with the foam cutting disc Maybe we would step up to a microfiber disc at that point Maybe we would increase the tool speed remember I started at a fairly moderate speed of only 4800 opms and got really good correction Yes, I got haze, but I got really good correction If I hadn't gotten that correction you just increase the tool speed a bit Okay, but I want to ease into what it takes to get the job done So that we can use the least aggressive method To get the job done and maintain as much of the integrity of the paint as we possibly can So sometime in the future we can do this again Now something else to consider If you're going to be doing a full paint coating you probably want to Use a panel wipe like our m122 To make sure that you have in fact removed all the residue and any polishing or compounding oils And just double check that work and make sure that what you're seeing is truly what you're getting m122 does a wonderful job very quickly and easily of removing that residue So that you know that you're not concealing anything and Gosh, it almost looks a little bit better after doing that But you can definitely see some of the residual marks there that the 210 didn't get rid of But you can definitely see that that haze is almost completely gone with even just a quick pass We may want to refine things a little bit more as we're working But we know with the test spot now that we can get that close To our goal. So it's it's minor little little tweak at that point. Okay Let's see what happens with the rest of this if we use 210 on a foam cutting disc If that gets rid of this we may be able to one step this paint and that'll save you a lot of time Okay, so with little m210 on the foam cutting disc Let's see what we can do to address these swirls In a single stop if this paint likes it This is why you do a test spot because you never know what's going to work sometimes and We've got virtually no haze we've got almost complete defector With a fairly simple approach with m210 and a foam cutting disc Now you normally think the textbook scenario is cut polish and finish With a cutting pad a polishing pad and a finishing pad But if the paint likes a polish with a cutting pad You shouldn't care. It's what the paint wants. It's not what you want And if that's what works and it's looking like in a single step We're getting as good a result as we got in two steps here. Why would you do two steps? If you don't need to Now you may find there are spots on the car where there are more severe Rids as we call them random isolated defects There may be some deeper scratches somewhere on the paint and in those situations You may need to address it with the more aggressive compound or Even with the 210 just work it a little bit longer work it a little bit more aggressively But for the generalized swirls and other kind of routine defects that we have in this paint This process has shown us that The compound on a cutting disc Removes the defects but leaves some haze We clean up the haze beautifully with the polish on a polishing pad Sometimes you get really lucky and the paint responds beautifully to your input And probably 80 of the time that's going to happen You may need an extra pass or two or something like that And that's really all it takes with what may be let's say you kind of your go-to Combination of liquid and pad But some paints behave a little bit differently Some paints tend to be really hard. They're very difficult to correct. It seems like everything that you do yields almost no change in the finish So you may just need to keep getting more and more aggressive there Especially if you started with a very very non-aggressive approach and that's fine The really tricky ones are when that paint is really soft and it hazes really badly Those are the ones where you struggle and those are the ones where sometimes you need to do some kind of unusual things To really get the result that you want Our approach here of a polish with a cutting disc May seem kind of unusual, but it's what this paint wanted So again when the textbook scenario is compound polish and wax using a cutting pad a polishing pad the finishing pad We can give you some tips and pointers for when things don't quite go according to plan They don't go according to the textbook But it's really up to you to play with that paint to play with your variables of pad liquid arm speed tool speed pressure To get all of those variables working together to achieve the goal that you want Okay, if that paints really hard Let's say you you do your kind of go-to process your starting point and you see almost no change to the paint Then you can get more aggressive By doing what? increase the tool speed increase your pressure Go to a more aggressive pad Maybe a more aggressive liquid or shrink the work area to a smaller space But change one of those at a time Because sometimes getting too aggressive as we saw here can lead to some of that destructive paint repair Where you're putting in some other sort of defects With a high speed rotary that can mean a rotary swirl or hologram when working by hand that can create those Nasty little spots that really heavy marring in small areas. So you want to be really careful about technique You want to be very repeatable That means you want to keep in mind how many times you went over the paint How big the area was be consistent with your pressure be consistent with your arm speed All of those variables you need to keep kind of working in harmony as you're doing that test spot Changing one thing at a time is you need to on the other side of the spectrum those really soft paints That's where it gets kind of tricky and sometimes we need to think outside the box There a lot of times backing off on the pressure backing off on the aggression Will get you a better result in less time Um sometimes mixing things up a little interestingly get more pad rotation and less pressure can help to Get a better finish faster with those kind of paints and sometimes going with a finishing polish And an aggressive pad keeps that pad in real tight contact with the paint And lets the abrasives in that finishing polish get in and really do their job on the paint to get you that end result But really what we want to do what we want to accomplish with a test spot is to find out what the paint wants So that we can as efficiently as possible and while maintaining as much of the integrity of the paint as possible Not get overly aggressive But efficiently and in a time frame that works for us achieve the goal that we're looking for If it's a one step if it's a multi-step if you're trying to prep the paint for a coating It's not always going to be the same result that you're looking for It's not always going to be the same combination. The paint is going to dictate What's going to work? You need to use good technique There's a lot of variables a lot of products to choose from a lot of pads to choose from keep those in mind And keep in mind the basics and what's really happening here when you're working on the paint pay attention to those results as you go Sometimes take a little step back Think about what's really happening and how you can address that with a change in liquid or a change in pad or a change in technique To really get that paint to that deep wet glossy look that you're shooting for that test spot We'll get you talking to the paint the paint will tell you what it wants You can become efficient get that job done make that paint look absolutely fantastic every single time start with the test spot That's the only way you're really going to know Hey, if you have any questions about doing a test spot or any other topic about our products processes, whatever You can contact us through any of the information that you see down here below Otherwise, thanks for joining us on this episode of shop talk and we hope to see you again real soon