Removing hairline scratches??

[parm104]

Hello everyone,

I have a metallic black motorcycle that has several hairline scratches on it from my jacket and gloves rubbing up against the body of the bike.

I have tried waxing it with a random-orbit polisher as well as using a compound called "Scratch Doctor."

Indeed these made the bike shine but it didn't really get rid of the blemishes or help hide/repair the scratches. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks!



Some of my scratches resemble the ones in the picture above, in case that helps.

[kyoshiro]

hit it with some proper polishes like Menzerna Super Intensive Polish on a polish pad/green buff n shine
in other words, its impossible to fix without cutting the clear coat
you can fill em with glazes but it'll still be there

[StealthFighter]

random orbit machine doesn't do anything..maybe for removing wax at best. you need to either hand polish or get a proper polisher like the pc7425, griot's polisher or g110.

get the right pads and polish. menzerna, poorboys, optimum, meguiars's pro line, etc.

[Nismo200SX]

Its really hard to tell from the photo how bad it really is, though it does look significant. After my many years of professional detailing I've laid out some basics below.

You can pretty much pick up all this stuff at KMStools by the Ikea in Coquitlam just off the hwy.

- wash the car with a nice soap that will strip off all or nearly all the old wax without harming the paint. a very small amount of dish soap does the trick but if you got money to burn feel free to use whatever soap you want to. Dry with microfiber towel or shammy of your choice. don't be too concerned about minor surface abrasion because your polishing the whole car anyway if not its really up to you.
- Clay bar if needed to smooth out the surface of any fallout/sap etc..
- Grab a variable speed polisher (anywhere from $60-300 get the cheap one if u don't get more than 30 uses per year). If you are a beginner Do Not Go beyond 1500-2000rpm on any foam pads and especially not on any wool cutting pads.
- use a yellow medium cut foam pad w/ a light to medium polish, a cleaner wax might be good enough, again it ultimately depends on how bad the scratches really are.
- if that doesn't get it completely out ( remember a deep paint shine is better than a faded spot with no scratches ) you can go with a medium cut wool pad and a slightly more abrasive polish
- get a blue finishing foam pad +a finishing polish of your choice and/or you can hand wax it with whatever final wax you like to fill in the gaps.

warnings - Do it in the shade or inside a shop or your garage
- Do not polish hot paint make sure the surface is cool before you start polishing
- while polishing do short intervals so you don't over heat the paint and burn it.

That my professional opinion

[911fanatic]

Those are fairly significant scratches and will need to be removed using either a DA or rotary polisher. You may need a compound to get rid of the scratches and a polish to bring the shine and gloss back to the paint. You'll also need two pads; a compounding pad and a polishing pad. I can show you how to use these as well if you are interested. Alternatively, you could bring your bike out to my shop and I could take those out for you. It wouldn't be expensive.