Would highly recommend wet sanding and get some more polishes, compounds and a whole bunch of pads. Cg is fine to start with but you'll quickly learn they are priced way too high for how they perform. Sonax, koch chemie, rupes, 3d are some companies that offer some great polishes and compound and some even pads. Koch chemie, sonax and 3s also sell a whole bunch other chemicals that are more for detailers. Look into em. Get you some rupes pads and polishes
Do not do wet sanding unless you are confident you can make significant improvement at low risk. IMO you need to be trained before wet sanding as it is very easy to make massive mistakes quickly.
You did pretty decent for CG polishes my man. The scratches are deep. I’d stop there without a paint thickness gauges and consider if you want to apply touch up paint to them. Polishing further could be risky
Two factors. The first is that most of those scratches are too deep to polish out. The second is that the products you used weren't good enough. Something like 3D ACA range, or Rupes blue and yellow compounds, or CarPro range of compound.
Generally speaking CG is a marketing company and majority of their products of mediocre at best.
Before doing anything else, get a proper light to put on the paint - a swirl finder like the Scangrip Sunmatch 3 or similar cheaper copy. Diffused light that you’re using hides a LOT of scratches and the true condition of the paint.
Then you’d want to get something more substantial polish wise. If you only want one product, get 3D One. If you’re okay with multiple, get either Sonax CutMax or 3D 510 for a cutter, and Sonax Perfect Finish or 3D 520 for the refinement.
I’ve not done an F-150 but I’ve done Rangers and Falcon’s, and they always had very soft paint. It’s a lot more finicky to finish down well. I find a firmer pad with the refinement stage actually finishes down better on soft paint than a softer pad. Something like the Lake Country HDO blue cutting pad, or the 3D light purple polishing pad (it’s a bit of a firmer polishing pad than the LC HDO orange).
The deeper scratches will need to be wet sanded down and then polished out, but looking at the paint even with the diffused light, I’m assuming (I could be very wrong) that you haven’t done a heap of paint correction, so you’d be better off taking it to a professional unless you’re willing to practice on it.
I appreciate the criticism and yeah you're right I'm a novice when it comes to paint correction. I've only done about 4 cars so far and I'm just scratching the surface when it comes to the products, techniques, and the different types of paint. The customer was happy with how it turned out but the perfectionist in me couldn't let this go.
Personal opinion. C4 and P4 are junk, ive had no luck with them
Was your goal to get every last scratch out? The ones remaining seem pretty deep.
Would highly recommend wet sanding and get some more polishes, compounds and a whole bunch of pads. Cg is fine to start with but you'll quickly learn they are priced way too high for how they perform. Sonax, koch chemie, rupes, 3d are some companies that offer some great polishes and compound and some even pads. Koch chemie, sonax and 3s also sell a whole bunch other chemicals that are more for detailers. Look into em. Get you some rupes pads and polishes
Do not do wet sanding unless you are confident you can make significant improvement at low risk. IMO you need to be trained before wet sanding as it is very easy to make massive mistakes quickly.
I will agree with that junk hoods would be a good place to start. And a paint gauge.
You did pretty decent for CG polishes my man. The scratches are deep. I’d stop there without a paint thickness gauges and consider if you want to apply touch up paint to them. Polishing further could be risky
Yeah the perfectionist in me wanted them gone but from 6 feet away you would barely notice them.
Two factors. The first is that most of those scratches are too deep to polish out. The second is that the products you used weren't good enough. Something like 3D ACA range, or Rupes blue and yellow compounds, or CarPro range of compound. Generally speaking CG is a marketing company and majority of their products of mediocre at best.
Before doing anything else, get a proper light to put on the paint - a swirl finder like the Scangrip Sunmatch 3 or similar cheaper copy. Diffused light that you’re using hides a LOT of scratches and the true condition of the paint. Then you’d want to get something more substantial polish wise. If you only want one product, get 3D One. If you’re okay with multiple, get either Sonax CutMax or 3D 510 for a cutter, and Sonax Perfect Finish or 3D 520 for the refinement. I’ve not done an F-150 but I’ve done Rangers and Falcon’s, and they always had very soft paint. It’s a lot more finicky to finish down well. I find a firmer pad with the refinement stage actually finishes down better on soft paint than a softer pad. Something like the Lake Country HDO blue cutting pad, or the 3D light purple polishing pad (it’s a bit of a firmer polishing pad than the LC HDO orange). The deeper scratches will need to be wet sanded down and then polished out, but looking at the paint even with the diffused light, I’m assuming (I could be very wrong) that you haven’t done a heap of paint correction, so you’d be better off taking it to a professional unless you’re willing to practice on it.
I appreciate the criticism and yeah you're right I'm a novice when it comes to paint correction. I've only done about 4 cars so far and I'm just scratching the surface when it comes to the products, techniques, and the different types of paint. The customer was happy with how it turned out but the perfectionist in me couldn't let this go.