# Gloss It vs. 3M and Meguiars: 2step correction showdown!



## dsms (Feb 1, 2008)

*When I first tested the Gloss It polishes on my high speed rotary polisher I found that although I was able to get great correction, the finish was often left with holograms and micro scratches.

Since then I have been using the gloss it line on my cyclo random orbital polisher and have gotten excellent results but I still wanted to use my Makita when needed so I called Rich Light (the owner and devloper of Gloss It) and he gave me some insight on what combos worked best when doing high speed correction. I gave them a test today and was blown away.
Very rarley does a new brand of product come around that actually out performs the leading competiton which has been around for years.

The first test was a comparrison between the Gloss It Extreme Cut and the Gloss It One Step machine polish vs. Meguiars M105 ultra cut compound and 3M's Ultrafina SE.

Here is my objective: I wanted to see how much correction I could achive with a heavily swirled finish using only a 2 STEP correction/finishing process. For those who detail for profit using a 2 step process opposed to a 3 or 4 step process is not only a big time saver but it also increases profitability. You are able to polish out more cars, more efficently. Of course I will only use a 2 step process if I know the finish will be 98-100% perfect afterwards, if not I will add a 3rd or 4th step to get the finish to a perfect or near perfect level.

**In this test there are no variables other than the different products used. Each pad is the exact same and each speed used on the machine is the exact same in both cases. I felt this was important to prove a fair result.**

Left side of panel: Gloss It products 
Right Side of panel: Meguiars and 3M products

Here is the test panel. I spent over 10minutes getting the sides evenly swriled and scratched. Notice there are dozens of deep RIDS left in the finish.



















Gloss It side:



















Meguiars and 3M side:



















Now onto the correction.

Gloss It process: Please take note of this is you are using the high speed polisher and gloss it polishes. This basic process will help you to achieve that perfect finish everytime*

Step 1 : Gloss It Extreme cut w/ 8" white lambswool pad at 1500rpm which was then jeweled down to 1000rpm to refine the finish. The white lambswool is great for heavy cutting and moves smoothly across the finish. I sprayed the Gloss Enhancer spray directly onto the panel as the polish dried out so I could lengthen the work time. This not only allowed the extreme cut to work longer but it also helped eliminate most of the micro scratches and holograms because I finessed the finish on low RPMs using the wool pad before it completey dried out thanks to the slick gloss enahancer spray in between polishing.

To give you an idea of the aggressivness of Extreme cut - it is able to easily remove 1500grit sanding scratches no problem on a rotary. It can even remove 1500grit scratches using a cyclo random orbital as well!

Step 2 : Gloss It One step Machine polish w/ 6inch edge CCX blue polishing pad. (This pad has some mecahnical cut but is soft enough to leave a high gloss finish without holograms) I used the One Step polish at 1500rpm and slowly jeweled it down to about 900rpm. Again as the polish dired out I sprayed the gloss enhancer right on the panel and worked it a bit longer as I refined the finish.

Here is the wool pad and the extreme cut










Before correction



















Using the gloss enahcer during correction



















After correction using only the Extreme cut and wool pad..no finishing was done yet just a thorough IPA wipedown.




























If you notice the finsih is completely defect free and left with very very minimal holograms. I took the pictures kinda far away because the CM5300 inspection light shows defects better at a distance. I only notice the holograms because the light is slightly defracted around the bulbs reflection, its very hard to see up close.

So far after only 1 step the correction was just about perfect and the wool pad left a suprisingly nice finish with minimal holograms and no micro scratches. Using the gloss enhacner spray in between polishing really helps eliminate holograms and finer scratches left by the compound and wool pad.

Now it was time to use the One Step machine polish to finish out the paint. The One step is my favorite polish because its so versatile. It has plenty on cut when needed (using a cutting pad of course) but on a softer foam pad it really is able to bring out a high gloss when a light cut is still needed. Basically the One Step is a blend of several gloss it polishes including evolution cut (like SIP) and a Gloss Finish (like Zaino Z2pro)

(This bottle of polish has an unfinished label on it because at the time it wasnt available in quart sizes, it is now though)










The blue CCX edge pad I used is just okay, I prefer a flat pad instead. I just thought it had the right density for this process so I used it.

This is the finish after polishing with the Gloss It one step polish





































I took this picture using the CM5300 inspection light Far far away to show no swirls were hidden, here you can see the light is refracted perfectly. No holograms at all.










50/50










The uncorrected side










The corrected side










Now I moved to the right side of the panel this time using Meguiars M105 and 3M Ultrafina. Again I used the same speeds and pads for correction and finishing.

Here is M105 and the wool










Befores



















After using M105




























The finish left after 105 was very nice, a few deep RIDS remained but overall it was very closely matched to the gloss it extreme cut. The RIDS may have been deeper in the areas near the tape line and that why they werent removed completely.

M105 overall is more agressive than Gloss It extreme cut. The only problem is that it works extremely fast! There is no spreading this product on low RPM and then raising the speed for correction. I use the SuperBee method of laying down a 3 inch bead of M105 right on the panel and picking it up right away at about 1500rpm and just start working it. It takes some getting used to but its effective in defect removal. Now M105 as usual flashed very quickly, within about 6seconds I'd say! To be fair I also used some gloss enhancer spray when it dired out a bit to help jewel it down but it did very little to help.

I then Finished out the panel using 3M Utrafina SE on the same blue edge CCX polishing pad. As I did using the Gloss It One step I set the makita to 1500rpm when using the UF and jeweled it down to about 900rpm.










Here is the right side all finished



















Ultrafina is a great polish, it does take a very long time to work though. I sometimes love using a slow breakdown polish so I can really jewel the finish but other times I feel it takes a little too long. The UF helped reduce some holograms left by M105 but it didnt really add to the overall gloss of the finish and I didnt expect it to. It just leaves a clean and LSP ready finish behind.

Now some comparrison shots between the 2 corrected sides

Gloss iT









Megs and 3M









Gloss It









Megs and 3M









Both products were able to achieve full correction but in very different ways. Gloss it extreme cut was able to work much longer than the M105 and left the finish with a few less RIDS. M105 really does take some getting used to but its still a top product. My personal choice would however be the Extreme Cut because I liked the way it worked longer and finished out nice and easy with me jeweling down the speed on my makita. All you need to do is add some gloss enahcer and you can just keep working it! Also the Extreme cut doesnt dust at all! M105 can work up quite a mess sometimes.

With extreme cut I was able to work the heavy compound like a regular cutting polish with no problems, I was left with a micro scratch and hologram free finish after only the 1st step using extreme cut.

For the One step machine polish its main job in this test was to polish out any fine holograms left by the wool pad, I worked it like a normal polish and I really focused on jeweling the finish on lower rpm (1200-900rpm). Again the gloss enahcer allowed me to do this with no problems. The Ultrafina worked very smooth as usual and polished out the wool holograms left in the finish as well it just took much longer to work. The Gloss It one step did leave a higher gloss finish however compared to the UF. The key ingrediant in the One Step machine polish is called "Gloss Finish", its the sealant that is also made by Gloss It. Even after buffing off the polish I saw a really deep and flake popping shine.

In total it was a faster process using both gloss it products, even with adding the gloss enhancer to extend the working times. I would say The extreme cut worked about 4x as long as the super fast cutting M105 but Ultrafina needed a lot of extra work time to finish out the paint properly compared to the One step polish.

I think I have found my new 2 step high speed correction process. Both brands performed very well and achieved almost identical results but gloss it was just easier to use.

Another thing I like about the gloss it products is that you dont have to jump from brand to brand. For example I dont need to shop store to store to get each polish or compound. Why use 2 or 3 different companies to get the results you want when you can just buy the same brand from one place?

Gloss It is a one stop shop for all things polishing. You can go from agressive compound,cutting polish, light polish, finishing polish all the way down to a sealant using the Gloss It line.

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One more little experiment I tried Ill admit I went a little nuts on this one

I wanted to see how bad a finish could be corrected using Gloss It..in only 3 steps.

I used steel wool and a stiff carpet brush to turn a once perfect finish into this...





































So out with the wool pad and extreme cut, this time I up'ed the RPM to 1700 for a few passes, still using the gloss enhancer in between so I could work it for as long as possible. Again I jeweled the finish down to 1000rpm. I really kept working extreme cut with the gloss enhancer and even added a few extra beads of polish to get as much correction as I could in 1 step.










A quick spread of the extreme cut on low rpm (something you cannot do with M105, it will have already flashed by then)










After just 1 hit of extreme cut on the wool! You can see the color of the panel now and its clarity has been restored, not perfect but a hugh improvment










Now I followed up the Extreme cut and wool with a Meguiars 6.5inch cutting pad at 1500rpm again and then jeweld the finsih down to 1000rpm. This step was needed because the level of defect in the finish was too severe for just a 2 step. The PPI ration of the meguiars burgandy foam pad is identical to the gloss it (edge) yellow pad










I used the one step here because Like I said with a cutting pad it really can do nice correction and this panel needed every bit attention there was

After finsihng out the panel and then a IPA wipedown










Very impressive for only 2 steps










I went one step further and did a 3rd step using a black LC foam finishing pad (has very mild mechanical cut to help reduce holograms) again I used the One step and this time I left the speed at about 1200rpm before refinig the finish at 900rpm.










Afters



















There are still lots of deep swirls and scratches left that would need 1500grit wetsadning to remove but for a non wetsand correction in 3 steps I think the finish achieved was remarkable!

So from this










to this...










in only 3 steps, not bad at all!

With the right pad, speed and the use of gloss enhacer you can achieve superb results and very high levels of correction using the gloss it polishes. I am a believer:thumb:

Here are some finished cars I did using gloss it correction polishes and sealants.


















































































Hope this was a help to anyone who was curious. If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them.

Thank for looking*


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## roscopervis (Aug 22, 2006)

Nice test. thanks for that.


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## dsms (Feb 1, 2008)

*Here are some sun shots I took this morning.

Right side Megs+UF Left Side Gloss it









This is the gloss it side (upside down)










Pardon the smudges from moving the panel




























Here is the megs and UF side



















I still found holograms in the Megs side because I think I needed a 3rd (middle step) of polishing to finish out M105 and the wool before UF, but this was a test to see which products could produce a clean finish in only 2 steps not 3.*


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