Question! Some pictures below of end result not sure if I messed one of the steps up. Before we get there want to explain the process I used:

Alright so yesterday I washed my crossfire with NXT Generation car wash and clay barred it with Smooth Surface clay bar kit. That actually took about 8 hours (had a lot of road grime and the back of the crossfire had a -lot- of embedded dirt grime that took over an hour just rubbing all of that out.

Pic 1: After I clay barred. These were all taken in my garage with 500w halogens and I forgot to white balance my car is alabaster white though.


Today I took out the Porter Cable 7424 HD w/4" Lake County Orange Light Cutting Pad. I applied Ultimate Compound (dab in the middle) spread it before turning the buffer on, and buffed at a speed of 6. I started out on 5 but it wasn't getting the swirls out so I re-did it with 6 and left it there the entire rest of the compound buffing. I put a moderate amount of pressure but jumping on the forums I just read about the technique of pushing until you start to bog the motor down then letting off a bit. I kept pressure on but was careful not to bog down the motor so I think I might have been a little lighter then suggested.

Pic 2: After Ultimate Compound DA Buffing


After that I used a White CCS 6.5" Polishing Pad with Ultimate Polish on speed 4 with light pressure (the pad didn't look like it could take much so I tried not to have the pad pressed in enough that it bowed up around the backing plate.)

I then used Ultimate Liquid Wax using hand applicators

Pic 3: After Ultimate Polish DA Buffing & Ultimate Liquid Wax by hand


Now my question is about the little flecks you see in Pic 2 & 3, was there any way I could have avoided those, did I mess up somewhere along the way and cause those? Overall I'm very very happy as these pictures are very macro looks at the paint job. It got dark before I finished today so I wasn't able to take a daylight picture but I did pull it out of the garage after polishing earlier and it looked very impressive. I'll get some daylight pictures of it tomorrow but for now here's a pic of the hood in the garage:



The flecks are only noticable if you're really inches away from the paint otherwise it looks very nice right now

Is that normal or what did I do? Thank you for all the help you guys have been wonderful !

Oh and here was a before picture (this was how the swirls were over the entire car)