Curt--

What paint products did you use??

Rogman

 

Rog, as Curt mentioned I think that's the way to go...get a complete buffing/polishing system and just go step by step. That way if it comes out crappy you can blame the manufacturer!!

Seriously, though, I think that's what I'm gonna do. since TCP Global is right here in good ol' San Diego I'll probably pay them a visit and get the foam pads that are matched to the compound.

After two straight days of moving a paint gun back-and-forth, a week before my 55th birthday, I am so sore I'm not sure if I can take two weeks of color sanding and buffing, but I guess I don't really have much of a choice, do I??

 

Hi Bird,
I can imagine how you feel.
This is big job that's done in many, many, stages.... but we really don't know the outcome until the FINAL stage.
I can appreciate how exhausted you must be.... I felt that way after the 2 days my car was painted.... and I didn't do the spraying!
Well Done!
Regards,
Alan

 

I think I told you about a year and a half ago when I frist embarked on this tortuous journey that I was committed to doing this all myself, and I wasn't kidding, now was I!!??!?

Over in the PR&C section somebody has an avatar with a twist on Nietzsche's famous quote...."That which does not kill me will probably hurt like hell!!"

 

I was gonna say, man take a rest! I thought I was the energizer bunny, won't hurt to let the solvents dry some before the long arduous task of wet sand and rubbing an entire vehicle...

 

Spent about half the day color sanding and buffing today...did the roof panels, the wiper doors, and one door. During the paint application I was so leery of getting the dreaded solvent pop that I didn't really pay attention to the 'wetness' of the spray. I had absolutely zero problems with solvent pop or runs, but had some serious orange peel to deal with, which meant cutting the surface with 800 grit paper before I got into anything very fine.

On the left side roof panel I tried jumping from the 800 right to 2000 and the result was some visible scratches in the [otherwise really shiny] surface. From then on it was 800-1200-1500-2000, which seemed to produce a pretty good result. I'm using this stuff called "Upodium" which my neighbor told me about; it's sourced from right here in Temecula so if you guys want to help California's failing economy buy some, OK?



As you might see there is still a bit of haze in the right side roof panel, but this stuff is actually a three-step process and I only did the first two. I'm pretty happy with the driver's door, but I didn't quite get all the orange peel out. Not sure if I want to go back and re-sand, etc to get it absolutely perfect or what. It's pretty glassy the way it is right now...



Since the headlight doors are small it wasn't really much of a problem getting those perfectly flat, and they polished up very nicely...


That's about it for today. I'll be off after Monday for a few days so I should have most of this job complete by the end of the weekend. Next I will do the other door and then the hood, THEN the main car body. Toodles!

 

looking great, we told you a lot of work...keep the pics coming as you progress

 

Looking awesome!!!

Rogman

 

Polished up the passenger door a few days ago and did the hood yesterday...



(halfway sanded/ 800 grit)

('Final' polished)



As you can see by the last two pictures, when viewed in the right combination of somewhat low light and reflective background objects the hood looks absolutely stunning. When I brought it back inside, though, a haze appeared that made it quite apparent that I hadn't gotten all the sanding scratches out, leading me to wonder...

a) Did I sand it enough to get the whole panel to a 2000 grit, ready-for-polishing finish?
b) If I go back over the entire panel with 2000 grit paper will that produce a finish that can be properly buffed?
c) Since I only used two stages of what is essentially a three-stage system, would going to the third stage (which means buying another $15 bottle of compound and a third buffing pad) fix the problem?
d) Is the buffing compound I'm using aggressive enough? Will the 3M stuff work better?

Thus far I have had this problem to one degree or another with everything I've shot, and I have now finished all the loose parts. The only thing left to do is the main body of the car, so before I start on that I would like to get this little issue corrected if possible...


As it was, I sanded ALL the orange peel out of the hood with 800 grit paper before going on to finer grits, so the finish is very flat, but there's still this annoying haze that I'm having a hard time getting rid of...anybody out there have any ideas/ suggestions?

 

total PITA, all I can for sure say is, if your seeing the fine sanpaper scratches, then you are going to the final polishing compound too early. whether your seeing the scratches that occured long before the 2000grit or the 2000grit not being buffed enough with rubbing compound(grittier then polish) I can't say. I know top detailers use a special light they hold over finish to see if there are any find scratches still. you talked about bringing it back inside, probably got it under flourescent lights, close enough, try and use that to in same way. I am a little concerned about you burning through. cuzz from what I recall, you have 3 coats of clear starting dry, then medium, then wet. since you started with 800 and are going for a mirror finish, not much clear left, just be carefull and tape off edges where pad wants to grab

 

My only advice comes from my one paint job so think what you want about that. However it came out well so whatever I did worked.

Anyway I would expect a dark color like yours exposes imperfections (haze, scratches) much more than my silver especially under artificial lighting. Flourescent lights seem to be the worst. Do you actually see scratches? Examine the surface carefully with a magnifier.

That said, I started with 1200-1500, and 800 seems a bit too coarse. Also the Trizact 3000 worked well for me for finishing the sanding stage, not stopping at 2000 as you say you did. I was left with a very slight bit of orange peel at extreme angles that I can easily live with.

Finally given the amount of time and effort you've gotten into this you owe it to yourself to try the third compound. I could see the difference.

As far as "agressive" compounds, it is supposed to be a progression, each stage takes out the scratches from the previous. So - you know that I'm sure.

 

The pictures look good Dave.. We always used to look at our work under fluorescent lights... Shows every imperfection in the final gloss!!! I would definitely cut/buff/polish under fluorescent lighting... From what I remember (from 25+ years ago), we'd buff with compound until all sanding scratches were removed... This usually left nothing but swirl marks that were removed with liquid ebony...

Be curious to what your Clear Coat manufacturer rep would have to say??? Sorry to not be able to help out more... Maybe give Dub a call and ask him...

Rogman

 

Thanks for all the input, guys. Doug, I actually put four coats of clear on the car so I'm really not TOO concerned about sanding through it. On all the other panels before the hood I was sanding about 80-90% of the orange peel out with the 800 grit, then moving on to the finer stuff, but it was so much !!@&*?! WORK getting the rest of the orange peel completely out that I just decided to sand it ALL out of the hood with 800 since there aren't really any very sharp edges or corners to worry about on that particular piece.

Since I do happen to have a bumper crop of flourescent lights sitting around in my garage now, I think I'll try re-buffing the hood with 3M compound inside the garage and see if that makes any difference. This really is tiring work as some of you older phartz are certainly aware and I may just be running out of gas a little prematurely...It's really not too bad but for around the edges where I was kind of afraid to really lean on the pad, so I think I'll try the smaller pad in my drill where I can kind of localize the pressure, starting with small spots first...we'll see how this works. Tomorrow...

 

yeah, you were warned about the work! lol, I got tired just thinking about everything you got into, even more so when I saw how much orange peel on finish product. but remember this is why the pros charge thousands for good paint jobs, the skill of their spraying along with wet sand and rub time

 

Ignatz, I was wondering about that 3000-grit business. I have NEVER sanded a car to that fine a finish before polishing before, and I hadn't even heard of it until I saw a YouTube video a few weeks ago where someone had done it. It really wouldn't be that much more trouble at this point to just go ahead and re-do each panel with 3000. Now, all of the 'Trizact' stuff that I've looked at involves the use of a pneumatic DA...with my compressor screaming away while I DA'd mine with Trizact pads one of my neighbors would be by to shoot me in short order, and my electric meter would be overheating...did you do the 3000 by hand? I'd feel a LOT safer using that method...

 

Birdsmith: I did pretty much the whole car with a pneumatic D/A and a nice soft foam pad. As to compressor "screaming away" I have a good size compressor and didn't really have any issues with it. I really think you need the D/A to do it right. You definitely need the foam pad with it. Have to be careful around the edges of course. Do those by hand. But the 3000 grit doesn't take off much material so I didn't worry too much about the compound curves, just keep a light touch on them. I remember seeing sort of a frothy residue coming off the surfaces as I worked.

Had a hard time figuring out if the trizact even wore out. Decided to just go to a new one on every large panel. What the heck else would I do with them given it'll be years if ever before I do this again?

Try the T-Tops first, see what happens! Or a test panel if you've got one.

 

wow, things have come a long way, didn't know you could do the wet sanding with a DA, actually has me starting to consider repainting my load sooner or later....

 

Bird, this part is lots of work and the most critical for a great finish.
800 is way to coarse even to knock down the orange peel. I used 1000 and lots of soapy water to cut the peel then went to 1500 and 2000 before using a 3M three stage cut. The final cut was glaze and took out all the haze. I sprayed a single stage black and had two heavy coats so had to have a light touch with the pads. Black paint shows all your mistakes. Also make sure you use the right foam pads for your cuts and don't mix them up. I use yellow for the first cut, black for the second and red for the final glaze. Car looked great after the second cut until the light hit it just right and I could see the haze. The final cut with the red pad slicked it up nice.

 

I was thinking the same thing, but it was already done, and I figured the guys at the shop where he bought his materials from maybe told him it was ok.
question is now, how to offset that? more time with the 1000grit then what he has been spending.
btw, glad to hear its 4 coats clear and not 3 like I thought

 

Guys, again thanks for the advice. At this point you can still look at all of the polished panels and see that there is a good layer of clear on there, so what I think I'm going to do is re-sand first with 1500, then with 2000, then with the Trizact pad (which I picked up at AZ yesterday). After that I will do all three stages of buffing/ polishing, and see how that turns out...I have shot some base/clear in the recent past with a crappy gun but it was a much lighter color (like a Champagne Gold) and none of that haze was visible; I really think the dark color is a big part of the problem. It just takes a lot more elbow grease to get it perfect.

As for the 800 grit; I had seen some YouTube videos where the guy was using 800 (and even 600!) to cut the orange peel down before using the fine grits; it was probably just laziness and impatience on my part more than anything else that led me to do that...no more. some of you mind-readers out there need to get into my head before I make more of these dumb mistakes!

Cheers!