ROADRACER_

Has anyone wet-sanded their original factory clear-coat? I’m think about having mines done and was wondering if anyone has had theirs done and how it turned out. Is the clear-coat on the factory finish have enough to wet-sand and buffed. Also if not, can the clear-coat be color sanded and recleared without having any problems. I have a few light chips in the front and on the hood area and I was think having them touched up then having it color-sanded or maybe having it color-sanded and adding more clear to it. Anyone have any expertise please share this and let us know.


Thanks

LEADFOOT_

Is there anyone out there in the body shop business that might be able to help us? I would be very interested to know about this also. Is there someone that can shed some light on this issue?

JF_AH_64

You might be able to wetsand the factory clearcoat, just be careful not to sand through the clear, otherwise you will have to repaint. If you are going to do it yourself be prepared for alot of work. I have heard of people touching up the chips with paint and then putting enough clear over it so that it is above the rest of the surface and then wetsanding it down even with the finish, that might be a better way to go. I have worked at a bodyshop for the previous two summers and have come to despise the words wet sanding, but if you do it right it will look like a brand new paint job.

LEADFOOT_

Can it be taken down to the color coat, then reclear from that point up? On is it once you hit the color coat that’s the end? I like to know more about this since I have to problem too.

paintdaddy

Nooooooo! I wouldnt sand and polish your factory clear .They put the bare minimum that they can get a way with,its likely you will sand throgh.Besides when you sand and polish a car you are trying to remove any texture.Your car shouldnt have that much texture if it is factory paint. :nono:

mooncricket

I wouldn't recommend taking it down to the base coat and re-clearing it. I think the clear would start to lift and peel after a while. Dupont says to clear within 24 hours of applying base coat to apply clear. You could probably wet sand and not worry about breaking through if you still had the orange peel in the clear coat for sure, using the peel as a guage of sorts for how deep you are and just sand the peel out. I would also recommend taping or at least avoiding sharp corners, same as buffing.

I'm pretty sure you can buy a blender that will melt new clear coat into old. You just add it to the the clear coat mixture and spray. Otherwise I think it will lift and peel. But if you only have some small chips to do I wouldn't recommend risking the whole panel. Try clear fingernail polish.

A few years back, I disassmebled and painted my 88 panel by panel, I wet sanded every panel because I wanted it smooth as glass, and because (believe it or not) I was painting it out-doors and picked up some dirt. When I wet sanded it, I could feel the speck of dirt kind of "roll" out, leaving not even enough of a mark to distinguish between the metallic in the paint and where the dirt was. I even had a couple of small bugs fly into it and you could never tell after wet sanding. But again, this was all with fresh clear coat so I knew how deep it was and how deep the dirt was. It took all summer, but nobody believed it was a driveway paint job, it looks beautiful still, cept for some minor scratches and bruises from a couple of years of road rash that I haven't fixed.

If you must wet sand, do it with 1200 or 1500 and keep it wet. Don't get carried away and be patient. Then to buff the shine back, the 3M yellow stuff works great, then Maguires or Zaino or something.

Good luck!

:cheers:

Aggravated4life

If clear coat is bad or peeling,you need to get it sanded down some,new base and new clear for a excellent paint job.
That always costs $$$$ eh?

If just rock chips,theres a FIX out there for it.I cant remember the web site for the chip repair but sure someone will post it later.

The idea is to fill the chips in with the certain body color touch up and then when it dries,pour a solvent on a rag and wipe back and forth until the chip line from the touch up blends in and disappears.

Car dealers do this all the time...I worked at a dealer and all the used cars with chips got touched up by these guys called "chips away",who came once a week, and they sprayed each chip with a mini paint gun and filled the the chips.

When it dried,rub it over with a cloth with some kind of solvent and the chips were GONE.You would probably never see where they fixed it.

Saves the dealers tons of dollars to avoid repainting hoods and bumper by using these guys and helping resale value of their used cars.Oh yeah,the repairs last forever too as long as no serious abrasives are used on the paint.

I seen a car with maybe 40 rock chips on the hood and bumper...when they were done I couldnt see where they fixed,unless they missed one chip for the solvent rub down.Really impressive chip fixes out there.
:)

vettmech

If you aren't experienced at this you are opening up a BIG can of worms :seeya

Corvette0096

I am staying out of this one and I am a paniter. That is riskey bussiness, You don't know how much clear the factor puts on these things. So you sand the clear off or just scuff it up real good and you put more clear on it. What might happen if the thinners are hot you MIGHT blister the paint that you are trying to cover.

Mez

Chips are a fact of life for Corvette owners. Fill them carefully, lightly wet sand with 1500 or 2000 grit 3M paper, and lightly buff the area with 3M compound, then glaze compound to eliminate swirl marks, and Zaino. The less you mess with fully cured paint, the better you will be.

blk90rdstr

I have only wet sanded and buffed a relatilvely new car. It does look awsome but unfortunately i havent seen how it held up. On a car thats 6+ years old, I would not cut too much clear in fact id be careful machine buffing it. If you want flatter brighter paint...clay it. :cheers:

John Row

I've fixed chips with this stuff. Chips disappear :yesnod:

Big chips may take a second iteration.

www.langka.com/

dlmeyers

I understand you have some chips. These cars do take a beating up front.
If you want to have those repaired, call you insurance agent or adjuster, ask them where they would have their car repaired, get a few estimates. Believe me, insurance people know where the good paint techs reside.

Now, about the wet sanding, block sanding, buffing, whatever. With two part paints, the "texture" of a cars finish is usually associated with the clear coat. On a sunny day, sight down the side of a clean car and you may note "orange peel" look. Tiny waves if you will. This usually reflects the high's and lows of the clear coat. If it's really bad, you can see it from direct observation perpendicular to the car. Clear coat is usually measured in mills. When you take off the "high" points of the clear, you get a near totally smooth finish. Yes, you have removed clear coat. And, if careless or just unlucky, you get down to the base coat. Oooops. You can do this by whatever method you are using to level out the clear coat. The more clear coat you have, the more you protect the base or color coat. To much clear coat, the paint looks "thick". Too little clear coat, in a few years, it's gone.

Unless you are deep into show cars, show and shine, best in class, etc, one could leave the panels alone. Chips, If they bother you, get them fixed. If you do your homework, understand paints, finish, what products do what, experiment on someone elses car(I started on my mother in laws), you can get get pretty good at detailing, buffing, polish, and waxing, taking good care of the cars' finish. I try to avoid those $2500-$4000 paint jobs.

Enjoy your car. I love those LT4's. Drive'em like a stolen rental.

dlmeyers 90 coupe zf6 3 speed shocks


[Modified by dlmeyers, 11:56 AM 9/29/2002]

gsvette

The orange peel on my 96 GS was so bad, that right after I bought the car, I decided to have it re-painted.

I painted a few cars back in the day, so as an experiment, I tried wet sanding it before dropping it off at the body shop. What the heck !!!

I started by using 2000 grit Norton Black-Ice sandpaper on the clamshell, followed by buffing with various AutoMagic compounds. It turned out very nice!! I only took the factory clear down until you could just see a little shine left in the deepest valleys of the orange peel, then buffed.

It did not completely level the orange peel, but it was damn close....close enough to save the $3500 for go-fast parts instead of paint. The car really does look significantly better than it did stock. The reflections are almost perfectly clear with just a slight amount of distortion.

I want to stress here that most body shops will not wet-sand the factory clear, and, that if you have never done it before, you will most likely ruin the factory paint. Also, I used professional materials to do the job, not 3M sandpaper down at the local Wal-Mart. In the event that I sanded through the factory clear, I was completely prepared to have the car professionally re-painted.

I'm not sure about other cars.....maybe they layed the clear on extra-thick on my car, whatever the case, wet-sanding turned out very well on my car.

:cheers: