It's going to look worse before it looks better.....

[dpbayly]

Decided I wasn't 100% happy with the paint finish....

Probably just me as everyone at work thought I was crazy and thought it looked great as it was.

But I hate orange peel look in paint, I even carried out this process to a brand new motor straight off the forecourt a few years back as most cars have a degree of orange peel effect in there paint due to the process of painting on the production line.

Anyway now for the scary part as I didn't paint the car I had no idea how thick the lacquer was although it does look like its been laid down thick, I have so far wet flatted the main panels first with 1500 grit then with 2000 grit.

here's some pics:

The rear quarter is where I started:



How it looked after I had finished with the 1500 grit before I went over it again with 2000 grit:



And how it currently looks after finishing going over the car with 2000 grit:



Tonight after work I'm getting it in the workshop and attacking it with first a hard foam head on the mop with G3 then once it's back upto a showroom shine I'll hit it all again with the soft foam head on the mop with Black top a product that gets rid of the hologram swirl mark effects left behind on dark coloured cars by the G3 on the Mop.

I'll update with pics once I'm done........

 

[smoothcoupe]

Hi there, what you really need now is 3m trizact pads in 3000 grade followed by trizact 6000 grade.. After this use 3m fast cut plus this is the green top compound and must be used with a 3m green pad, then 3m extra fine plus this is the yellow top compound and must be used with a yellow pad. Then finally use 3m ultra fine this is the blue top compound and must be used with the 3m blue pad to achieve the best results. If you really wanted to be fussy at each stage 3m do colour coded microfiber cloths.. And believe me after this the finish will be mirror like. But don't forget the flatter the paint the more it shows up dents and ripples in black. But good luck, give me a shout if you need any advice..

 

[Dieselman]

But don't forget the flatter the paint the more it shows up dents and ripples

Which is why manufacturers paint with a bit of orange peel showing.

 

[Felstmiester]

Ok!! Don't know what you do for a living but I'm assuming this is your profession? If it is then I still take my hat off to you!! If it's not. Your either mad or you've got balls the size of space hoppers. I **** myself when I dry my car off with micro fiber towel lol.

 

[JDMUK]

Brave doing it without paint depth gauge lol.... But I think from another post u own a coach works? So you can fix it if needs be lol.

 

[Ian_Mac]

Looking forward to seeing the results.

 

[SL350_SWINDON]

Cool, wanna see results!

 

[Dieselman]

Why not just leave it wet sanded for the matte look?

 

[dpbayly]

Hi there, what you really need now is 3m trizact pads in 3000 grade followed by trizact 6000 grade.. After this use 3m fast cut plus this is the green top compound and must be used with a 3m green pad, then 3m extra fine plus this is the yellow top compound and must be used with a yellow pad. Then finally use 3m ultra fine this is the blue top compound and must be used with the 3m blue pad to achieve the best results. If you really wanted to be fussy at each stage 3m do colour coded microfiber cloths.. And believe me after this the finish will be mirror like. But don't forget the flatter the paint the more it shows up dents and ripples in black. But good luck, give me a shout if you need any advice..

Thanks

That would be great if only I had all that kit.... I would be in my element.

I could only imagine the hours involved in that lot.

Which is why manufacturers paint with a bit of orange peel showing.

Thats interesting, didn't think of that.

Ok!! Don't know what you do for a living but I'm assuming this is your profession? If it is then I still take my hat off to you!! If it's not. Your either mad or you've got balls the size of space hoppers. I **** myself when I dry my car off with micro fiber towel lol.

I'm a mechanic by trade but I'm lucky enough to have a spray shop at my place and over the years I've become half decent at spraying which comes in handy,

I've Moped most of my cars over the years and you learn what you can do and get away with.

Brave doing it without paint depth gauge lol.... But I think from another post u own a coach works? So you can fix it if needs be lol.

Yep I wouldn't have been so confident if I didn't have the spray shop as back up as well as the paint code from the previous owner.


Anyway I finished at 10.30pm I was working solid from 5pm on it at work on the MOT ramp (makes life easier being able to raise the car) It's not 100% done there's a couple of little bits I noticed I haven't hit hard enough with the compound first time round so I'll sort them tomorrow before I wash and wax it.

It's not 100% perfectly flat I really didn't want to push my luck that said It's 100 times better than it was before.

Here's a couple of pics on the ramp as I was working on it:

first panel moped


one side done:


Bonnet done:


Other side done:


Couple of shots of the reflections:




Will look even better once cleaned and waxed which hopefully I'll get done tomorrow......

 

[SL350_SWINDON]

Impressive

 

[Suky Sangha]

Very nice!

Sent from my iPhone using MBClub UK

 

[daveenty]

Stunning job.

You should be rightly proud of it.

 

[Auto-mobile]

Balls... big balls, I couldnt build up the confidence to attempt that, excellent job!

 

[JRH30]

Looks fantastic. Great job!!

 

[SimonRJ]

Wow - what a finish! I have to say, I was nervously scrolling down the blog wondering what the next pics would look like. Look forward to the final pics!

 

[Dave Richardson]

Glad to see the hard work paid off, nice job mate

 

[cb1965]

Brilliant job, love seeing this sort of thing! Some finished pics when you have time please

 

[NyseriA]

I have only ever done a small job on the wife's old car prior to sale and it felt like it took forever. Pretty impressive to do a full car without being paid a lot for it! Good work!

 

[Felstmiester]

Very impressed!! Well done.

 

[dpbayly]

Well when I got to work this morning I walked round the car noting all the areas that required further moping and then hit those areas again with another 2.5hrs flinging compound everywhere so all in all I've spent 4.5 hrs wet flatting followed by 8hrs of moping and I was finally happy:

a couple of pics outside after i finished moping:







After work I fired up the heated pressure washer and washed off all the excess compound before getting it back in the workshop to dry it down and apply a coat of wax,

Unfortunately it was dark by the time I was finished so here's a few pics in the MOT bay all shiny and gleaming:









I'll hopefully get some good outside picks at the weekend after I clean and wax it again as It's just started raining........