whats the best way to restore my carbon fiber hood…i heard of sanding it and i also heard of Meguiars Scratch X…i wanna get ideas cause im planning of doing it on saturday morning…heres a picture of the hood right now
Tegboi works at a body shop here in socal. He fixed up his carbon parts really nice. Restoring basically involves cleaning the surface, sanding finer and finer grits, then applying a new clearcoat. For that coat, usually a bodyshop is required, especially if you want a UV coating.
nice front bumper i have the big mouth too…If your CF hood is starting to turn yellow then its fake n dnt wrry bout it…but theres a couple of other threads on how to already so just search if its not yellow
try a buff first
wetsand 2500
then buff
what do you mean if it’s turning yellow it’s fake?? 99% of companies that produce carbon fiber parts use the same type of gelcoat to finish their parts, and guess what, after exposure to sunlight, that gelcoat turns yellow! it doesn’t even remotely mean that the part is fake. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with the carbon. I’m not even sure where you got that idea.
depending how bad it is you might be able to restore it with 3m marine fiberglass wax. my friends hood was oxidizing bad and we were able to buff it out.
all the scratchX & polishes is just that, a polish, top coat cleaner… best thing to try if you dont want to spend $150/$200 (depending on extent of damage) for me to refinish it, is try sanding it down with 800 grit maybe? wetsand, the whole hood until it’s even, ( when you have water on it, you can imagine that’s what it will look like with a new layer of clearcoat)
you can try using rubbing compound & polish compound… but everytime i’ve tried polishes & cleaners, it turned out nice, but after hours and hours of sanding & buffing. then a week/month later, after sitting in the sun day by day, it starts to come back. i’ve never had the result i have now with the new layer of clear on it.
and another thing, when parts of the hood are closer to the engine (i.e. if you have a vtec motor, the engine sits closer to the hood) and your invader style hood (i think) may allow areas to sit lower, so it has more of a chance to get damaged by heat from the engine added to the UV rays from up top…
give me a call here at work if you want to come by…
562-961-1000 - kevin
i’ve been told that stuff works great too…
a guy i know at a body shop said he can re-clear my hood for $50, but he doesnt know if it will be the same process as doin a regular hood…is it?
- wet sand…what grit?
- clear it
- wet sand…what grit?
- buff
is this right?
depending on condition of the hood. want to get the top coat off, evenly…
600 grit, finnish with 800 grit
if after paint, 1000 or 1500
up to you…
CF hoods tend to always have pin-holes everywhere, from the clearcoat not being able to coat over some of the CF.
I heard the same thing with sanding and buffing…but then when you have to put on a new clear coat too n lke sometimes the hood rejects it n it takes longer and more coats…i would do it for $50
buff the fu** out of it, it will shine like new but only for so long its needs recleared
with what, krylon? :umno:
creamy peanut butter…
and 60 grit sand paper…
Red91G2-
he will buff right through the clear coat then…not a good idea and all buffing does really is scratches the surface & polishing fills in the holes(i’m a detailer:angel: )
You should use a finer grit, such as 800, use a block, don’t go electronic. Then wetsand it, clear coat it, and wetsand w/ 2000 just to get the orange peels out of the clear. After all that compound buff the clear & then fine polish it…but i guess if you didn’t know this you should really have tegboi do it…since sand paper can get expensive if you want to do it right and clear coat isn’t exactly cheap like all paint
___tegboi____where u work at …soo i could go soo u could put an eye on my hood…
9 months later.
and “the peanut butter” trick is only a temporary fix. only lasts for a few weeks, IF THAT.
i’m sure this has been taken care of by now. if not, do it RIGHT.