My new paint is 8 weeks old and I have been meaning to do this for quite some time. My paint job was great, but there was minimal orange peal and some minor contaminants in the hood, roof and hatch (normal people would never notice, but I am a perfectionist :hyper: lol). Anyhow, I’m going to get up super early tomorrow morning and start on it. I’m going to wet sand the whole car with 1500 and 2000 grit. Then I plan to buff it with Farelca G3 (compound that my painter recommended) until all the scratches/swirls are gone. Then I’m going to polish with Meguire’s Polish. Once I get it the way I want it I’ll give it a good coat of pure carnuba wax (8 weeks is enough curing time for the paint, right?).
This is my first time doing this. Is there anything I should know or watch for? I know to stay away from any corners or ridges with the sandpaper and buffing compound. I’m not nervous, but if I fuck up my paint I’ll be pretty upset. I’m quite confident I can get it looking really good… it just might take me longer then someone who’s done this before.
Please chime in with any tips, hints or experiences you’ve had with cutting and buffing. It would be good to have a thread going for us detailing nOObs
Start out with 1500 grit until the surface of the clear is hazy. Keep it and wet and dry every once and while when sanding. A squeegy is very handy. Do not sand in one spot too long. Move around. Take the corners easy. Move up to 2000 grit when the surface is almost hazy. The orange peel gets hazy first. Once everything is hazy, that means the clear is flat. Dry the car and tape the corners to save yourself from burning through them. For first time users, i would recommend using foam pads. Get the 3m or meguiars pads found at local paint shops. start out with the compound and work on the panel by panel. Once you are done compounding the car, use a different foam pad to apply the polish. do not put too much pressure, and polish. Then go over what you just polished again with the pad, but do not exert any pressure at all onto the buffer. Let the weight of the buffer do the work. By this time, the paint should be all nice and shiny. Hand glaze it and then later in a week, wash the car and wax it. You should be good. Make sure you take it easy on the corners when buffing, or the paint will burn. Also make sure you take your time compounding it, because it gets rid of the scratches. The polish brings back the shine. Also, SAND IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY!! Soak the sandpaper in a bucket of water and soap for atleast 4 hours prior to wetsanding the car. GOODLUCK!
Thanks for the great info. I will take my time and hopefully it will turn out well! I will post pics when I get back to work on Monday! If I don’t post pics, it’s probably cause I burned through the paint and hung myself :sad: haha j/k
I got it done yesterday. I will take some pics and post them up soon! It turned out GREAT!
All told it took me about 13 hours. That wasn’t alone though. My girlfriend and father helped most of the time. First, I wet sanded the whole car with 1500 grit. After washing it quickly I then wet sanded it with 2000 grit. Then I showed my girl how to use the buffer and put her to work I buffed each section with Farcela G3 regular grade compound (about 4-5 times for each section, until all the scratches were gone). Then I polished it with a few coats of Meguires Fine Cut paste cleaner and then finally a coat of Meguires Deep Crystal polish. We had a good system working. My girlfriend would buff it in and my old man and I would buff it out by hand. Once we got done polishing, my father and I detailed and waxed my rims while my gf detailed the interior. All that’s left is a few good coats of wax, but I was WAY too tired to finish up. So I parked it in the garage and I’ll leave it there until I finish waxing it (probably tomorrow morning).
As far as how it looks… it’s amazing! Keep in mind, my paint looked really good before (brand new paint as of July 2nd 2006). But I am too much of a perfectionist. The hood, roof and hatch lid all had little imperfections in the paint. Almost looked like dust, but it wasn’t. In direct sunlight it looked amazing, but under florescent light in a garage it really stood out (you probably wouldn’t notice it unless I pointed it out though). But, now it’s smoooooth and has a DEEP shine. It’s so clean I almost don’t want to drive it :dunno: lol. Oh well, it’s raining today, so I left it in the garage at my parents place until it lets up. I’ll take it out and snap some pictures ASAP! Thanks for the info guys. I highly recommend this for any new or old paint that needs a pick-me-up
I put in 7 more hours (3.5 last night and 3.5 this morning). That puts the total time spent up to 20 hours now and I’m not quite done. My gf and I went over to my parents garage to wax it last night. But, when we got there and looked VERY closely at the paint, there were still a few very fine scratches in the hood and roof. Outside in the daylight you can’t see anything, but I want this perfect (no matter what the lighting conditions). No sense in spending 13+ hours for anything less then perfection, right?
So, I buffed again… and again… and again… I buffed in a scratch remover that did a great job of cutting down the fine scratches. I finished the hood and polished it this morning. Next I need to do the same to the roof and trunk lid and do a couple light coats on the doors for good mesure. Outside in the sun it looks un-fucking-believable!! :ohyeah: The shine and reflection is insane! I figure by the time I have the job complete, I’ll be looking easily at over 30 hours (w/ 2-3 people working at all times). BIG job, but definitely worth it in the end!!
Here’s a couple teaser pics of the hood reflection… more to come!! Thanks for looking!!
But it’s all worth it. I’ll get a couple hours in tonight and tomorrow and hopefully be able to put a few coats of wax on it by the end of the week. I hate to drive this now that it’s this clean lol. Oh well, it’s finally starting to look good :cloud9:
LoL If you wanna bring it up to Nova Scotia I’ll hook you up, Alan… for a price of course! :nana:
I called a local shop about a month ago and asked them what they would charge to wet sand/buff a new paint job (just checking price). They told me I was likely looking at $300, but they would have to see the car first (thus that price could go up or down). They would have better tools, supplies and superior skills/knowledge. Would it come out this good? Probably. Would they do it a lot quicker? Sure. But what’s the fun in letting someone else fix your baby? It’s all about taking the time and doing it yourself. The journey is the fun part…
That topic came up in a discussion with my father last night. He and 2 of his buddies built a huge, multi level deck on the back of their house 10 years ago. It was SO fun to help them hammerin nails and drilling holes (I was only 11 at the time). Sure, he could have paid a contractor to build it and just relaxed on it when they were done. But instead they turned their pencil diagrams on napkins into the real deal, and it’s still something to be proud of.
I guess the morale of this is it’s always better to do it yourself. It’s much easier on the pocket book and in the end you have something to be proud of, the knowledge to do it again (more efficiantly of course), and the memories of putting blood, sweat and tears into your car (or whatever you’re working on)
haha, I think i’d save money having a shop do it then driving up to canada because of gas
Oh yea, you can take alot more pride knowing you did everything yourself and alot more respect from everyone because it’s built not bought…
I cant do it myself :(, I can probably wet sand and buff… I’v had 2 years training in auto body and the teacher always made me do all the wet sanding on all the cars I hate doing it, But i think im pretty good at it … But i used wet sanding blocks…
With my car… everything is best left to the professionals because its black and every imperfection shows 10x worst then any color…
Yea, I hear yah man. Dark red metallic isn’t much better. I sometimes envy people with white or silver cars! But, red and black look SO much better IMO. Hopefully after getting this done right and putting a couple coats of wax on it, I can keep it fairly clean. Before long it will be put away for hibernation. At least I shouldn’t ever have to wet sand it again. On the plus side, waxing is going to feel like a cake walk after this is done! lol :hi5:
God, you’re lucky. No snow :drool: I don’t mind snow in moderation. But I HATE the salt and freezing cold weather that’s associated with it. Hell on cars and moods. I am a warm weather person. Oh well, the scenary and people make up for it. I love where I live!
The shine and reflection is insane! I figure by the time I have the job complete, I’ll be looking easily at over 30 hours (w/ 2-3 people working at all times). BIG job, but definitely worth it in the end!!
I hate doing it, But i think im pretty good at it 
… But i used wet sanding blocks…