CH.Detailing
What's a detail?
I was called out to do a different kind of paint correction the other day. My friend TJ is a graphic designer, kart racer, as well as a helmet painter and he gave me a call to help him out with a couple of helmets he was shipping out soon.
He originally planned to sand each freshly painted helmet and buff them back up to a glossy sheen by hand only. Unfortunately for him he forgot about the detailer's golden rule of always doing a test spot first. He had both helmets sanded down with 2500 grit before he began his hand polishing, this was when he realized he may be in need of some assistance!
He was competing in a race the next day and was going to deliver the helmets to their new owners in person. He called me at 8PM, with panic in his voice.
The clear was only a few days old and still very soft, so it wasn't very troublesome to deal with. Each helmet was corrected with the tried and true combo of M105/cyan and M205/tang via rotary, very slowly. The biggest difficulty was figuring out how to get the helmets to stay in place without having somebody hold them! We ended up simply wrapping one of his helmet stands with a blanket so it would stay snugly in place, and loading the base with a bunch of lead pucks.
I need to teach him the finer points of using a light touch when sanding, as some of the sanding marks took 3-4 passes to completely remove, which is more than should be necessary for fresh paint and fine grit sanding.
Gloss restored!
Helmet #2 received the same process of M105/M205, and was a bit easier to work with thanks to the lighter colors and metallic base.
Gloss restored!
I think he must have been pretty happy with the final result, as I'll now be doing all of his helmets before they ship out! Right now I'm working for 'store credit' so I can get some new business cards and then have my helmet painted!
He originally planned to sand each freshly painted helmet and buff them back up to a glossy sheen by hand only. Unfortunately for him he forgot about the detailer's golden rule of always doing a test spot first. He had both helmets sanded down with 2500 grit before he began his hand polishing, this was when he realized he may be in need of some assistance!
He was competing in a race the next day and was going to deliver the helmets to their new owners in person. He called me at 8PM, with panic in his voice.
The clear was only a few days old and still very soft, so it wasn't very troublesome to deal with. Each helmet was corrected with the tried and true combo of M105/cyan and M205/tang via rotary, very slowly. The biggest difficulty was figuring out how to get the helmets to stay in place without having somebody hold them! We ended up simply wrapping one of his helmet stands with a blanket so it would stay snugly in place, and loading the base with a bunch of lead pucks.
I need to teach him the finer points of using a light touch when sanding, as some of the sanding marks took 3-4 passes to completely remove, which is more than should be necessary for fresh paint and fine grit sanding.
Gloss restored!
Helmet #2 received the same process of M105/M205, and was a bit easier to work with thanks to the lighter colors and metallic base.
Gloss restored!
I think he must have been pretty happy with the final result, as I'll now be doing all of his helmets before they ship out! Right now I'm working for 'store credit' so I can get some new business cards and then have my helmet painted!
