68 Mustang saved from the paintbooth

I

imported_weekendwarrior

New member
This was a fun one. The client picked this car up a couple weeks ago, and asked me if I could do anything with the paint. He assumed he needed to get it repainted. It's a 68, he's the 3rd owner. It has the original 289 engine, and 89K original miles. He plans on replacing the bumpers, and wheels and tires. He is also repainting the dash, and has a carpeting kit.



The car was repainted about 10 years ago, then the previous owner parket it under a tree, outside, and lost interest. The car had oxidation, water spotting and etching, RIDS, and scratches. It's a black cherry metallic.



Process...vertical panels wetsanded with 2000 grit. Horizontal panels wetsanded with 1000grit, and followed by 2000girt.



I compounded with everything from Solo burgundy wool, Solo yellow wool, Purple foamed wool, LC Orange foam, LC Yellow foam, and Presta Strata 1000, 3M ECC, and Megs 95 and 105, depending on the amount of defects. In some cases, I was polishing around 2100rpm with the rotary.



I then followed up with SIP and Orange LC foam in some areas, SIP and Purple foam wool in others. I then went back over the areas with SIP, and Meg's yellow Solo foam pad at 900 rpm, up to 1800 rpm, and back down to 900 rpm.



I finished with Ultrafina on the Flex with a finishing foam pad.



CMW was the LSP of choice, buffed off with OCW.



Befores....

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close up of the roof

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Day one was cloudy and rainy. Some of the work was done under the owner's carport...

50/50 shot

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Completed panels at the end of day 1...

Door

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Day 2 we had sun, so I finished up. Here are some in progress, and afters...

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Damn!!!



You really broight that car back from the dead... The owner must have been in awe when he saw the final results. It looks like a completely different car!!



Top notch work!!
 
Beautiful job. I am curious (since I have very little experience in wetsanding) why you choose to wet-sand rather than to see if a compound would have worked. I am not questioning you methods but wonder what your criteria is on paint inspection to go that route. (i.e. scratches too deep, rids, etc)



Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
 
wow the 'stang really came back to life. def the type of car favored here im metro-Detroit. Need to tell the owner to bring it up to the Dream Cruise on Woodward in August
 
longdx said:
Beautiful job. I am curious (since I have very little experience in wetsanding) why you choose to wet-sand rather than to see if a compound would have worked. I am not questioning you methods but wonder what your criteria is on paint inspection to go that route. (i.e. scratches too deep, rids, etc)



Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
Click to expand...



Thanks, and Good question. Like most detailers, I try the lease agressive method first. I did a test spot on the hood, just compounding (actually with multiple passes, using different types of wool), and no wet sanding...because believe me, I didn't want to have to wet sand that whole car if I didn't have to. What we saw in the test spot was that the gloss came out, but there were water spots and RIDS everywhere. I asked the owner if that was good enough for him, or if he wanted to wetsand. He told me to do another test spot with the wetsanding. I wetsanded, polished, and out came perfection. When he saw that, he was drooling and told me to proceed with wetsanding and polishing the whole car.



By the way, thanks everyone else for all of the compliments. This was one of the more fun jobs I have done in a while...I too was amazed with the great paint job that lurked beneath the mess.
 
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