Recommendations for Wet Sanding Lacquer Paint

[Rob Tomlin]

This next one is pretty obvious, but this will serve as a reminder to everyone. When you tape off the edges, please use the blue painters tape, not regular masking tape!



I brought over the blue painters tape, but my friend wanted to use the regular masking tape that he had because it wasn't as wide as the tape that I had brought. He didn't think it would be a problem because the tape would not be on the car that long:

I wish that I had pushed a lot harder than I did to use the blue painters tape, because when we removed the regular masking tape, it actually removed some paint with it! You could see little chips of paint stuck to the tape. This actually turned out to be the biggest mistake that we made during the whole process. :sadpace:

 

[Barry Theal]

I would conisder this a learning exsperaince.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

I would conisder this a learning exsperaince.

You can say that again!

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Ok, here are a few pictures after the initial compounding with rotary and M95 using a wool polishing pad. I think I probably should have used an even more aggressive "compounding pad".



These pics were taken at the end of the first day with almost no light left, so they were taken in the shop under the fluorescent lights.



While there is very good improvement in shine in this pictures, there are still plenty of swirls and some haze if you look closely:

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Here is a 100% crop of the above picture that shows the remaining swirls/scratches/haze left at the end of the first day:

More "after" pics coming tomorrow.

 

[Mike_Phillips]

That's a zillion times improvement! Great photography work also in capturing not only the before pictures but really good, accurate after pictures.



The haze you're seeing after the M95 with a wool finishing pad will completely disappear with your follow-up step.



If you're going to use Meguiar's, try the M205 with one of their yellow foam polishing pads, any model of the yellow foam will work great to build on the results you've already achieved.



After that, if you can re-polish again only switch to a DA style polisher with a small foam polishing pad and the same M205. After this you should be able to go straight to a wax or paint sealant.



I quite frankly can't believe the finish turned out this nice after looking at the quality of finish you started with and I don't mean the condition but the quality of the paint itself. I've seen a lot of re-paints that look like what you started with and a lot of time, this type of paint quality just doesn't buff out to a clear, high gloss.



Nice work.



:bow :bow :bow :bow :bow

 

[RaskyR1]

Wow! Looks great Rob! I actually didn't think it would come out this well after seeing the before pics.



Well done sir! can't wait to see the final pics! :goodjob

 

[Rob Tomlin]

That's a zillion times improvement! Great photography work also in capturing not only the before pictures but really good, accurate after pictures.

Thanks Mike, I appreciate that. It doesn't do anyone any good to try and post misleading pictures. That's why I posted the close up (crop) that showed the remaining swirls better.

The haze you're seeing after the M95 with a wool finishing pad will completely disappear with your follow-up step.

Yes, it did. Pics to come.

If you're going to use Meguiar's, try the M205 with one of their yellow foam polishing pads, any model of the yellow foam will work great to build on the results you've already achieved.

Just for clarification, the job has been completed, I am just trying to catch up on processing the pictures. I didn't use M205, I used Menzerna's SIP.

After that, if you can re-polish again only switch to a DA style polisher with a small foam polishing pad and the same M205. After this you should be able to go straight to a wax or paint sealant.

I did wind up using my PC much more than I had anticipated. In fact, it was after the above pictures showing the remaining swirls/haze that I went to the PC. The results were simply superb!

I quite frankly can't believe the finish turned out this nice after looking at the quality of finish you started with and I don't mean the condition but the quality of the paint itself. I've seen a lot of re-paints that look like what you started with and a lot of time, this type of paint quality just doesn't buff out to a clear, high gloss.



Nice work.



:bow :bow :bow :bow :bow

Thank you! I will say that my friend was extremely happy with the final results, and so was I. It far exceeded our expectations.



Let me just say this, though: the best is yet to come, because the final buffing made a HUGE difference, and the remaining pictures will be more impressive than what is seen above.

 

[Legacy]

Super job Rob and great write up. Takes a lot of time to load those pictures. Again, awesome job and can't wait for the final photos. I'll just wait to see what LSP you used, but I'm hoping it's Blackfire Wet Diamond.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Super job Rob and great write up. Takes a lot of time to load those pictures. Again, awesome job and can't wait for the final photos. I'll just wait to see what LSP you used, but I'm hoping it's Blackfire Wet Diamond.

Nope, still haven't bought Blackfire Wet Diamond yet. But you will see what LSP I used as it is actually prominently displayed in one of the forthcoming pics.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Here are a few pics after the final polishing steps.



At the end of the first day and compounding with the wool and M95, I spent the rest of that evening and night thinking of what to try next to get out the remaining scratches/swirls etc.



I decided what the heck, I would just try the PC with a yellow foam cutting pad and M105 to see what happened. I was surprised to see how incredibly well this method worked! It made a LOT of difference, so I wound up going over the whole car again using this combo.



After that, I finished with Menzerna SIP going back to the rotary.



These pics were taken prior to the LSP:

As you can see, there was quite an improvement after the additional polishing. The color has now really come through, and even though we were not able to remove all scratches/swirls, we did make a large improvement.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

And the rest of the "after" pictures.



This was a real surprise in terms of how good it turned out. As discussed, we did make some mistakes, but in the end we were very happy with the final results. The paint is nice and glossy, with good reflections and good depth to the paint.



We did get thin on some edges, and we also went down to primer in 3 spots (look at the 2nd picture of the trunk on the left side). This was one of our biggest concerns, and sure enough it did happen, but we knew it was a risk. In hindsight, it was still definitely a risk worth taking.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

I guess I should actually post a picture of the entire car!

Here you can see that there are still some swirls near the body line. I was concerned with getting to close since that is where the paint was getting thin. Need to go back and remove those by hand.

Hey, the hood now actually has *reflections*!

I've always maintained that Opti-Seal looks very good on darker/deeper colors, so I thought this was the perfect color to try it on, and it seemed to finish things off quite nicely.

 

[Legacy]

Very nice. Use meg's uc by hand for the edges, it will finish down in 1 step.

 

[Legacy]

BTW the opti seal looks great, but it's your hard work in prepping and 105 that got you those results.

 

[Accumulator]

Rob Tomlin- Glad it turned out so well, nice job :xyxthumbs



I wouldn't worry to much about the strike-throughs, ss is usually pretty forgiving as long as you keep things well LSPed (and don't mind seeing the primer).



Curios why you used Optiseal though...I woulda leaned towards a glaze/wax combo.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Very nice. Use meg's uc by hand for the edges, it will finish down in 1 step.

Thanks, we will probably just try the M105 by hand and see how it goes.

BTW the opti seal looks great, but it's your hard work in prepping and 105 that got you those results.

No question about it!

Rob Tomlin- Glad it turned out so well, nice job :xyxthumbs

Thank you.

I wouldn't worry to much about the strike-throughs, ss is usually pretty forgiving as long as you keep things well LSPed (and don't mind seeing the primer).

Yeah, I will just slap some OS on their every month or so when I see the car.

Curios why you used Optiseal though...I woulda leaned towards a glaze/wax combo.

Well, why not? I'm not much of a wax guy, I prefer sealants (and I have tried a LOT of them).



I do admit, though, that I considered putting Top of the Lines Trade Secret on, because that was a carnauba that I used on my Velocity Red RX-8, and it looked fantastic on red! It also attracted dust though, and I really hate that about many 'nuba's.



The OS seemed to work well on this, although I have not seen it since it has cured.

 

[Envious Eric]

Here you can see that there are still some swirls near the body line. I was concerned with getting to close since that is where the paint was getting thin. Need to go back and remove those by hand.

Is this an after/final????

 

[MichaelM]

Well done! Excellent turn around.

 

[Accumulator]

Well, why not [use a sealant instead of glaze/wax]? I'm not much of a wax guy...

In some cases of iffy single stage, the combo of a glaze like the Meg's pure polishes and a wax somehow works near miracles with regard to keeping the paint "healthy" for a long time. It's related to the "feeding the paint" thing that's not the utter BS with ss that it is with b/c.



And hey, I'll just admit I prefer the "wax look" on single stage, purely a personal quirk of mine. And yeah, that does mean dust attraction

The OS seemed to work well on this, although I have not seen it since it has cured.

Yeah, I expect it'll be fine. But if you notice a tendency towards quick drying/oxidizing/chalking/etc. then you might consider trying the other route. OR, if you decide you want to change the look in a way that makes the residual flaws less noticeable; the glaze/wax would probably help in that regard too.