I asked this once before, but I can't find the post now...

My paint is orange-peeled and oxidizing real bad... the clear coat is also scratched and has swirl marks in it. The car is very hard to wax because the paint is so bad.

Tell me if I'm going in the right direction with these steps:

Wetsand with 800 grit wet paper and car soap, move on to 1200 or possibly 1500...

Use 3M fine cut rubbing compound

Use a hand glaze...

Wash and wax...

Do you think that'll fix most of my problems?

 

Sh*t.... if your paint is already shot then it's worth a try.

but yes that would be the correct process to bring back some of the luster and shine.

 

I'd go right to the hand glaze and forget about the rest. If your paint is pretty well oxidized, there's no reason to think that it's strong/thick enough to hold up to sand paper and you may wind up sanding right through the paint. Try using the hand glaze and some good old elbow grease.

I remember when I worked for a Toyota dealer. He had an old S10 on the lot that he managed to sell before he wholesaled it. He sold it cheap. It was a red truck, but had faded to pink. He had me detail it (like I did to all the cars he sold) and when the new owner got the truck, he couldn't believe it. I spent the whole morning hand glazing 1 panel at a time, then putting down 2 coats of wax. The truck looked 1000% better. The dealer got pissed of at me because he realized that he could have gotten an extra grand for the truck. He told me not to spend that much time on such an old vehicle next time. :sillylol:

 

Thanks for the heads up, I'm heading out now to check out some hand glaze...

 

Don't use 800 you will do more damage than good. First try and wheel it out or buff it out. If you don't have either then by hand. if you are still not happy try 1500 and then 2000. Do a small area as a test first and see how it comes out. The fading will come out with a wheel or buffer. If you have never used one don't stay in one place to long or you will burn thru the paint. Also don't stay on edges to long.

 

If Jim's had good experience with hand glaze, try that first, I have no experience with that, but I will say that if your clearcoat is swirling up, then you're just not going to get big results wetsanding. Basically you're going to chip the clearcoat, and then the only choice you'll have to is to wetsand the whole hood until the clearcoat is off, and then of course your paint won't be protected.

You could go back and clearcoat the whole thing over once you did that I suppose, but in my experience, a car looks pretty rough after wetsanding until you buff it. If you buff it, you're going to have all sorts of wax filling in your minor cracks and whatnot, and it isn't a good idea to clearcoat over that.

If you clearcoat right after wetsanding, you could just trap that rough looking paint under the clearcoat. I don't know, I'd wait until someone who has some painting experience was able to answer for you, if you have to go this route and the hand glaze doesn't work.

Good luck and let me know your results. I also have the clear coat lifting on my hood. I need a new hood tho, so I'm not too worried about it, but if I could find a cheap fix like that it'd be great.

Mathius

 

if you are going to sand it you should start with 1000 or 1500. if i were i would try the other processes explained above.

 

Don't wet sand, do that as a last resort. I would without hesitation give it a fine cut on a foam pad(buff) then colour up with 3M perfecit foam pad glaze on a buff(you may need to hire one?)
then wax or 113 it.
good luck and lets hear of your results