Grzldvt

WOW, that looks great. For those thinking about and have never tried it, I strongly recommend buying a piece of sheet metal, small hood, mirror, headlight cover, etc, at a junk yard and trying it first. I have wet sanded several cars, trust me you must be EXTREMELY careful on the edges. It is very easy to break through even with 3000 grit, on the edges, or inside curves. I have done it. I tried to patch/blend it, it simply did not look right and the whole panel had to be repainted. The you run into a matching issue. If you don't match the OP on the other panels, it looks very strange, sanding the other panels to match can cause further grief.
Frank was very wise staying away from the letters, they have just enough definition to allow a break through with very little effort. Just a word of caution......

agentf1

Yes, I am staying away from all edges and being very conservative with my sanding. It will not be OP free when I am done but it will look 1000 times better. Great advice practicing on test panels first.

agentf1

Here is the lower door sanded

Done

Rear Qtr

Done

Roof

Done


Roof and Qtr done



And as you see, this is far from leveling and removing the OP, this is just a quick once over with 3000.

J Z06

IT is a BEAR to get rid of all the compound crap in the crevices! I watched my C4 get it's clear "Smoothed" by a friend and I was cleaning stuff out of the hard to reach areas for a LONG time! That looks nice!

it stopped raining here, so I am going to wash mine and take a shot at wet sanding those scratches on the nose I asked you about.

J

agentf1

Let me know how you make out or if you have any questions.

J Z06

Thanks!

95vettski

Looks great!

Are you wet sanding by hand or with a machine? I was watching someone wet sand with an orbital and if you see the final results you would not believe it. He makes all the lines on the car look razor sharp and the paint smooth as glass. This truely takes a lot of skill and talent, but the results are phenominal. It makes an average paint job look like a show car.

agentf1

I am doing it by hand. You are probaly referring to the Mirka system. I would love to try that out, I hear it works well.

agentf1

Just finished the ps door.

Arghhhhhhhhhhh, this corvette clear is so #$^%ing hard. It took me approx 2 1/2 hours just to sand and buff the top of the door from the BSM on up and most of that was buffing. It will get shiny and then you will still see a bunch of sanding scratches that are deep into the clear that take an extra hour to get perfect. I am using unigrit which should leave uniform scratches according to their packaging but... It has always been like this even with the C6 Z we did and I think it is just the nature of cured factory paint, especially GM paint.

I feel much better now that I have vented. Whatever you do do not attempt this with a ROB, even the rotary takes a lot of effort to bring this paint back. If I was workin on my MB I would be done by now. I will post some more pics soon. It is a nice weekend I think I am going to take a break and drive this sucker like it was meant to be.

zulatr

Wouldn't the compounding have gone a lot faster if you had used a more agressive compound?

Inquiring minds want to know..........

agentf1

I am using the 3m 05933 and/or 06062 which are both pretty aggressive and say they can remove up to 1500 sanding scratches. I was thinking about going one step more aggressive but what I am using brings back the gloss pretty quick but then takes a while to remove what appears to be isolated sanding scratches. I have also been contemplating using a wool pad to see how that works. When we did the C6 Z we played around with OHC, OC and Menzerna Power Gloss and the 3M seemed to work best. Anybody have any recomendations for a better compound? Personally I think it is just the GM clear coat is so hard.

zulatr

I use 3M 06011 compound with a compounding pad, not a wool polishing pad when I want to attack something. It'll take out scratches from 600 paper on non-factory (re)paints. I'm not very experienced at foam pads on a rotary, but I do know you can't lean on foam like you can a regular pad. I use Schlagle #1, it's a twisted cotton, (I think) pad. I did my 70 Trans Am, which was white so it was easy. Did 600 then the compound, not finer papers at all, and it came out like glass. This is the process I've always used with the old laquers and even the catalyst cured enamels. As I've said before, I have zero experience with the paints on the current cars.

Did my boat today with the 06011 on all the scuffs, some sanding with 400 here and there, then the the 3M finesse it for the rest of the hull. This is all on gel-coat which is pretty soft.

I'm looking for paper now, not finding it in the hardware type stores, so will go to the body supply shop this week, and then my black z goes under the wheel.....

mk

agentf1

What grit do you plan on starting out with?

6']['9

For wetsanding ive removed 2k sanding marks with Megs 85 & lambskin wool pad. it doesnt swirl as much as using a twisted wool pad. Also i heard LC offers a foamed wool pad.

zulatr

I don't use wool polishing pads with compound. My experience is they do one of two things, either load up or generate enough heat that the compound ends up sticking to the surface. That's not a big deal, a little moisture and it comes right off, but it's another step. The twisted wool or cotton (not sure which they are) will definately leave wheel marks, but they can be delt with. I think polishes have more lubricants than compound, which are needed with the fner wool polishing pads to properly handle the surface as the material dries out.

agentf1

I think the method I am using now is not working all that bad. I am using either an orange LC pad or a yellow Meguiars pad and the 3m PI III 05933 or 3m PI 3000 06062. After that step you can follow up with any good SSR like ZPC or PO106ff. The GM cc is so damn hard it just takes a little buffing to get it back to being LSP ready compared to some other paints.

6']['9

well polishing out swirls isnt that hard to begin with. However if you use a paint leveler i.e Hitemps those have some lubricity. I like the 85 cause you can work it pretty long, a lot longer than something like 3m compound. id give some of the hitemps levelers a try, also the akrya heat induced levelers work pretty good as well.

agentf1

I have not been thrilled with any chemicals that Meguiars makes recently. I have an entire gallon of #83 that has been sitting on my shelf going to waste. Would you be interested in trading any small samples of any of the above for some 3M or 83 or anything?

6']['9

Pm sent.

lancebux

Quick questions-

What is ZPC?

Where are you getting your pads from?

Thanks, great job.