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My car recently got a stone chip on the leading edge of the roof. I applied some touch up paint with a toothpick. Then when it dried, I smoothed out the blob with a small piece of 2,000 grit sandpaper on a tip of a pencil eraser. I made sure the area was always wet with water.
I hand polished it out with some 3M compound made for 1,500 grit or finer but I still see some swirls. I cleaned up the area and tried Meguire's Scratch X and Griot's hand polish but it made little or no difference.
When wetsanding, you should always soak your papers in car wash solution overnight. Then when you're working, you should be constantly flooding the surface with this soap/water solution. Depending on what I'm doing, I'll start with 2500 grit and I know I can remove the sanding marks with a rotary buffer, foam cutting pad, and Meguiars M84 compound without much effort.
ScratchX is extremely fine. You probably need something a bit more aggressive. On the Meguiar's aggressiveness scale--ScratchX is very similar to M82 or Swirl Remover 2.0 which I believe is around a 2 or 3. M84 is around a 10. You can see that to remove even 2500 grit sanding marks that you still need to get fairly aggressive.
As I've always said here on this forum, wet sanding isn't for the inexperienced. If you risk trying it on your paint without practicing on a non essential test panel, any mistakes you make could be costly.
Are you seeing swirls in the touched up area or in the paint surrounding the touchup?
Richard
Quote:
Originally Posted by Funk_Flex
My car recently got a stone chip on the leading edge of the roof. I applied some touch up paint with a toothpick. Then when it dried, I smoothed out the blob with a small piece of 2,000 grit sandpaper on a tip of a pencil eraser. I made sure the area was always wet with water.
I hand polished it out with some 3M compound made for 1,500 grit or finer but I still see some swirls. I cleaned up the area and tried Meguire's Scratch X and Griot's hand polish but it made little or no difference.
Did I miss a step or should try something else.
__________________ 5548 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807 866 707 9292
Looking for Prima?? Buy Prima at ShowCarSupplies.com
11% off everyday discount code: MINI11NAM 2010 Midnight Black MCCSa
As I've always said here on this forum, wet sanding isn't for the inexperienced. If you risk trying it on your paint without practicing on a non essential test panel, any mistakes you make could be costly.
thus take scratchx and take your time...
if he really knew wat he was doing or had experience, he wouldnt be asking here.
First, if OctaneGuy gives advice listen. (see above)
Second, when wet sanding start with lower number and work higher. I start with 1000 or 1500 and move to 2000 and if needed 2500. I started doing wet sanding well before seeing OG posts so I stay with what I know. I use 3M fine cut rubbing compound to get the haze from sanding out. I do this by hand so that I don't get agressive (it also makes me sand less the next time).
Third, maybe it should be first, don't start wet sanding on a car you care much about. Always learn on a car you can live with mistakes on. You will make mistakes.
Now that you have started just take your time. I can do more, but can't undo.
Are you seeing swirls in the touched up area or in the paint surrounding the touchup?
The swirls are mostly around the touched up area. The funny thing is, I did the same thing on the bonnet but I see no swirl marks. It's even funnier b/c I have the clear bra and the chip was right above bra . I'm wondering if white shows swirls marks better. My car is Hyper Blue BTW.
I've never been happy with Langka and I really dislike their marketing. They have a video of a young girl applying touchup paint and saying something to the effect, it's so easy even a young girl can do it. Yet, then she disappears and an adult is then shown removing the blob with Langka. The point being that you don't need skills to apply touch up when you have Langka, you just need skills when removing it!
I consider Langka akin to wet sanding with molassas. It's sticky, extremely smelly, requires skill, yet works like nothing else. I like to use it for removing touchup and smears during a bad application. But I've rarely been successful at ending up with the kind of repair I desire.
Don't get me wrong, Langka has allowed me to do some fantastic touchups--I repaired an M3 scratch that ended up looking like a faint paint drip, the repair was almost imperceptible, but that was under extreme stress and many many hours of work to get it right. The stress was because I unintentionally caused the damage, and if I didn't repair it, I was going to have to spring for a repaint, and that was going to cost an arm and a leg-so Langka HAD to work. lol.
In order to get this kind of repair, it was done using Langa and I still wetsanded and polished to remove some fine scratches instilled by the fabric I used to smooth down the paint.
__________________ 5548 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807 866 707 9292
Looking for Prima?? Buy Prima at ShowCarSupplies.com
11% off everyday discount code: MINI11NAM 2010 Midnight Black MCCSa
I attended a detailing conference this weekend. At the last minute they also hired me to videotape it---originally I thought I'd go there for just a little bit as an attendee, but if I'm videotaping, I'd have to stay the whole event, plus not be late getting there, . Ended up shooting for 10 hours with 4 hours of sleep the night before--packing and getting ready. The conference was over an hour away in each direction...needless to say, sleep sounds really good right now...
All this was coming off of two 16+ hour details earlier in the week. LOL
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenchan
^^ i think you just need more rest.
__________________ 5548 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807 866 707 9292
Looking for Prima?? Buy Prima at ShowCarSupplies.com
11% off everyday discount code: MINI11NAM 2010 Midnight Black MCCSa
I attended a detailing conference this weekend. At the last minute they also hired me to videotape it---originally I thought I'd go there for just a little bit as an attendee, but if I'm videotaping, I'd have to stay the whole event, plus not be late getting there, . Ended up shooting for 10 hours with 4 hours of sleep the night before--packing and getting ready. The conference was over an hour away in each direction...needless to say, sleep sounds really good right now...
All this was coming off of two 16+ hour details earlier in the week. LOL
you now wat, my energy pours out when im detailing...probably at the
6th hour mark im pretty much drained. dont know how the hell you do
16+ hr jobs. you are either super fit or you're letting your son do all
the dirty work while you sit back and sip on some drink. i think it's
the latter!!
I've used Langka with great success. It fills in the entire chip so it is smooth to the touch. I think the trick is to 1. not let the touch-up paint dry too much (2 hours max) and 2. let the chemical do most of the work. I fill the chip with the paint, come back in 2 hours and then dab some of the chemical on and let it soak for 1 or 2 minutes. Then with a plastic card wrapped with an old t-shirt I just smooth out the paint blob until it is slightly under flush. Then on with the clearcoat, let dry for 2 hours and repeat. This time I make sure the clearcoat is flush when I stop smoothing. Then polish and wax as needed.
OG's right though - smells of rotted rabbit, and it can make you a little woozy if you do not vent properly.
