Few trouble areas

R

rudyd

New member
So I'm in the market for a PC since I recently bought a car that is in sub-par condition and needs a major detailing job. The original owner did not take car of this car at all. I plan on buying a 7424, using the Edge 6" wave pads and a few products. I planned to detail the entire car in the following steps:



Claybar

PB SSR2.5

PB SSR1

Zaino Z-5

Zaino Z-2



I have a few areas that will more than likely need more effort and probably need more steps to correct their flaws. I'd like professional opinions before I attack them myself. Is wetsanding an option in these areas?



Nice keymark, I can feel it with my fingernail so it is relatively deep.

0630081746.jpg




Horrible scuff on the rear bumper, right above this you see the paint cracking a little bit

0630081753.jpg




Any advice or suggestions will be great. This will be my first detailing job ever, so if you can recommend better products (I've heard 6" pads on the PC are a bad idea?) it would be greatly appreciated.
 
I find the PC struggles with 6 inch pads (not enough power) so I almost use exclusively 4 inch pads nowadays. This is most apparent on vertical panels, on horizontals it seems to work better though. I've read that the 5.5 (or maybe it was 5? can't remember) inch pads work better too



If you can feel the key one with your nail then I don't think you can take out the whole thing. With both of them I think you'd be better going for reduction instead of removal, at least for now.



Rounding the edges of the damage can make quite a difference in appearance (at least in my experience) so maybe you won't even need to remove them 100%.



With the first picture the deeper mark is that short white one below the tail light? Is that another key mark that extends from the tail light?



With the deeper one I'd be careful. I would try working it a bit by hand first, mainly because of concern that the machine might catch an edge and chip off some more paint. If the tail light one is another mark then you should be able to reduce that one a bit at least.

With the scuff on the bumper, if you plan on getting it repainted due to the crack now would be a good time to practice your wet sanding.



I've wet sanded some parts of my cars before as practice blind to the amount of paint I had to work with, but I would prefer to have a PDG so I can see how much paint I have.
 
Yeah those are both keymarks. The bottom one is a lot deeper than the top one. Do you think if I correct the problem at best and then follow up with a paint pen (matched to the color of course) it would come out rather decent?



See I traded my car (a highly modified car - could not sell it because of that) for this car plus a lot of cash. It was the only way I could get rid of my car. I traded it with the intention of getting rid of this car by putting it in better shape and not having to spend that much money on this car. I'd like to avoid painting it since I have no intention to keep this car but I would like up the value of it by fixing those crucial marks.
 
rudyd said:
Yeah those are both keymarks.
Click to expand...



for these, i would recommend touch-up paint from the dealer using a very very fine brush you get from a stationary store. multiple layers to slowly fill in *just* the scratch, avoiding getting touch-up paint on the surrounding good pain and avoid too much of a blob. follow that w/ the LANGKA process or wet sanding to smooth out the touch-up paint, then polish, seal. it might not come out perfect but it will be much improved.



btw: given you have a PC you might go w/ the LANGKA process, not sure if your PC will be able to remove all the wet sanding scratches.



rudyd said:
bumper scrap
Click to expand...



be careful working your PC and 4 inch pad on this. remember that plastic is more sensitive to heat then metal - you don't want to melt that bumper.
 
I'd say roll with haper's advice then. Picus had a good write up on doing touch ups somewheres around here, do a search and I think you'll find it.
 
Yeah, I'd skip the larger pads on a PC, they just never work very well for me.



With 4" pads (or even better, the LC brand 3.5" Purple Foamed Wool), the PC can remove 2000 grit and finer sanding marks just fine. BUT...gotta use the right sandpaper; get Meguiar's/Nikken or Mirka. Some of the 3M paper leaves random "tracer" scratches that are a *LOT* deeper/worse than the indicated grit, so *DON'T* use their 2K stuff.
 
Ok so I've done some research instead of "just asking" hehe... I'm about to place an expensive order hope you will be proud of the products I've chosen. This will be my first purchase and use of a buffer so I'm hoping for the best and researching it as best as possible before diving into it. Keep in mind that I unfortunately don't have any products in my garage so will have to stock up little by little. Here's my order (almost $500! ahh!):



Flex 3401

6.5" Pads (Purple Wool, Orange, White, Black, Blue)

SIP

106

JetSeal

2 microfiber towels (16x16)

Few small accessories



I'm planning to polish the entire car first, see how much of the key mark I can get out since it does extend relatively far (towards the passenger rear door). Then come back and redo the problem areas once I have more experience at polishing. Good overall strategy?



Also I found the link you guys were referring to: http://www.autopia.org/forum/click-...nding-spring-cleaning-black-g35-56k-owie.html



Very helpful. I appreciate it and will probably go that method for that very deep scratch.
 
rudyd, your product choices are top-notch. Use the PFW and SIP to correct the paint until you are satisfied with the correction. It will probably take multiple applications of the SIP and PFW to get the results you'll want. Then move to 106 and white LC foam. Do at least one application of this to clean up after the SIP. Then do at least one application of 106 with the black pad. You should be *very* pleased with the results. When you work 106, don't just work it until it's clear. Work it until it's *passed* clear, and gone on to oily. When it looks like vegetable oil on your paint, it's done.
 
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