Repairing Scratch Trouble

[ViperVin]

I had a few light surface scratches and touch up paint I wanted to even and smooth out. I followed parts of the How-To guide for Scratch Repair (http://www.guidetodetailing.com/articles.php?articleId=27) but I can`t get an smooth finish. I clayed my whole car, then used 3M`s Wetordry Finishing Sandpaper 2000 grit on the trouble spots. I made a few passes over the spots with water/shampoo. After drying the whole car, I proceeded with Meguiar’s Scratch-X but I did not see any improvement. This is when I started to get really worried. I applied some more Scratch-X and then tried my Klasse AIO but I still saw little improvement. My car`s finish looks dull, something in between these two images:



http://www.autopia.org/ebook/Leveled%20Repair.jpg



- in between these two -



http://www.autopia.org/ebook/Polishing1.jpg



What can I do to get a clean finish? Should I get it professionally machine polished? Thanks.

[Tasty]

You may need machine polishing to remove all the wetsanding scratches. ScratchX by hand can only accomplish so much. If you get someone to do it, be very wary of what tool they use. A rotary in the wrong hands can be a dangerous thing to paint, and could leave you WAY worse off.

[ViperVin]

Thanks for the advice. I actually got it machine polished today. I went to a family friend who owns a body shop and he buffed it out. Paint looks fine now but I don`t know how much damage he did to my clear coat. And he charged me $50 for 5 minute job with the rotary, which he did not put a lot of care into. I never really trusted him and I still don`t after doing a hazy job with an expensive charge.

[Tasty]

That`s unfortunate.

[Accumulator]

ViperVin- Well, at least things are better but that was an easy $50 he made...sorta wonder about a guy who`s like that but anyhow....



Next time, try some 3K grit paper instead, and get the "Unigrit" stuff from Meguiar`s. I used to use 3M paper (including the 2K grit) and I can assure you that the 3K Meg`s stuff is a whole `nother ballgame. You can remove 3K scratches by hand without too much trouble, even on hard clear (I did it on an Audi). You might need something stronger than Scratch-X, but you *can* do it.

[SpoiledMan]

Yep, what Accumulator said. The Meguiar`s papers are more uniform than others that I have used. Because of that, they don`t leave any striations that will have you rubbing all day to remove the sanding marks. If you don`t need the whole pack, www.autodetailingsolutions.com sells them in singles.