Test Panel #1

**imported_Dave KG** · 07-04-2006, 02:29 AM

The first test panel to try my new Makita out on...

Picked it up from a local bodyshop, they just gave it to me as they were chucking it out. Probably cause of the dent on the front part of the door...

Still, the back two thirds of the door and the lower part are all okay...

And the PTG reads a healthy 130-160um of paint across the panel too! Plenty of room for inital practices!

Its the door of a Peugeot 307, so fairly soft paint for initial trials. Going to try removing the swirls, then I`ll add some more sever marks with steel wool and try removing them, then I`ll throw some tones at it and key scratch it to try the fill-wetsand-blend repair techniques.

So... let battle commence, I`ve been doing a lot of reading on how to use the machine, so its time to get some hands on experience. This will be the first of quite a few test panels! :waxing: :waxing:

**runnerbl** · 07-04-2006, 05:49 AM

The test panels are great ideas. My question is what do you do with it once you are finished using it?

**imported_Dave KG** · 07-04-2006, 06:19 AM

Originally Posted by runnerbl

The test panels are great ideas. My question is what do you do with it once you are finished using it?

I`ll get rid of it once I`ve finished with it... well once the paint has got too thin to seriously work with - may finish offf with a little side by side wax test to try out the durability of some products first...

**triaxmaster** · 07-04-2006, 08:10 AM

when it gets too thin why not try your hand at giving it a new coat of paint to see how to deal with orange peal and other paint imperfections you can pick up a decent paint gun for 10-20 bucks on ebay.

**imported_Dave KG** · 07-04-2006, 08:23 AM

For fun, I was going to have a go at the dent actually, see what I could push out and then work on repairing it as well, so would then be spraying the repair... The panel is going to give me real opportunities to try my hand at quite a few things, and if it all goes horribly wrong then it doesn`t matter... I`ll just pop back to the bodyshop and ask for another one!! :lol

**LeadingEdgeDetail** · 07-04-2006, 08:39 AM

I started on 1/12 scale models, painted them with rattle cans, putting tons of paint on then wetsanding the whole thing with 3000grit, and buffing it up to perfection by hand... On a test panel, you can paint, wetsand, and then polish with a rotary!

A good paint gun will definitly be a good tool to learn with, you could easily repair almost any body damage yourself in your driveway with enough practice on test panels :thumbup: