Starters.....
Remove the hood.
Should consist of unpluging a couple wires and maybe the washer nozzels. Then removing some bolts (normaly 4)
Set the hood on a stand of some sort. Anything will do but try and make sure it's padded as you do not want to mar the finnish that is already on it as it just makes more work, or worse dent it.
Now remove everythin from the hood: emblems, washer nozzels, grills, etc. Again be VERY carefull not to damage the hood at all. Avoid any prying as it can dent the hood. Worse yet you could damage the emblem or whatever your removing and have to replace it. (you can't charge for your mistakes so be CAREFULL!)
Now that everthing is off pull out the da. Depending on the depth of scratches you will want to start with diffrent grits of paper. If the paint is peeling/chipping/flakin OFF the car. Not just pits and dings. you will need to go to bear metal. For this use 36 grit. If they are just dings and pits and the paint isn't flakeing off then I'd start with 80 grit. Hit the whole top side of the hood. Going slow makeing sure to aply even pressure across the da. Don't dig in pushing down on one side even though it will go faster. You want to keep everything as strait as possible. Keep going over the chips untill they are no longer visible and the finnish is completly uniform. Make sure that everything is at about the same paint thickness.
Now you tape off the hood. Grab some old newspaper or if you want to shell out the cash get some painters paper 36" prefurably to make the work go faster. Don't skimp on tape either. If residue sticks on the hood it just adds more time to the job. It can also pull up fresh paint if the adheasive is too strong.
What to mask?
Everything that should not get paint on it. So the underside of the hood for the most part in this instance is all you would want masked off. You would most likely want to paint the sides with the top.
Now that it's tapped hit the edges, where you didn't hit with the da, with 240 by hand. You just want it scuffed up so don't worry about making it beautifull. Just make sure there isn't any shine left on it.
Everything is now ready for primer. Priming and painting is a very detailed process that really can't be explained well. It needs to be whitnessed. Hands on is the ONLY way to learn to be a good painter. You should be able to prime your own sutff though. If your not very good it will just make more work for you or your painter latter.
Priming
In this case (a hood) or on any large flat surface you are going to want to use a thick primer and lay it on! But DON'T GO OVERBOARD! Too much primer leads to running. Wich leads to repriming! Make sure you get thick even coats always overlaping slightly from your last pass. Try and go in a methodical fassion from one side of the hood to the other. Never stoping. Keep the gun/can moving at an even pace. When your done with the top go back to the edges and hit them very quickly. They do not need much primer at all. Just a dusting.
Now everyones favorite part. BLOCKING!
If you couldn't guess this is probably my least favorite part. It is espcialy a pain on a hood like your bmw here. You have to be very carefull around the body lines. Make sure the block never digs into a body line and make sure you don't hit an edge hard. For the blocking grab a long block (usualy a foot aka 35cm) and put a strip of 320 grit paper on it. Take the block in both hands holding it perpendicular to yourself. Place it on the hood using very light pressure. Push the block forward and to the right in a diagonal fassion away from yourself. Pulling back on ths same line. Do that about 10 times then start over to the right a little bit and push forward and to the left. Always keep the block perpendicular to yourself. don't push the block the direction you want it to go. Keep it perpendicular to yourself. To aid in this prcesses you want some blocking stuff. For the life of me i can't think of what it's called right now. It's basicly black dust that you spread over the object your blocking. It shows where the low and high spots are in the primer. Where it's low it's giong to stay black. Where it's high it will get light very fast. You want to keep going till and the dark is gone. Hence no more low spots. The hood should now be completely strait and ready for finaly paint prep.
Painting and paint prep. I'm not going to go into these as it is the job of an experienced painter. One cannot learn to paint on the internet from reading one post. I'd suggest what poorboy said and fly me to portugal to help ya learn
(thx steve!)
Once it's done being painted and it has been baked, it should sit for preferably at least over night, if not a day. I know it never works that, way but that is what's ideal. Wait AT LEAST 3 hours. Then it's time to wet sand/buff
Depending on the quality of job your looking for you will sand the whole hood or just sand out the nibs/runs/hangers if there are any. There are almost always nibs though. If you don't know what a nib is, it si simply a dirt particle that got trapped under the paint. The paint then rests on top of that makeing a little tiny high spot in the paint. To get rid of this just take some 1500 wet/dry paper and rub back and forth across it untill you cannot feel or see it. Do that for every nib when just spot sanding. When doing the whole hood. Use a small block with 1500 or better(easier) get a foam interface pad for your finnishing da and some 6" 1500 discs. Go over the whole hood slowly makeing sure to get good even coverage. Again be very carefull about hitting edges and body lines. As paint will always be thin there. If you go through the paint you go back and repeat half the stuff you just did! Now it's time to buff everything smooth. Jose.... I konw you can buff with the best of em so i'll just give you a few pointers i've found when doing this.
When spot sanding. Put a dab of compound on all the areas you sanded. Then get all of these areas first. Buff out all the scratch marks makeing sure they are completly gone. Then go back and buff the entire hood like normal.
Now untape the underside of the hood. (i also like to clean it on a high end car while it's off the car because it makes it a lot easier.)
Re-install everything you took off the hood and put the hood back on. Makeing sure to reconnect and plugs/hoses you took off.
You are now done!
Final tips.
Ask your painter for a brush touch bottle from the left over paint. It's a great extra to give your customers.
Make sure you tell the client not to wax the hood for at least 2 weeks. I like to tell them to come back in a month so i can do it for them too.
Then always ask if they are happy with the finaly product.
Hope this helps ya out.
Again I just need to tell ya these are ONLY pointers and can not take the place of hands on experience or an acutal teacher. I recomend not just reading what i've said and go after the hood yourself. Find someone in your area who knows what there are doing and can help you. Again though i hope this helps you. Good luck.
