Paint rock chip repairs

[Rich Z]

Been wet sanding the hood the last couple of days. First I did a pass using 2000 grit paper, both via the Porter-Cable orbital sander, and also hand sanding those spots where the pad on the machine wouldn't mate flush with the surface.













Then I hand sanded the hood completely with 3000 grit sand paper.

And lastly (with the sanding steps) did a machine sanding with 4000 grit paper.









I started on the roof but only got done with the 2000 grit sanding up to now. Probably finish up that sanding tomorrow and maybe start on the deck lid.

Then it is time to start with the liquid polishers.

Connie just shakes her head when she comes over to the garage and sees the mess I've made of the paint job. She's probably half convinced that I've ruined the paint job completely. Heck, maybe I did. I've got my fingers crossed that the liquid polishing compounds will put the gloss back into the paint surface. This sure would be a whole lot of work for nothing..

[Rich Z]

I finished up the horizontal surfaces on the car (hood, roof, deck lid), and spent today going back over by hand with the 2000 grit paper to try to work more on the orange peel. Honestly, the Porter Cable DA sander/polisher with the 2000 grit paper just doesn't seem to have the oomph to get the orange peel out. It just seems to skim the surface. Maybe I wasn't bearing down on it enough. Or maybe I should have worked with a rotary sander instead. I'm likely too much of a novice to try using the rotary with sanding, however. If it's easier to burn the paint by just polishing with a rotary than using a DA, I guess sanding would be a real good way to ruin the paint in a hurry that way. So maybe the way I did it is best for my skill level. Or lack thereof.

I'm going to do hand sanding with 3000 grit next, and then onto 4000 grit after that. From what I have been reading, I may be able to skip the compounding step since the 4000 grit paper may allow me to go right into the fine polishing. I guess I'll start with the polishing, and if I can still see sanding scratches, then I'll fall back and do some machine compounding.

Lord what a mess this makes. All that water running everywhere with the paint particles suspended in it has gotten everywhere imaginable on the car. But I think this is much better than dry sanding. At least I don't have paint dust everywhere all over the entire garage.

I gotta hand it to people who do this sort of thing for a living. They certainly EARN the money they make.

[Rich Z]

Well, I thought I was done with the sanding today.....

So I broke out the Porter-Cable DA buffer and found a wool buffing pad in the cabinet I've been storing all this stuff. Also pulled out about a half dozen bottles of various buffing and polishing compounds I have stored away. Tried a couple of them on the hood and got a pretty decent polished look with both of them, but the darn wool pad was just shedding like crazy. So I pulled out an orange foam pad to try. Heck, that started falling apart too. I guess age takes a toll on these things whether you use them or not. Sure hate to think that the couple of dozen foam pads I have are going to have to just be tossed into the trash. If so, I guess what I need to do is to ONLY buy just what I think I will need RIGHT NOW, and don't buy extras that will just lay around and go funky on me. They appear to have a rather short shelf life.

I had to scrounge up a pad I got from System 51 that isn't as old as those other pads, but it's an 8 or 9 inch pad with wool on one side and foam on the other that is designed for a quick connect system that only works on a rotary buffer. So I had to find the Harbor Freight rotary buffer I bought a while back. I was a bit reluctant to use a rotary, as they can be a problem if you aren't careful with them. And honestly it's been quite a while since I've played with one. But if I was going to do some buffing today, there wasn't much choice in the matter.

So I just took it slow and easy to get used to the machine. The HF buffer works OK, but it seems to have trouble maintaining a constant speed while in use. I can see where I will be needing something better.

Anyway, of the various buffing compounds I tried, I liked the Malco Rapid Cut the best. Produces a real nice glossy finish, and seems to take off most of the sanding scratches pretty readily. I think on a paint surface that wasn't as wrecked as mine is, it would do an excellent job removing scuffs and water spotting with minimum effort. But I still need to check for swirl marks before thinking about using it on the other cars.

Once I looked over the glossy surface on the hood, I thought that perhaps the funky pads I tried using with the Porter-Cable DA had scratched the paint while they were falling apart. There was one squiggle line that was DEFINITELY caused by the DA, but the other straight lines were probably there before I started sanding, and just were not easily visible with all the sanding marks. Once I glossed the surface and removed the sanding scuff marks, they just became MUCH more noticeable. Anyway, I tackled them with the 2000 grit sandpaper again, and got most of them out, but I've still got a few more to work on. I wanted to move on to the rest of the car to see what I had left to deal with once I glossed the paint surfaces so I could see better.

So I moved on to the roof of the car. After I buffed that out, I was pretty disappointed with all the stark scratches I saw remaining on the paint surface.













I knew those scratches were there before I started, but I had REALLY hoped the sanding would have taken them out better than it apparently did. Those scratches were NOT there when I took the car to Chris Harwood's shop, and I believe they were not there neither after Toby in Blountstown worked on the car right before it was towed to Aaron Scott's shop. My opinion is that at least some of those scratches were caused by cats jumping and climbing onto my car while at Aaron Scott's place. As for the rest of them that might not have feline origins, I have no idea what someone did to the roof to make those scratches there. Just carelessness on someone's part, apparently.

But in any event, I've got to take a whack at fixing them. I might have to use more aggressive sanding with 1500 or 1200 grit sandpaper. Then follow up with the 2000 and higher before liquid buffing the roof out again. I may have to put some sanding disks on the rotary buffer/sander to really go at it. Sure hope the clear coat on the roof is pretty thick so I don't cut through it.

I also worked on the deck lid, but honestly I was getting tired of doing this, so I need to spend more time with the buffer over the next couple of days. Still too much sanding marks on there after the short shift buffing job I did.

All in all, I can't really say that this is a whole lot of fun to do. Even after all this I STILL have some scratches, some orange peel, and rock chips. And those cracks in the hood are still going to be visible. But right now I'm shooting for it looking good from 3 to 6 ft or more away and that will just have to do.

[Rich Z]

I took another stab at some of the remaining rock chips on the hood by filling them in with clear touch-up paint. I'll apply the Langka to them tomorrow and then touch them up with some sanding after the paint has hardened again. Have to sand some more scratches there anyway.

I started sanding the scratches on the roof and wound up just sanding the entire roof again with 2000 grit paper. Took off some more orange peel there while I was at it. I looked HARD and don't see any more scratches, but I may run some 4000 grit paper on the roof and then eyeball it again before breaking out the buffer.

[Rich Z]

Rats ass..... Well, I now know who made some of those scratches on the roof. Me. I certainly can't blame them all on cat claws based on I learned today. When I took the previous scratches out, I made sure I sanded perpendicular to the scratches with the 2000 grit paper. I eyeballed my work this morning and everything looked good as far as I could tell.

But when I worked at it with the buffing compound, I got some more scratches showing up. This time in the opposite direction. Was only about a dozen of them, and mostly where the roof has a slight bow down the center, front to back. I'm thinking the sanding block I'm using is too rigid and the corners must have ben gouging the paint in that area... Either that or the paper was bunching up or something. Beats me, but this is really a pain in the ass having to deal with things I caused myself.

So I tackled it again with 2000 grit and used a different sanding tool. This is a sort of foam thingie that is slightly rounded instead of flat. Every thing looks OK by eyeball, but I won't know if there are MORE scratches till I compound it again.

Well, I said this was a learning experience, didn't I?

BTW, I tried all kinds of different foam pads with every buffing compound I had, and I was getting pretty frustrated. It glossed the surface OK, but it was very hazy looking and I could see lots of sanding scratches. I was feeling pretty glum about this and decided to fall back and try the wool buffing pad instead of those foam things. And yeah, that did the trick. Evidently the foam pads just aren't aggressive enough to take out the sanding scratches. At least not in the time frame I tried using them. So tomorrow I'm just going to go straight to the wool pad and hopefully get this knocked out.

[Rich Z]

Dammit......

I was feeling pretty good about the progress I was making, even though it was taking a LOT longer than I thought it would, and a LOT more work than I had hoped for. But the wool buffing pad and rotary buffer with the System 51 compound was doing a pretty decent job on the sanding marks I had made. Still got a good supply of scratches here and there, but I figured I could tackle them later on once I got the bulk of the car buffed out. From 6 feet away, the car was actually looking pretty sharp.

Remember when I mentioned I had buffed the deck lid and thought there were still too many sanding scratches there, and I thought I had just pooped out working on it? Well I sanded it again with 2000 grit paper and everything looked pretty good to start buffing out that panel. Honestly I just thought that the deck lid had a severe water spotting problem, since Aaron Scott apparently kept the car outside much of the time, but I thought that wouldn't be too tough to sand and buff out. But when I started buffing it again, and looked REALLY closely at the surface, what I saw was literally zillions of small scratches all over the deck lid.



My first thought was "Oh my God! What the hell did I do wrong?" But the more I looked at the surface, the less sense it made to me. Those scratches didn't appear to be made by any machine I have used (Porter Cable DA, Flex circular polished, and Harbor Freight rotary buffer), and certainly didn't look like anything that could have been made by hand sanding, so I'm completely baffled about what made them. They just look like short random sized, shaped, and oriented scratches. A dual action buffer will make curly-cue marks in the paint. The Flex would make spiraled scratches. And the rotary buffer would make circular scratches. Hand sanding tends to make long fairly straight scratched. So what in the world made that mess on the deck lid?

I looked closely at the hood and roof, but neither panel has the same scratches anywhere on them. Some obvious sanding marks that I have yet to remove, but nothing like what is on the deck lid. And I did exactly the same sanding and buffing on all three panels.

I know this stuff wasn't there before I took the car to Chris Harwood's shop. Chris, for all his faults, did keep my car inside the shop at all times, and in all the times I was over there, he never appeared to abuse the finish. He actually took the car over to a guy named Toby who ran a body shop in Blountstown, and Toby sanded and buffed out the scratches. I actually looked over the car there, and as best I could tell, he took out ALL of the scratches except for one especially deep one on the passenger side quarter panel. My guess is that the car might have been keyed before I bought it.

Once the car was towed to Aaron Scott's shop, for the 14 months it was there, I didn't really go up there very often, and didn't really look closely at the paint finish. I know I saw cat paw prints on the top surfaces of the car a few times, and as best I could tell Aaron kept the car outside most of the time, so I knew it had a pretty bad case of water spotting. Even though I took a car cover out there, as far as I know he never put it on my car. I specifically told Aaron not to mess with detailing the car, since he expressed some concerns about some severe swirl marks, but apparently he put some sort of gloss on the paint anyway. It didn't appear to have been actually polished, as the paint was noticeably rough to the touch, like it needed a real good clay bar job. It was like some sort of gloss was just sprayed onto the paint to make it shiny looking.

After bringing the car back home, I spent all the time working on mechanical issues and except for a couple of washes and wiping off the dust with detail spray, I really didn't pay much attention to the paint job. It really wasn't a high priority, everything else being considered. And of course the car was stored inside the garage at all times. Matter of fact, it was up on the lift most of the time.

I did clay bar the hood, roof, and deck lid prior to starting on the wet sanding. I knew I had scratches, rock dings, and water spotting, but those were issues I was hoping I could take care of with this wet sanding project.

Honestly, I'm pretty bummed out about this now. That deck lid is really a mess with all those scratches. I did get out some with the buffer, but I'm not sure there is a thick enough clear layer for me to get them all off. And there are still some long linear scratches on the other horizonal surfaces despite my efforts to eradicate them. Apparently they hide when being sanded, and then pop out in all their glory once I buff the paint to a nice gloss. So obviously I am missing something basic in how to properly deal with those scratches. And yeah, I STILL have some rock chips remaining. I think Dr. Colorchip and Langka would do fine for a car with just a few rock chips, but apparently my car just overwhelmed them both. Or just overwhelmed me, and just wore me out.

I think with a known THICK layer of clear coat, I could eventually get all the defects fixed, but you just don't know how much clear coat you have left till you run out of it. I was reading something just the other day indicating that the factory paint job is only about a quarter the thickness of a paint job you would get at a body shop. So obviously that clear coat layer is not really going to be all that thick to work with a lot.

I believe I hit color working on that passenger side quarter panel scratch I mentioned earlier. I know I worked on it years ago, and Toby said he worked on it a bit as well. So when I worked on it this time, I guess the clear coat just ran out. It's not very noticeable, but obviously this was a warning to me that I don't have an infinitely thick layer of clear coat to work with.

So anyway, this didn't work out a well as I had hoped. Friday I may just wash off all the buffing splatter to clean up the mess I made and leave it as it is. Remaining sanding marks and all. Then start counting my nickels as I try to figure out who or where I should have repaint the car.

And I need to try to figure out just exactly what it is I learned from all this. I SURE would like to learn exactly how those deck lid scratches were made.

[Rich Z]

Well, I don't care what anyone says, wool pads just work better for taking out scratches than the foam pads. At least for me. I wound up using a wool pad on the Porter-Cable and had it cranked up to max speed and it really helped to take out a lot of the smaller scratches. Only problem was that the vibrating machine just KILLED my hands. I had to put on work gloves to try to reduce the vibration getting to my hands, but still, I had to quit before my hands got wrecked. As it is my hands feel more like claws than hands today. I probably could have worked on the car for another week or three, but honestly, I just got tired and pretty much worn out doing this. But at least I lost three pounds in the process. This IS work!

To add insult to injury, yesterday I waited till it clouded up outside and then pulled the car out of the garage so I could wash off all that buffing compound splatter that had gotten everywhere. I worked as quickly as I could, but I STILL got water spots on the hood. And they were pretty tough to get off with the finer polish I was using at that step, so that tacked another two hours onto the work I was doing. Maybe it was because the paint had no protection at all on it that made those water spots so tenacious, but I was pretty surprised at the difficulty getting them off. So I was working on it till midnight last night, trying to get the car ready for the car show today (which was a wash out for me anyway due to the weather).

So when the smoke cleared, what I learned was that wool pads with the System 51 polish just worked the best on getting out scratches.

I think my Harbor Freight rotary buffer is about ready to give up the ghost, as it smells funky like the windings are burning up in it. It wound up being the workhorse in this project, though. The Porter-Cable random orbital will work OK at the highest speed with a wool pad. I didn't really use the Flex dual action orbital very much to get much of an opinion of it. It's sort of a cross between a random orbital and a rotary buffer, so I would expect the results gotten using it to be somewhat in the middle of those two types of machines.

Sanding by hand is problematic as it seemed to generate it's own set of scratches if you are not real careful. Not sure if my technique needs work because of the way I held the sanding block, or the type of block I used was not optimum, or I used the sandpaper longer than I should have. Or maybe all of those problems conspired against me. Experience DEFINITELY counts in this. But apparently you do take some knocks to the nuts getting there.

Dr Colorchip and the Langka solvent will work pretty well on rock chips, but it appears that it can be tough doing this work when associated with any other paint work you want to do. Or if you have too many defects to deal with, it can just flat out wear you out trying to tackle them all. I had trouble filling in chips with either color or clear to get the paint to stay flush with the rest of the paint surface. Sometimes working on one chip would wash out the paint on another chip or three that were too close to the one you are working on. I couldn't get those products to work very well to fill in scratches at all. Again, maybe it's just an experience or and technique thing. It will take time and a gentle touch, evidently.

Right now the car looks pretty good from 6 feet away. Get any closer and the scratches and rock chips get to be visible. Had I known it was going to rain like hell today and I wouldn't be going to the car show in Tallahassee, I probably would not have put on the sealant last night so I could putter around with the Langka solution to try to get the technique down to fill in those chips and scratches. But perhaps some other time. I want to get back to just driving the car and poking around with the tuning stuff. Plus I'm not sure how much more my back could take leaning over the car to do this stuff.

[Rich Z]

Well, I took some pics from about 6 ft away to see how the car would look in photos. Not too bad, I guess. But I definitely left some work on the table that I could have continued with. But without knowing how much clear coat I had left to work with, I was real afraid I would hit color before it was *perfect*.

[Rich Z]

[navy2kcoupe]

Looks like you could use that car as the logo on the CorvetteFlorida web site!
Seriously, it DOES look good, and probably needs the "sunshine test" to reveal
how much is left to go.
Andy