Exterior Finish

[60vettesdr]

I have a 1960 Turqouise Convertible with the original paint. As one can imagine with 45 year old paint there is a fair amount of chips and scratches in it, but over all the paint is in excellent condition. I clay bar it every spring and put mulitple (6-10coats) of Zaino on it over the summer months. My question is how best to get out as many of the scratches and chips without repainting the car. I have had some people suggest having the car buffed out and some people suggest wet sanding it. I am really intent on keeping the original paint job on the car as it is in very good shape but would like to smooth our some of the scapes and chips. Any thoughts?

 

[nyernga]

Perfect timing for this question. I did some repair work on my hood last week and not being a professional have overspray that clay barring won't remove. Tonight I picked up some 3M polishing compound that I'll apply with my polisher/buffer to see how it all works. Wetsanding is tricky, especially for a complete car. I've picked up two books on the subject and tey say to wetsand with 320 grit paper and follow with a good rubbing compound to bring out the gloss. The wetsanding worked well on the paint I used but on the original paint it has left it's mark. (unwanted marks) I'll let you know how the 3M and the polishing comes out. I did a little test by hand a few minutes ago and it looks like it may work.


stay tuned...

Len

 

[Tom Bryant]

320? :eek My heart sank when I read that. Even if it was poorly applied new paint with a lot of orange peel I would never go any lower than 400. I might use 320 if I was laying down the surface for another coat of paint.

Sand paper works by scratching off the paint. The corser the paper, the deeper and bigger the scratches. If you are going to color sand with 320 and then go straight to the compound you are going to have to use a very corse compound and remove a lot of paint. Then go to a finer compound to finish it up. More than likely you will be seeing primer in a lot of areas as old paint has become worn thin from years of weather and waxing/polishing.

I start with 600 on a foam color sanding hand pad available at your automotive paint store. It is very flexible and will conform to the shape of the panel. Use a squirt of dish soap in your water bucket. This will help lube the sanding process. Never sand edges or peaks. Let the paper do the work and don't press too hard. Sand in one direction then sand over that area in a cross direction. 45 drgrees is ok. Rinse your paper often. Use the edge of your sanding pad as a squeegy to clean off the water so you can check your progress. If the paint was rough and you can still see shiney dots then you need to keep going til the surface is uniform with no old shiney spots left.

Now it's time to do it all over again with 1000 or 1500 grit. Same process. If you're really wanting perfection you can keep going with 2000 on up to 4000 grit. Depends on your stamina. Usually you can get decent results by going to a polishing compound on a foam pad then following with a machine glaze to remove swirls and streaks after 1500. Don't use HD Rubbing Compound. That's for production shops that want to do it all in one step and OK is good enough.

If you plan on doing several cars and want to invest in some equipment I recommend a Waterbug III. It's like a big DA but has a water feed and is used just for color sanding. You can go to 2500 and then 4000 with this machine and then go straight to the glaze and have a show car finish. You can ususally find one new on Ebay for a decent price.

60vettesdr

I've seen your car and please don't touch it with anything corser than 1000 if you color sand it. I'd feel better about 1500 or 2000. What you want to do is smooth the surface without removing any paint, or as little as possible. If you don't have any wide scratches that will require spot painting have your auto paint store custom mix some touchup paint. I'd get a quart so you will have it on down the line.

Clean all the wax, dirt and loose paint out of the chips and wipe the area down with some pre cleaner like Prep Sol. This will remove all wax and silicone on the paint. Carefully dab paint into the chip and let it dry. Just fill the chip and try not to get paint on the surrounding area. Repeat this until the paint in the chip is above the level of the surrounding surface. Now take your 1000 grit on your soft hand color sanding pad and very gently wet sand the chip, checking frequently, until the new paint is flush with the surface. Now hit it with your polishing compound on a soft cloth by hand to bring up the shine.

Once you get all of your little repairs done you can do the over all polishing. Since you clay bar your car often you should not have a lot of contaminants or dirt on your paint. Probably just roughness from age. If I was doing it for you I'd be very nervous about that 45 year old paint. Go slow. Be very careful. Test a spot down low to see if you are going to get the results you want before tackling the upper surfaces that are easily seen. You might find that a good polishing compound that is listed as a paint restorer or micro finishing compound will be good enough. This type of product is so fine that it is hard to get into trouble using it.

Good luck guys. Show us your results.

Tom

 

[IH2LOSE]

Carefully dab paint into the chip and let it dry. Just fill the chip and try not to get paint on the surrounding area

Tom is giving you some giving you some great information here.The hardest part of this touch up procedure is being able to hit it with paint,walk away for it to set up and then hit it again to build it up,Dont try and do it all at once and have the paint spill out of the repair area.Also remember your paint isnt as thick on these old cars as on the newer ones.so dont try and go too deep with your sanding or polishing, When I was working as a kid in a body shop My nic name used to be B&B

Short for

Burn em and Blend em

For my ability to be able to burn the paint job while I was buffing the car because I did not do it correct,Then be able to repaint the burnt spot by blending the paint into the excisting color before the painter in the shop realized I ruined his paint job.Only take a second to of not paying attention in the wrong spot on the car to burn thru the paint. I actually got so good at spot repairing the messes I used to make, that the other guys in the shop would have me blend in the repairs they used to do on the week ends

 

[60vettesdr]

Thanks guys for all of the good advice. I am very hesitant to tackle this job on my own as a I am not the most mechanically inclined but this is one I think I will try. I will take it very slow and carefull as I don't want to have to repaint the car (exisiting paint is in good shape and I don't want to screw it up). How long would you think it will take to do the whole car assuming no major repairs are necessary to the paint? Last question is would this be better left to a "professional" or is this a relatively user friendly process?

 

[IH2LOSE]

Thanks guys for all of the good advice. I am very hesitant to tackle this job on my own as a I am not the most mechanically inclined but this is one I think I will try. I will take it very slow and carefull as I don't want to have to repaint the car (exisiting paint is in good shape and I don't want to screw it up). How long would you think it will take to do the whole car assuming no major repairs are necessary to the paint? Last question is would this be better left to a "professional" or is this a relatively user friendly process?

I can tell you restoring an older paint job does take skill,finess,exspereance, This is not a job to drop off at your average body shop,If you were going to hire it out I would make sure its with some one who does this type of work on older cars.

I dont mean to scare you,Me personally,I am very impaitence.I want ever thing NOW,so this type of work does not mix well with my personality.If your paitencent and carefull you can do it,It does not take mecanical know how.it takes paitencent to do this.


Lastly when you do takle the job.Keep the buffers cord over your sholder (to avoid draging it over the paint. And wrap a beach towel around your waist so you dont scatch the paint while you doing the hood and trunk.

Good Luck

 

[nyernga]

:ugh :bash :duh Make that 400 followed by 600 grit, and for me a trip to the eye doctor.

 

[ChuckG]

If you have a 60 with original paint, I wouldn't TOUCH it with anything more coarse than 1200 grit. My heart sank also when I read 320 grit.


It's 45 year old paint...probably "thin" enough after all these years.

Also, be careful buffing. As others have said, you'll burn through in a microsecond if you aren't paying attention. Chuck

 

[nyernga]

.

I dont mean to scare you,Me personally,I am very impaitence.I want ever thing NOW,so this type of work does not mix well with my personality.If your paitencent and carefull you can do it,It does not take mecanical know how.it takes paitencent to do this.

That's my problem. Initially I tried to have it all done in an afternoon when I should have repaired the crack, primed and painted and not started sanding until the following weekend until the paint cured. I may have to start from scratch today if the polishing doesn't remove the overspray. If I can get a good pic of how it looks now I'll post it as a "before" shot.

Great advice Tom......better then the books I bought

Len

 

[nyernga]

This is before polishing. You can see to the left of the center "valley" the overspray that's giving me a hard time. And beleive it or not this paint is the correct code.

 

[John Mcgraw]

I agree with Chuck and Tom. I would not touch that paint with anything more agressive than 1000 or 1500 for your first pass. If I was using a waterbug, I would not go any coarser than 2000 for the first pass and follow up with 4000, and then polish. The industry has really changed in the last few years, and almost nobody uses rubbing compound any more. With the advent of very fine abrasives like 4000 grit, almost everybody now uses a machine glaze or a polish compound in place of the traditional rubbing compound. These polishes are a lot less likely to burn the paint and rub the paint off of ridges and edges.


Regards, John McGraw

 

[Tom Bryant]

I didn't mean to imply that I would use the Waterbug on that 1960's original paint. I wouldn't use any power tool on it except maybe a Wax Master type of orbital polisher after I hand polished the car. I hand polish my wife's '81 which has very thin St. louis paint then wax it. I take the wax off with the Wax Master. As for time, I'd just make it a winter project with a goal of being ready in the spring. This is the sort of thing where haste makes waste. Just do a little at a time and when you get tired or bored, stop. It's tedious but a gentle touch and paintience is more important here than prior experience.

If you had a good restoration shop do this they would have a lot of high dollar hours in it. You can do the job and be confident that someone won't get in a hurry and ruin your original paint.

This set of pictures (sorry for the big size) is my wife's '77 Trans Am. It was her first new car and needed painted. It had some checking and some bad spots where it had been spotted in. I stripped it and put on several coats of DuPont 99S black laquer color sanding with 600 between coats. I finished with 1500 and polished it out with the Wax Master and 3M Microfinishing Compound and 3M Machine Glaze also with the Wax Master. I never touched it with rubbing compound or a power buffer. You could hold a magazine up to the paint and read it clearly in the reflection. It was just many hours of hand work but it payed off in the end. Upper left is new laquer before the stripes were put on. BTW no paint booth required. :L

Man, That's huge. :eek I'll try to resize it later. Got to go to work now.

Tom

 

[John Mcgraw]

Tom,

I would never think twice about using a water bug on an old finish. I find the waterbug with a cushioned pad to be even more gentle than hand sanding. With 2000 or 4000 miragrit pads, you almost can not sand through the paint. I allways tape all the edges,and finish them by hand, but the level of finish achieved with the waterbug, followed by 3M Finess-it, is pretty hard to beat.


Regards, John McGraw