Last christmas eve, my neighbor backed his truck into my door and left a nasty dent. He took care of it .... asked me to take the car to a shop of his preference to avoid insurance. I agreed... felt bad for the dude because the last time he backed into my car, his insurance doubled and had to pay for impounding (hit-and-run .. aparently he didn't know he backed into my car) + $2k worth of damage repair.



Anyways, I got the work done at the end of january. The work came out OK. I saw some small lines in the paint, but i dindt' care much. However, a month later, the entire panel hazed up. I took it back to the paintshop and he said that the paint shrunk because there were so many layers of paint underneath it...



Anyways, he wet-sanded the door in front of me (lookd pretty damn simple to me), and buffed it out wiht a rotary ... now it looks back-to-normal.





still some texture left-over (look at the garage reflection)... but i don't want to deal with this crap anymore. It's barely noticeable until you inspect the door up-close.




Now... for touch-ups, I want to be able to wetsand myself. I have an orbital, but i'm thinking about buying a cheap rotary. He used a rotary with wool pad + some product... what would it be? Compound? I was just amazed how in 10-15 min, he was able to bring the door's shine back.

 

Usually, it's a body shop safe compound or polish. I recall a product called Liquid Ebony several years ago they used to remove swirls from paint after work has been done.

 

wow thats a nice shot of the paint...

 

wow.. your car looks like its chrome...

-are you the one who got backed into by a truck with "*****" hanging from it?

 

Liquid Ebony? I may have to check that out.

 

If you have never done wetsanding/polishing/buffing before, I'd think pretty hard before trying to improve on your picture. That shine is pretty amazing as it is.

Maybe practice on one of your parent's cars first hehe

 

When I first started buffing, I practiced on my dad's old green Jeep Cherokee. I have a Dewalt DW849 Rotary buffer, and I started on a door with a non-abrasive polish and a polishing pad (brandname Hi-Buff). I moved onto the hood and used a one-step cleaner/polish/wax with a light cut pad, and then I moved up to scratches. Some I wet sanded (which is essentially just rubbing very lightly with the right sandpaper, making sure the paint is always wet and you get the area around the scratch as well as the scratch itself) and others I just buffed. My compound of choice, for medium cut scratches is 3M Perfect-It III and 3M Machine Glaze as a follow up to the compound. I use a high medium cut pad. So yeah, I recommend doing something similar.

I wouldn't really mess with the paint either though.

 

His car must be chrome, lol.

 

thanks for the feedback

i took a look at the car again today , directly in sunlight, and noticed some holograms in the paint .... i guess I can take care of that this weekend with the orbital.

besides that, the paint hasn't "shrunk" anymore soo i think it's good now.

the weather is gettin better, so it's time to start out with the clay and work my way up!

 

wow, your car does look like it's chrome. I was washing the car today and saw so many scratch marks I wanna make it bling bling like yours. I have a random orbital PC, it's the sander/polisher. Do I use the existing white foam polishing pad or somethign else that's less harsh?

 

nice! that looks like a mirror...

 

gawd, that is very clean, i wish i could restore the paint on my car to that shiny mirror look, but don't really know how

 

how much did he charge you for fixing the dent?

 

i believe my neighbor was able to get a deal for about 400 to fix that dent. The body work was pretty good ... paint had some issues but in the end, it looks fine now.


The paint is in pretty good condition. I invested alot of money in detailing supplies / tools over the past year ... best cosmetic "mod" for me!

if you're curious, try and clay bar your car ($10) and follow up with NXT wax ($15). That's the EASIEST and cheap way to keep your car decent .. nxt is a cleaner wax and very easy to apply / buff off. It leaves a really good shine too.


a couple months ago, i started my car out by claying -> Einzsett Paint Polish (white polish pad) -> Klasse AIO -> Zaino. I coudl have gone with Klasse SG but i get lazy because it is so hard to buff off. I do klasse and zaino by hand also.



Just look around the forum for good ideas on what to do and post if you have questions.. moderators here runnin the show + members are very knowledgable here