broken link

well this arrived on my door step at 8 o clock saturday morning..






as you can see a couple of scratches!









some of the paint was like this... its not even orange peel...





also marring swirls (around the scratches).

There wasnt a square cm of paint that was clear of the scratches. worst i have ever seen.

so we set to it, 2 bucket method (he had washed it the day before as he knew what was ahead so quick wash only) then clayed it.
he had already clayed it using megs clay, and was still rough to the touch. Which i now think must be rubbish, as i used sonis grey clay. which after just the roof was black. Having used a FULL bar of the grey clay it was looking slightly better.. and in this photo doesnt look to bad (nice from afar... but far  from nice)




so tried test patches of products but it soon became apparent then nothing was touching this.. for 2 reasons
1. its sod*ing VAG paint again
2. the scratches were quite deep.

so having just ordered both wet and dry 2500 and 3000 grit papers from clean and shiny (arrived in the nick of time too).

So filled a pot with warm water and soap(lube) then left the W&D to soak. (nice time for a tea break :thumb:

2 hours later... we started...
only pic i have of the W&Ding sorry



now we started very gently.. no pressure at all to test the waters..
this really didnt do anything.. so stepped it up a bit.

After about 30mins of rubbing ion cross section (up down then across to give equal cover) there was a noticeable difference. the lighter parts of the scratches were gone.. that made the scratches appear to break up. But still no where near.

At regular intervals we quite soapy water off.. rinsed with new fresh water, dried and then Pcd megs 83. each time scratches were less and less.

(please note i have no Paint Depth Gauge!!! )

(again only pics of sanding were of the bonnet, from today, but you get the idea)



after one day of sanding we had the roof done. and that is all!!!!!!
(half way through sanding)




after



bonnet



so when i was satisfied with the finish.. i used ssr3 then megs 83 then 80.
i am still not happy with the depth of the colour i am getting...  so after a few helpful words with Gary (Refined Reflections) i need to buy a good glaze after polishing to get the colour back.

as you can see... not to a paint depth.. (am i wanting too much???)





Now its still not to perfect.. there are a couple of scratches that i cant get, due to being at the edge.. so looking into a technique to get these as well.

Also all the original scratches were straight (i still do not know how these scratches were created (for those asking) and my friend bought the car like that.. mad??? ) and i started to see circular scratches appearing. confused, i start looking into how this could be..

figured out that the the the wax on the back of the paper was rubbing against the sanding block and making very very small balls that in turn pressed through the paper and making scratches

luckily i caught this and was able to stop it by using a foam sanding pad.


so the car is about half way, still need to do doors rear arches and pilars and boot.

shopping list includes:
bulk pack of 2500 W&D
sanding block
good glaze



the work continues........


p.s. any questions.. fire away

heh, thought the rollerbrushes where partly the reason.  If you have a nice car and want to keep it that way then the only thing to do is use a clean sponge to wash it.