Miata_mx5

Worked on a friends FC3S Vert a week ago or so. Car looked like it was repainted with one stage paint.

Buffed/detailed the car for a day. With the rock ships i dont think it came out too bad. Could not do much about the damaged/chipped paint.

Before:







After:













Not too shabby for a days work. I thought i would share with some of the 2nd gen guys.

dwb87

iTrader: (22)

Not bad~

Miata_mx5

^ yeah, only so much i could do with the hood and bumpers. The paint was chipped and pitted too bad. They need to be repainted.

KhanArtisT

iTrader: (2)

goddamn! that looks awesome

micah

If its painted with a single stage urethane, wetsand/buff/polish is your best bet. Depending on how thick it is...

metal

LOL when I saw the first "after" pic I thought those were all holograms...then I realized it was the roof that you were under heh.

beefhole

iTrader: (29)

I did that one sunny Sunday with the help of my friends. My car looked very faded and dull. I spent 75 bux on compounds, waxes, sprays and other goodies and we cleaned it up nice. My hood looked 2x as faded as yours did and it came out to a mirror when we were done.

veedubbed

My red one looks about like that did, what all did you do to make it that nice?

Miata_mx5

I used a cut pad with autoglym fine abrasive

Then a finer cut pad with menzerna IP/Final polish

Finishing pad with Final polish/Autoglym Final Glaze

Sealant

Wax.

Took me a whole day.

skatingsamurai

english please? im looking to do something like this depends on what tools i need.

Miata_mx5

You will need a Dual Orbital (Porter Cable 7336 SP) Polisher. You may also use a rotary polisher (DeWalt or Makita)

You will need some buffing pads, some compound, finishing glaze/polish, a sealant and wax.

PM me, i can give you the websites and info of particulars. I am sorry i was not clear.

scrip7

iTrader: (6)

Looks nice. My red N/A was not only faded like yours, but when I bought it, it had been keyed on every body panel. Luckily it wasn't scratched down to bare metal, just to the white factory primer. I bought a couple touch up paint pens from Paintscratch.com and filled in the scratches, one coat at a time. After about 7 coats, the scratches were completely filled in. I recommend this method highly if you have paint chips and scratches. When you fill in the scratches this way however, you end up with built up paint on either side of the scratch. So, I take 2000 grit wet sandpaper and sand it down to the level of the surrounding paint, then use a polishing compound, and then a swirl remover glaze, then wax. You can't even tell the scratches were there. I wish I had taken before/ after pics so you could see it. My car still has the factory single-stage paint. It's amazing how thick it is.

Houpty GT

I have a '91 triple black convertible and all the top surfaces have those spots on them. I was thinking it was from the pine forest the car had been in before I bought it. I broke all the sap off but it still has those spotsI am probally going to need 2 days to do mine. Polishing compound isn't enough and I am going to have to start with rubbing compund, which is going to take as much work to get its scratches out as it is going to take to get the spots off. I hate black paint because it shows every single imperfection but it looks so damn good when it is right. I just hope I have enough paint left on the car for it to turn out right.

warrenc

I've been doing the same thing to my Vert over the last couple weeks! It's been repainted in several areas, and not very well either, but with a 2000 grit, a buffer and a lot of work it's amazing what you can do! Right now I can't drive it because the moron who's supposedly painting my door for the last two weeks can't seem to get it done.

Anyway, have to share some pics:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79...tible001-1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79...ertible002.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79...ertible003.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79...ertible004.jpg

ericgrau

iTrader: (1)

For what it's worth, I shined up my 20 year old paint without cutting into the clearcoat with sanding or buffing. Just use a clay bar. Takes forever, though it's super simple. I washed, used clay bar, washed (to remove clay bar oils), then waxed. Unfortunately I have no clean "after" pics; pic to left is before.

metal

Clay is an abrasive, you can't "shine up the car" with clay alone, nor can you prevent cutting into your CC.

warrenc

Clay bars are a great thing, helps with water spots and "dirty" paint. As far as abrasive, I think the average cleaner wax is probably more abrasive. You'd have to work pretty hard to go through the clear coat.

metal

A "cleaner wax" is just a chemical based cleaning solution, it won't remove any clearcoat, all it does is clean the surface and fill in any slight imperfections. A claybar is abrasive, how do you think it removes all bonded contaminants then? Try it on a black car with perfect paint and look at it after.

warrenc

Actually, I didn't say it wasn't abrasive. Just a very light abrasive. But if you use a cleaner wax like Meguiars or (god forbid) turtle wax on a black car (I have two of them) without clear coat, you will remove paint and you can see it on your rag. That's not because it's chemical based, it's because it has a fine abrasive mixed in with the wax.
Even things like Meguiars #7 glaze or 3M Imperial (my favorite) has a (very) light abrasive in it. Although I think you could use it every day for a year and never rub through the paint.
It all comes down to this: You have to have some form of abrasive to remove surface defects on paint, and it's all a matter of degrees from 150 grit sandpaper to a clay bar, depending on what is required. A good wax (like a carnuba or an acrylic wax like Zaino or Klasse) should be used once your paint is smooth and glossy and should have no abrasives in it.
I am by no means trying to start an argument over this, so PLEASE don't take any of this the wrong way!. But I have been doing this for a long time.

ericgrau

iTrader: (1)

I thought the claybar worked by picking up embedded contamination. Maybe it has an abrasive too, I dunno. But I highly doubt it. As slow as it may be, it's still 10 times faster than using rubbing compound by hand. And it doesn't leave fine marks like rubbing compound.

Come to think of it, I remember when I waxed my friend's mom's BMW it had some marks on it. I tried and tried w/ the clay bar but it wouldn't come out. My friend said, "Oh, that's clearcoat damage. That's been there for a while." So I said, "whelp, you need rubbing compound to take that out. No wonder I couldn't do anything." The clay bar wouldn't take out any scratches, etc. either.

I could be wrong; maybe clay bar is just a super light abrasive. But I just don't see it.

For what it's worth, I used Zaino wax which has no abrasive whatsoever. They have a version with light abrasives, which they recommend as a last resort. They also have a version that hides swirl marks, which I used followed up by their regular wax. I thought for sure I'd need an abrasive with my paint practically saturated with swirl marks, but the hiding stuff worked great.

Miata_mx5

There are also different stage of claybar, ultrafine, fine (usually a good combination of abrasiveness and will not leave scuffs), and aggressive. Aggressive clay will leave ultrafine scuffs/swirls on the paint and usually the paint has to be polished after being clayed. Mainly used on really light colored cars and by bodyshops to take off heavy over-spray. Clay does have abrasives in it, and it almost works like sandpaper at a micro fine level. You just never see what it does to paint.

I will reply to PMs shortly, i was busy the whole day today. Sorry i have taken time.

metal

Miata_mx5, are you on Autopia.org? Name seems familiar somehow.