Color sanding was always a facination and had to give it a shot. My Beater needed some work on the paint because it has a huge amount of orange peal all over it differing from fine to very heavy in some spots. The paint looks so bad, it looks like it has been roled on. These are the products I purchased at a local car paint supplier:

-two packs of Unigrit finishing paper 1500 and 2000 =$42.00

- 3M 06060 Extra cutting compound =$33.57

- 3M 06064 swirl mark remover =$32.07

- a spray bottle for water =$3.00

- one 6" Dura Block = $6.00


I used a spot on the hood that was the worse. First I used the 1500 grit paper on the block and wet sanded a 12"X12" spot. I let the paper do the work and applied very little preasure only sanding in one direction, not swirling or cross hatching the scratches. It took about 10 strokes to remove the orang peal. I dried it with paper towels to see if all the orang peeling was gone before I went to the finer paper.

I used the 2000 grit papaer and wet sanded the same spot for about 10 strokes. It was hard to see the difference it did from the other paper.

I took my buffer with a cloth boot and applied the 3M Extra cutting compound. The retailer said to watch not to do to much of that so as not to cut through the paint. This step left the spot with a dull shine but brighter than the sand paper.

Next was the swirl mark remover. I used the sponge on the buffer for this and after a few seconds, the spot became mirror bright and amazingly smooth.

I did notice a few small scratches which I removed by using the cutting compound again and buffed out with the swirl remover.

To do a square foot took about 5 minutes and left a show quality finish. Beer swigs and ooooohs and aaaaahhs took 50% of the time!

I'm thinking of painting my car myself by using some automotive paint that dosen't need an oven to cure. With attention to detail, I belive I can get a show quality finish at a fraction of the cost and not have to ask a body shop why MY CAR hasen't been painted after four months..

Just don't start talking about using Rustoleum and painting it with a roller like the cheap guys over on the British car forum I visit once in a while. Now I know why you can buy a 60's british car cheap. Have fun with it.

Thanks for the writeup. Makes me wanna give it a try...

-pt

That's exactly what I did. Use a good quality paint. Figure that whatever type of system you use, you are going to spend about $1k in paint-primers etc. The mistake I made was that all my practice spraying was done with a single stage enamel paint and then I switched to a single stage urethane for the final job. The urethane is a better quality (harder) paint with a good reputation I just couldn't get it to lay down properly....hence a lot of sanding and I'm still not done. But the car looks OK and I've had a lot of compliments, but I'm not satisfied.

I recommend not doing a color change from what you have now...it's a PITA!

Good luck

You can do your own...follow all the rules, read the labels, info sheets.

read them again, make sure you understand them, ask someone if you dont, try and find the chatty guy at the paint store that's willing to hand out tips left and right...

See if there's any classes at your local community college.

lerk around here: piant forum

If you are going to paint your car at home with modern paints, just be sure to take the hazmat precautions seriously. A canister respirator really doesn't cut it with modern catalyzed primers and finish paints. I'd probably want to send my family away on a visit for the weekend, and do it at night when the neighbors are sleeping. Paint is dangerous and toxic chemicals that can seriously damage your health.

I would add that a separate fresh air supplied respirator system should be figured into your tool budget. I don't know if you can rent these things, but that would be save $ and your health.

What eight replies and no one posted.

I don't believe that a fresh air respirator system is truly necessary, but paying extra for good nitrile gloves and a full body paint suit is a must, as well as a full face mask with the proper canister for paint materials. You really want to have as little come in contact with your skin, eyes, lungs as necessary. painting a few cars over your lifetime and doing it properly won't have any effect. the guys that need the fresh air systems are the professionals that live in the spray booths, the ones that don't use the proper stuff tend to be pretty fried and sick if they don't

You want photos?

Good advice fellas and will take it to heart. I will keep the extra fast canary yellow color and add a few mills for color sanding. If this paint job didn't have so many chips and them burn marks from over sised tires, I'd just color sand what I got. Hope you all can benefit from the product list and give it a go.

As a reply, if my digicam could take the profile of the paint as orange peal and what was done with the process above, you would be hands down, completely blown away! As mentioned above, its so damn good that them little microscopic scrathches become an issue and one becomes obsessed, that would be me and some of you, into getting the paint glass perfect. I think I just have to calm down and get it perfect perfect and not, I'm so damn crazy 100K, perfectoid.