mx5cartalk.com

My 2002 Mx5 is Black and very shiny...been well garaged and looked after, I bought it in December. Sadly I decided to try and do a bit of a paint job on the bumper to fix paint chips, grime etc.
Here's what I did yesterday. Firstly I sanded back the paint very lightly with wet 1200 paper. This removed the beautiful shine. I then used some powerplus spray touch up paint, gave it a light sand again, then used some turtle wax cure plus.
Today I again sanded the bumper and it seems to be alot more even and smooth, I then used polyglaZe cut and polish,rubbed it like mad, and again did the turtlewax.
My question is, the shine is coming up ok and the feel of the bumper is smoother....what is recommended to bring the bumper close to the beautiful mirror finish it originally had? Should I continue light sanding and glazing, or should I try something else? or should I just take it to a detailer? or resprayed professionally.
I am in no hurry, but do not want to waste time trying to bring it back, I am doing all this by hand. needless to say..I won't be trying this on the Bonnet. lol.

Any tips would be helpful...

Pictures always help with tech questions

Pics tell a thousand words which would have made that post about a thousand words less

need pictures to decide what the next step will be, but you will probably need to use finer grit sand paper(wet sanding), say 1200 grit > 1500 grit > 2000 grit > polish.

ok, will post a pic, thanks. I used a 2000 grit wet..... I originally thought it was 1200.

Did you use a clear coat?

jorgan92 wrote:Did you use a clear coat?

+1

Apu has some experience with this stuff - hopefully he'll see this and give some advice

Ehhh...mine didn't work out too well. I'm getting the whole car resprayed now!

But yes, use a clear coat AND make sure the spray gun is well maintained. I got lazy the last time and it spluttered the clearcoat...too lazy to fix it so, full respray!

APU - Thanks, judging by your experience, I think I will take proper care of my new love...lol

I received a quote of $1000 to have the bonnet, bumper and 2 side panels done, my baby is still good looking enough to get taken care of, she doesn't deserve my hack job.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. :p

there really are quite a number of technical books with lots of photos and texts as to how to paint- everything from the minor repairs to the whole shebang. I usually go to the library and check out the car books and find something - always makes for interesting reading. Recently I read one with an English pro painter who was using spray cans for quite a number of jobs and getting first class results. I noticed a book in SCA recently. My thought is that it is best to read what someone gets published- it must have some value. Painting is mostly good preparation, cleanliness and patience and of course process and some guys get excellent results. Pros these days usually used baked system which is very durable but not safe for home application. One of the forum members gave a full breakdown of respray and I think he used acrylic lacquer and did an excellent job.