Paint buffing question

[Apu]

For the benefit of other people wanting to try this, my friend recommended I use Intershield 300 - I wanted a tough paint where I could get a match for my silver.

He did advise that for metallic finishes, it needs to be sprayed...but this is for the interior of the car, so not too concerned.

[Giselle]

Cool

I was really unsure of what paint to get. The classic paint is rustoleum but it doesn't have a nice british racing green. That's why I settled on the International paint

If that doesn't work out I'll get on the search again. Good recommendations here

We refer to what we've done so far as "test panels". I'm not worried about the ultimate finish of those panels, so no big deal.

Hopefully if I find another paint that's better suited (harder or something) I can just put a coat over the top

[green_comet]

The idea of forums is to canvas ideas- otherwise why post questions? Not all ideas are good ones and nor are all responses . People thinking that cars painted with marine paint may have missed something I think.

The problem is that you have no tolerance for other ideas. You think that what you say is the absolute undeniable fact and anyone that doesn't believe you is an idiot. With that sort of thinking there would be no MX5 for you to enjoy. People have told you this time and time again but you keep spouting the same negativity. 4500 mostly useless posts and counting.

Don't feed the troll, he'll only come back here and post more rubbish. Just ignore him, or create a private MX5 forum.

[Red Dragon]

If Hey Hey was still on TV, Morlock would certainly win "WHAT CHEESES ME OFF"

[Giselle]

Current paint status:

Bough a buffer and some cutting compound and let the current panels dry for a month. Some colour came off onto the buff pad initially, but despite all of my fears, the paint was UNDAMAGED

The problem in fact seems to be the opposite. Sanding made the panels a lighter colour. And to test, we didn't sand it all perfect flat. I wanted to see how much the buffer itself would be able to cut through the roller marks.

After some buffing, the colour is better but not GREAT, and the bumps etc are still there

I was buffing around 1400 rpm using cutting compound. Maybe I need higher RPM or rougher compound.

The experience has left me more comfortable about the paint though. From here, we'll buy another tin of paint and get to work on the rest of the car. I also bought hardener, so that should help the enamel "problem".

The plan is to lay 3 or 4 nice thick coats of colour (and an undercoat or 2) and then sand it perfect flat. After that, we'll do 1 or 2 ultra thin coats, hopefully getting it with minimal/no roller bumps and good colour

Fingers crossed. I was feeling bad due to the enamel for weeks, but now I'm feeling positive

[hks_kansei]

If it were normal paint you'd give it a wet sand with something like 2000grit paper, then maybe some finer papers, then move onto polishes (starting with a cut on a cutting pad, then to a finer pad/compound, then finer again, etc)

No idea if this paint can be treated the same though

[Giselle]

I'll update soon with the results of that.

I'd usually sand with 2000 grit, but I was hoping the buffer would do the job for me. Tomorrow I'll hit it with 2000 and buff again if I get the time

[Giselle]

Did some 2000 grit wetsanding and polished the boot. It wasn't sanded COMPLETELY flat because we're still just screwing around and experimenting, and planing on doing another coat anyway.

Nonetheless, here's an idea how it looks now.

You can see the rear quarter is mid-sand, but the boot has been polished.




We're just about ready to get started on the rest of the car using hardener this time. Pretty happy.

[Apu]

Looks pretty damned good from here!

[davekmoore]

What will the total cost be in 1) $$$$ and 2) labour hours?

[meanmx]

I'd like to see a better pic but it looks great at the moment

[Giselle]

What will the total cost be in 1) $$$$ and 2) labour hours?

Hmmm

I think the paint is like $40 a pot but should cover the whole car in 1 or 2 coats. Need a pot of primer too, for probably the same cost.

I can't remember how much the thinner costs, turps would probably work decently if you wanted to save money (we clean our hands and paint gear with turps).

Rollers cost about $1/each. A roller will last for a whole day's work, but can also be reused for a few days if you cleaned them and cling wrapped them. At $1 each we didn't bother after long.

We wasted a lot of paint and rollers on the boot by doing like 9 coats- 1 per day and thus 9 rollers (plus 2 undercoats). For the body panels we've done 2 undercoats and 3 or 4 top coats.

You'll need plenty of sandpaper... I guess $20 to $50 worth.

so that gives a very rough figure of:

$40-60 on paint
$20-50 on sandpaper
As small as $6 on rollers if you were awesome and did the whole car at a time -one roller per coat of paint)
we're trying hardener next which was like $40

As for man hours:

Gotta sand the old paint back first. For the boot we spent ages sanding to primer. Also spent ages filling holes. For the rest of the car we're only sanding through the previous owner's retarded spraycan job and half way through the factory paint.


You could do that in a dedicated day I guess. Painting you could do in a few hours per coat, with one day dry time between coats.

A quick sand between coats to remove any surface contamination is all that's needed

After the final coat we give a month dry time and then the final sand is very careful to get it perfect flat. I imaging I'll spebd a whole day doing that on the rest of the car.

My boyfriend and I have endless free time so we just do a bit here and there. If I was pressed for time it might be an issue.

Having to pay $20 here and $20 there is far more suiting to me on my income stream, compared to spending $3k in one pop to get it done professionally

Plus, it's fun.

[Giselle]

I'd like to see a better pic but it looks great at the moment

Yeah I'll take some better photos when the rear quarters are polished. you can see around the edges of the boot that it's not so shiny.. It hadn't been sanded so well around there. I was looking up close at the boot today and noticed that there are still lots of little dimples in the paint from the rollers. I didn't sand it well enough. I'll try harder on the quarters. I'll be doing an extra coat on the boot and quarters when I do the rest of the car though. All just playing around at the moment.

I won't be able to register/drive it until at least march, so we're giving ourselves plenty of time

[93_Clubman]

Boot lid looks good in that pic - well done!

[Giselle]

Did another panel today and took some photos

A reflection



ominous skies


The whole panel is covered in pinhole dimples that need to be sanded flat to get a shine.

Unfortunately I'm not confident that I can get them all without chewing through the paint. Lesson learned is to do MORE COATS. When I use hardener for the remaining car I imagine it will be easier to get a good sand without killing the paint. Unfortunately the car is so curvy that even a sanding block is out of bounds.



I just shone a LED light onto the paint because thatts my prefered way to test the shine of a paintjob. Any refraction of light shows up very obviously. Towards the right of the photo, right before the reflection of the camera, you can see a little dimple and how it reflects light in the wrong direction. It's obvious how much better it will look after removing them




So from here I just need to buy some more paint sometime and I think I'm ready to get started for real. I've now learned everything I need to know (I hope) to do it

edit: Took a photo of the rear qtr and the boot together, but... it looks terrible so I won't post it There were a few patches that weren't sanded properly (yet) so it's a bit patchy.

The panels will be getting a few more coats when we do the rest of the car, so I'm not obsessing over a perfect finish right yet.. today I just wanted to give it a shot at removing dimples