by JohnP » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:06 am
I wet sanded and buffed the paint out this weekend.
The wet sanding did not go too well, kept getting a high spot on the paper, Not matter how I folded it. I pushed down harder on my foam sanding block, but felt it was taking too much paint off. So I had some low and high spots, not an even smooth surface.
Decided to buff it the next day, took a lot of effort with my small 6 inch Ryobi orbital polisher, using rubbing compound then polishing compound, then just a polish. A nice smooth shine would come up, but you could see the difference from what was sanded and what was not, Took a lot of pressure to go back and get it buffed out evenly. This little buffer was only 20 bucks, but spins at 4000rpm so I figured it would work, guess a variable speed buffer with a higher rpm would have been better, but I wanted to see if the inexpensive machine would work.
It is amazing how nice the Rustoleum shines up, a very deep gloss.
But, I'm not totally happy with the results. Not this methods fault, mine, as usual I rushed it. From not getting the bubbles out fully on my first two coats and, not sanding to an even surface when I wet sanded, you can see on a couple areas, especially top of fenders it is not smooth and a texture is noticable. You really could not see them on my last few coats, the buffing seemed to make them stand out more. When the bubbles popped, the paint was too thick and did not spread, so I have some dots in the paint.
Don't get me wrong, even with some flaws, it looks pretty good. Maybe a 5 ft paint job? Shine is very nice. Areas I did get smooth buff to a really deep surface.
I'll probably go back and resand, repaint then buff again to fix areas I'm not happy with.
Will try to get a picture and post in a day or two.