Harllequin
Member
Leading on from Firstcar-Y10's post and not wanting to go off topic on it I thought I best start a new thread about T-Cut and paintwork sanding / polishing.
I bought myself a bodywork polishing machine a few years back and have never looked back. I used to use rubbing compound or T-Cut a lot but found you had to keep doing it every 6 months or so.
Then I got this machine when I was painting a car for a friends son.
You have to be very careful but the rewards are 100 fold.
The theory the way I see it, likely not the professional paint persons view but its how I see it
New paint like old paint needs a good going over to remove a thin layer from the top, in the case of old paint the oxidised paint and in the case of new paint the orange peal / cellulite effect, no matter how well you put the last coat on there is always some of it you can see.
Using 1200 or 2000 wet and dry, depending on how bad it is, you carefully sand it back till your happy with it.
Then using G3 polish and the polishing machine you buff it back up. Job done.
The polishing machine is not a £10 special from Halfords though but a variable speed fancy thing the body shop guys use. They are a lot more expensive (I think mine was about £70 but that was a long while ago now)
Anyway here are some pics of a friends MX5. It would not hold a shine at all, he had tried T-Cut and the Maguire’s polish but it still looked crap. So we set too one day and this was what we did, I'm afraid I don’t have any pics of the before, but I have some of the during and after.
The first pic shows the rear already done and us moving onto the door and front wing.
Second Pic is of the bonnet being done.
Third is the bonnet finished.
Last pic is the boot lid showing the reflection of our house.
I'll get some pics of Bex's bonnet onto here asap to show you the new paint pics.
I bought myself a bodywork polishing machine a few years back and have never looked back. I used to use rubbing compound or T-Cut a lot but found you had to keep doing it every 6 months or so.
Then I got this machine when I was painting a car for a friends son.
You have to be very careful but the rewards are 100 fold.
The theory the way I see it, likely not the professional paint persons view but its how I see it
New paint like old paint needs a good going over to remove a thin layer from the top, in the case of old paint the oxidised paint and in the case of new paint the orange peal / cellulite effect, no matter how well you put the last coat on there is always some of it you can see.
Using 1200 or 2000 wet and dry, depending on how bad it is, you carefully sand it back till your happy with it.
Then using G3 polish and the polishing machine you buff it back up. Job done.
The polishing machine is not a £10 special from Halfords though but a variable speed fancy thing the body shop guys use. They are a lot more expensive (I think mine was about £70 but that was a long while ago now)
Anyway here are some pics of a friends MX5. It would not hold a shine at all, he had tried T-Cut and the Maguire’s polish but it still looked crap. So we set too one day and this was what we did, I'm afraid I don’t have any pics of the before, but I have some of the during and after.
The first pic shows the rear already done and us moving onto the door and front wing.
Second Pic is of the bonnet being done.
Third is the bonnet finished.
Last pic is the boot lid showing the reflection of our house.
I'll get some pics of Bex's bonnet onto here asap to show you the new paint pics.