Fresh single-stage finishing...

[bkubisht]

Hi everyone, this is my first time doing detail work, really anything beyond basic waxing. I've been searching through this forum and around the web, watching videos, etc for a month. My little restoration project is a 1987 toyota 4x4 pickup back from paint a month ago. It's the end of a frame-off restoration.
The paint was single stage originally, then some body work that I had done about 15 years ago on the front fenders and hood, which got coated with paint & clear. I was a teenager, didn't know or care at the time. The clear started to fail about 10 years ago, and during the last 5 years it has mostly peeled off. Little black mold specs were all over the hood and front fenders, water was trapped during the wet season between the paint & clear.
OK, enough history, now to the present: The new paint job is Nason single stage, Ful-Thane 2K Urethane. Color is same as original, it's the creme/tan/yellow color, toyota 557. There's orange peel all over it. The goal here isn't a show truck, just an eye-catching daily driver. Here's plan A:

Wetsand through orange peel:
3m 1000 (because I have it)
MEGS 1500
(I will be trying the 1500 grit first, especially in areas where orange peel is lighter. Less is more!)

Finishing:
Wetsand MEGS 2000
M205 Ultra finish polish by hand with Terry Cloth
MEGS Ultimate Wax

Questions:
1. Any obvious problems with plan A? Is it too aggressive, or will it end up with swirls?

2. Should I be doing a sealant before wax?

Pics coming soon!

[Murr1525]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

1. Well, you are staying very coarse with the sand paper. You will never remove those sanding marks by hand. If you dont have a machine to use, or arent comfortable with one, you may want to enjoy the orange peel. Also, knowing the paint thickness would be good. But if you can get some good pics, it may help.

2. Same thing...

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

Here's plan A:

Wetsand through orange peel:
3m 1000 (because I have it)
MEGS 1500
(I will be trying the 1500 grit first, especially in areas where orange peel is lighter. Less is more!)

If the orange peel is really that bad and you know you have enough paint to play with, this should be sufficient to mow it down pretty darn flat. DA sanding will be less aggressive and more uniform than hand sanding, if that's an option for you.

Finishing:
Wetsand MEGS 2000
M205 Ultra finish polish by hand with Terry Cloth
MEGS Ultimate Wax

Finishing down to 2000 grit is fine, but taking it even further is better. But M205 is not going to be potent enough to pull out those 2000 grit marks, especially by hand, unless that paint is crazy soft. It's called "Ultra Finishing Polish" for a reason - it's a finishing polish, not a compound, and you need a compound in order to pull out the sanding marks. M105 can be used by hand and will save you not only hours, but wear and tear on your elbows, shoulders, back, etc. Follow with M205 to refine the finish.

But really, no power tools for this? Sure, it can be done by hand and many, many people have had great success doing so. But jeez, power tools exist for a reason!!

Questions:
1. Any obvious problems with plan A? Is it too aggressive, or will it end up with swirls?

2. Should I be doing a sealant before wax?

Pics coming soon!

As we pointed out above, part of your Plan A is maybe a bit aggressive while other parts aren't aggressive enough. As for sealant and wax, that's entirely up to you. But since this is a light color, and your goal is for an eye catching daily driver rather than a show car, we'd probably just stick with a good synthetic like Ultimate Wax. Sure, you can add a carnauba on top of that if you wish, but you don't have to.

[bkubisht]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

I *almost* mentioned above I also have a variable speed rotary, and watched the 5-part video series about using it twice, but figured everyone would say it's too advanced for noobs. My rotary is new, from harbor freight, no digital readout of what RPMs it's running at. Continuously variable speeds from 200 to 3400 RPMs.

Would it be appropriate to skip the paper on the open areas and use M105 on rotary to knock down the orange peel?
Where do M105 and M205 on rotary (7" pad) fall in terms of cut with wetsanding by hand 2000 and 3000 unigrit ? It might help to to see these ordered (below is my uninformed guess):
M105 on W5000
2000 unigrit by hand
M105 on W9207
3000 unigrit by hand
M205 on W9207

*Edit: I can't believe I even attempted to order those, my only knowledge of these products comes from what I've read online.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

M105 on a wool pad spinning at 1800 rpm will do a great job of pulling out your sanding marks, but it's not going to remove the orange peel. The pad will conform to the contours of the peel and essentially buff the highs and lows pretty uniformly, at least under "normal" use. You really do need to wet sand to take down the orange peel.

It's also probably not a bad idea for you to pick up a junk panel from a body shop and practice a bit on that first. We'd hate to see you sand through and/or burn through with the rotary since you just did a frame off restoration on this truck. It would be tragic to mess it up now, and we are talking about some very advanced processes here, with the very real potential to over do it. We probably should have asked this earlier, but do you have any experience wet sanding and/or rotary buffing? Are you generally pretty handy with this sort of thing? We know some people can't hammer a nail in straight and others can build a house with a few simple pointers. We've seen people really struggle trying to come to terms with a DA while others grab a rotary for the first time and look like pro. In all honesty, where do you think you fall here?

Heck, for all we know you did the complete restoration on this truck, paint included, all by yourself. It's sometimes tough to give advice without knowing the skill set and confidence level of the person asking for advice.

[bkubisht]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

Ah, good baseline questions for sure. I didn't do the paint, and don't have experience with any fine detail work. I am handy though, everything else related to the restoration was done by me except sandblasting the frame. It seems like the biggest thing I can bring to this stage of the project is respect for how quickly I can mess it up, hence less (cut) is more (safe). I have medium confidence, probably average novice skill but hoping respect and understanding of the issues (and products) will give me a big advantage.

Practice: The shop which did the body work & paint did some poor blending work on some of the filler, they have agreed to redo a panel. There was a quart of paint left over from the first time. Once I got the plan worked out I was going to try it on this panel before the truck goes back to them for fix & respray of that panel.

I also have another 80's toyota truck of the same tan/creme color, original paint with moderate oxydation. It's my beater trail rig, fixing burn-through with rattle can wouldn't be the end of the world on it.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

Practicing on the panel that's going to be redone is a very smart idea, and getting additional practice on the other truck is great too. You have a thing for tan, '80s Toyota trucks, don't you???

A couple of other things to consider when sanding/buffing:

Don't sand all the way to the edge of a panel; leave at least half an inch of space. Trying to buff out sanding marks right on an edge can quickly lead to burn through on the edge, partly because the paint is always thinnest right on the edge as it tends to flow away from the edge when drying. Also, when buffing one panel it's a good idea to tape off the edge of any adjacent panels so that you aren't bumping into them while buffing. Again, the paint on the edge is very thin and easy to go through. We had a Ferrari 550 Maranello in our garage not too long ago, helping a local museum correct some damage that happened while the car was undergoing some mechanical work. As is so common with hand built cars, the passenger door sat out a bit from the rear quarter panel just a tad, and it was painfully obvious that somewhere along the line someone had buffed that quarter panel without taping off the door - the entire door edge, top to bottom, was down to the primer.

[bkubisht]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

OK, I'm back. Experimented wet-sanding 1500 grit, 1000 where the orange peel is very heavy and work my way back out to 2000 grit. It was surprising how much abrasion it took to take the orange peel all the way down to visually smooth. It seemed like there was a point that I could still see a speckly/paisley pattern across the surface but could no longer feel the orange peel.

Next steps are to buy compound, polish and pads to experiment with and hopefully get right. I'll probably use the M105/M205 combo and got my hands on a neighbor's Griots random orbital which should be less tricky than the rotary. What pad should I use with 105? Recommended one is 8207 for DAs according to this thread but watching the 5-part video on wetsanding and rotary, it was said that 99% of the time after wet sanding a wool pad is where to start.

Second question, how much product should I expect to use for the whole truck? My initial guess based on the tahoe thread is two pads and 8oz of M105, and two more pads with 8oz M205?

[BillyJack]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

Definitely a wool pad or at least one of the super-aggressive foam pads. I consider my 8207's as the most versatile pads I own, but still no match for 2000 grit sanding marks. BTW, your description of the paint after sanding sounds just about right. I've cut and buffed many an air-dried SS paint job and I was taught to sand until there was just a faint trace of orange peel and let the compound take care of the rest. The surface texture was your gauge of paint thickness. Too smooth could mean too thin.
Bill

[bkubisht]

Re: Fresh single-stage finishing...

Some pics, just for fun.