Black94Z28

iTrader: (12)

I repainted my Camaro and wetsanded 24 hours later. Took a full day to wetsand and a full day to buff the car. Looks good now. Although I was in a hurry waxing it and missed a bunch of wax thats now dried up on the car!

Black_Z28

iTrader: (1)

I filled the center portion last fall, so no more key hole. I need to redo it though, because it doesn't look perfect.

I have no idea how you can do a whole car in 30 minutes. It takes me longer to wax my car with a porter cable.

Brangeta

I agree, I can't even wax my car in less than 4 hours. I can only imagine the car would look like crap.

tuffluck

iTrader: (4)

it's really not smart to wetsand your entire car. only areas that have severe gouging where you have painted over the gouges with touch-up paint and you are trying to smooth out the paint should you wetsand.

if you knew how thick your clearcoat is and how much wetsanding removes of your clearcoat, you'd get my point a lot easier.

Black_Z28

iTrader: (1)

Ha, maybe at some point. But honestly...my car is very rarely outside, and I mean rarely. I've put a massive 212 miles on it this year, and I doubt I'll put much more then that on it. Last year I put about 400 miles on it. And, that's all just driving somewhere and back, then back to the garage. I wish I had a reason to drive the car more, but that's what my DD is for.

retardedpenguin

iTrader: (2)

Geez, four hours to wax a car? My friend and I tried to see how fast we could do it one day and it was prolly less than five minutes for I think a Corolla from the molding up and no bumpers or roof. If it took me four hours I would get fired but the wax we use dries as soon as you put it on. You have to think about this though, I do this all day every day working for the devil so we don't have a choice but get it done fast and looking good. To wash a car good (getting all the compound out of edges) with easy five spoke wheels takes about 10-15 minutes and another 15-20 minutes to wax it good depending on what car it is. Most of the time it takes a lot longer because we are trying to kill time at work since we run out of stuff to do. I'll run the timer on my phone and get some real times for y'all.

And tuffluck it's only a bad idea to wet sand a factory painted car, the clear is thin especially with Pontiac's. On a repaint you don't have a choice unless you have a bad *** painter.

Here are a few pics, they all look fine to me lol.. I don't have any direct sunlight pics tho.

meine96ws6

iTrader: (4)

they look great!!! a little hard work goes a long way..

kyles2000z

iTrader: (8)

2 hours to cut and buff and entire car is NOT going to look good over time. This sounds like a high volume shop that fouces on quanity instead of quality. The sand is probably done with a DA, and then the "buffing" is probably a VERY abrasive compound that will bring clarity back to the paint....and then will in all the buffer marks with a glaze or wax that has a TON of fillers. Car will look OK upon pick-up, but after the fillers wash off, it will look like someone washed it with a scotch brite pad. Don't believe me? Here's a prime example...

....this car was repainted and upon pick-up, looked great. A few weeks later it came to me looking like this...



this is after I spent over an hour on the hood just to bring it back to life...the right way...



TO the OP....nice job man. You will get quicker with this and evetually get it down to a 30 minute job per light.

Brangeta

Kyle, if I was willing to ever pay somebody to do my own appearance care, I'd definitely want someone like you. That looks great and shows a lot of care was taken.

kyles2000z

iTrader: (8)

Thanks man! I am far from a seasoned pro and only do things on the side, after hours. It's tough work and I could not do it for a living, I just do it to save friends money on a top notch job, at the fraction of the price. I enjoy seeing them enjoy a new paint finsih just as much as they enjoy it.

retardedpenguin

iTrader: (2)

Once the wax is gone the cars still look great, there are some cars here now that were painted a year or more ago and they still look great with hardly any swirls. But it is a quantity based shop yet the cars look good. I would say it's in between quality and quantity. Did you mean wet sand with a D/A? We do it by hand with 1500.

Honestly, for a $600 paint job of course it wont be perfect. Normal people don't want $10,000 paint jobs for their Corolla, they just want something that is gonna look good. I can't believe some people bitch though, it's hilarious when some takes their Chevelle or whatever to another shop because we are taking too long(shop is jam packed sometimes) and then they come back three days later with their $13,000 estimate from the shop up the road.

But damn dude, that's a lot of fish eye on your Vette hood, that **** needs to be repainted and tell them not to rub their dick all over the hood next time.

kyles2000z

iTrader: (8)

It's not my car....just a friend's...it's been sold now. But yes, the paint was not very good to begin with, but you could tell it was damnged badly in the finishing part (buffing).

And yes, some of the best detailers in the country are now color sanding cars with a DA (3000 grit and they do it dry)....with Trizak sanding paper. Search for it....pretty neat process and it may can be beneficial for your shop.

retardedpenguin

iTrader: (2)

I saw one of those sanding pads in the office so I guess they are already thinking about trying it out. Looks like it could get pretty scary with edges and stuff but sure is fast from the video on youtube.
I have seen them used before with a different set up and you needed a thick, thick clear to work with since they use more coarse paper. I don't know much about any of that though, just a clean up boy haha.

You did a nice job with that vette though, hard to tell from the beginning picture though from the quality but the end result is nice.


Also I timed myself to day, 11 minutes and 6 seconds to completely wax a Mustang top to bottom at a fair pace.

kyles2000z

iTrader: (8)

Here is the link to the write-up I did on the vette. If i remember cororectly, it was a 12 hour job!

https://ls1tech.com/forums/appearanc...-detailed.html

retardedpenguin

iTrader: (2)

Jesus dude that car was terrible. It looks like they didn't even buff it in some pictures. I don't think I have ever seen a job that bad before.

You did a great job cleaning it up. The original guy might as well buffed it with some toothpaste and a paper towel.

IROCDave

I never worked in a detail shop or buffed a car before attempting to do it on my freshly painted IROC. I asked for 4 coats of clear and told the shop I was going to color sand. I started with 1k grit, then 1500 and finished with 2K grit. I went through in two spots and quickly learned to stay away from edges. I used two 3M products to get rid of the sanding scratches, then 4 steps of Meguires to get the finsished product. I spent about 80 hours on my paint. I can see doing the same thing in a bout 40 hours after a couple of cars. The finish on the paint on my car is fantastic, but it wasnt easy buy any stretch of imigination. For a dailey driver you could cut about 10 hours out of the process, but to do it correctly I cant see a complete color sand / buff out taking less time. Unless of course you dont give a ratts *** and am happy with shiny over flat and shiny. If you want it flat plan to spend alot of time and or money. There is no easy way to get it flat other than starting from scratch.

kyles2000z

iTrader: (8)

If you would have used the Meguairs 105/205 system....you could have cut that down to a two-step process from sanding scratches to finsihed product!

Brangeta

Although I'm not going to lie and pretend I'm a good detailer (I'm thorough, but have no skill, and just do waxing and cleaning by hand)... but awhile back, I bought a fresh set of salad shooters (the original ones had curb damage on one wheel, from my sister getting nearly sideswiped on the tollway, so I wanted to replace them all) and before the new tires were mounted, I spent 5.5 hours cleaning them and waxing them all. They turned out phenominal. The person I bought them from had them stored in their garage since 2003, so they don't have any damage except from some wheel weights. I had the wheel weights put on the inside with adhesive this time. They turned out gorgeous. I know a lot of people hate these wheels, but I love them, especially when they look brand new.







They are the only 4th gen wheels to ever say "CAMARO" on the center cap, so I love them.