Base Coat Clear Coat

[BadJoey]

A friend from work painted my car with base coat clear coat . People keep telling me to buff it out . Is this something I want to try myself ? I've been told you have to sand the car with 1200 paper then buff . I'd hate to screw some thing up . The car already has all the chrome and letters on some of which will not come off in one piece .Will they be scratched if hit when buffing? Whats a fair price if farming it out ?

Any help will go a long way helping me decide what to do . THANKS .

[BIGSHCLUNK]

I'm no body man, only a lowly parts dealer. But do you mean base coat/clear coat???  The shine comes from the clear coat.   

[RUSTY Cuda]

No pro here either but 1200 is quite gritty , I did 1000 then 2000 then buffed, easy to mess up around the edges (don't ask how I know that )
Was told later I should have done 1500 in between those two grits,
Maybe a pro can jump in & give you the exact sequence (buffing has 3 or 4 steps also depending on how heavy a grit you start with ) Good luck,Rich.

[matt63]

I don't recommend trying it unless you know what you are doing.  Is the clear coat flawed/orange peeled?  Perhaps some polishing would get you where you want to go.  There is a lot to learn about wet sanding and polishing and you can really screw things up.  If you do give it a go you will need a good auto polisher and I wouldn't use anything more coarse than 1500 unless there were some serious flaws in the clear coat.

[vinb]

My Cuda is base coat only, I didn't paint it,  but it was painted back in '82. That's how it was when I bought it.

The car had some dirt and orange peel in it so I used 1500 wet & then 2000 wet.

After sanding I used Perfect-It III 3M #05933 with a white foam pad and then finished it with a gray foam pad & 3M foam polishng glaze #05996..

You have to keep the paper very very wet so you don't get any dirt in it or you will scratch the paint. Don't rush it, take your time... I had like 20 hours into it and I have a vinyl top..

If you have really nice paint on the car, leave it to a pro to handle....

When done right the paint will look like a mirror.......

[BadJoey]

Current paint looks good say a 8 1/2 on a scale of 1 to 10 . There is some orange peel but not a lot . In the shade or night it looks really good . In the sun you can find the flaws . My problem is if it takes "20 hours" I am not that paintent . On the other hand to pay someone say $75.00 per hour  that would be a lot of money . I think I'll stop a few places locally and see what kind of deal I can get . Thank you guys . 

[matt63]

I had a black Demon and a pro took 40 hours to wet sand and polish it.  That included putting on new stripes which probably took an hour or two.

[73Barracuda340]

For orangepeel, I use 1500 grit wet/dry paper with a durablock flexible sanding block to knock the heavy orangepeel off and then hit it with 2000 grit.  After that, I buff with 3m heavy rubbing compound, then medium cut compound and finally the 3M black finishing glaze on a polishing pad.

It is important to know just how thick and how many coats of clear you have on the car before doing this though, as it is very easy to burn through to the base coat or worse, the primer.  I stop my sanding just short of the panel edges until I am done buffing the rest of the panel.

[BadJoey]

Thanks guys . I'm sorry to say this , but I think this might be over my head not wanting to ruin the paint . I would love the extra shine but am trying to pay off the 8 k On my credit card from doing the car . I'm going to wait till spring and see how my card looks maybe then . You know it just dawned on me here in upstate NY the hot rod season is almost over . I'd say the end of Sept at the latest . So no big rush . Dam that is a depressing thought . 

[UKcuda]

If you do give it a go you will need a good auto polisher and I wouldn't use anything more coarse than 1500 unless there were some serious flaws in the clear coat.

I agree with this - it is a very long hard job unless you use a power polisher and then you need to know what you are doing.  I have a pro. quality electric one which works OK but it took me a long time to figure how to minimise the risk of going through the clear coat.  That's the big no-no.

[4 speed fish]

Find someone who does it for a living and try to get them to do it on the side.You will save over 50 percent or more doing this.