darrenjlobb's Adaptronic Managed Compound Blown Derv Bus Build

[darrenjlobb]

Next step was to commence "wet sanding" and buffing, to try and smooth back the paint and shine it up..... (As easy as that ......right )

So started out up front, doing one panel at a time, as this is a rather boring job to say the least! Front wing flatted back:



And after some buffing:



Then same process on the bonnet:






This went on for many hours, and although "progress" was being made, I couldnt seem to "correct" the marks the sand paper was putting into it, I was using quality paper, and a sanding block, but still somehow managing to put deep marks in, that simply wouldnt buff out....After doing numberous research online, I decided to try using some "proper" products rather than just what I had lying around, so bought what everyone recommended, cutting products and pads all from 3M:



Now I must say at this point, this is the next big lesson learnt / advice to anyone else trying....dont even waste 2 minutes messing around with products you can buy in halfords etc...complete waste of your time and effort...proper product and pad instantly made this job 100 times easier!

So sanded some panels back again, and re buffed using the new products:





As you can see, a much better shine was made possible using these, which also claim to have no fillers in them at all, IE what you see is what is acaully going on!

So many hours were spent buffing the whole car in this way, I even got as far as removing all the tape etc, and starting to re assemble it...but I still wasnt really happy...although I never expected a "perfect finish" or anything close, due to the ammount of time I had spent sanding / buffing, the paint had started to get thin in places, and even burnt through on a few edges, and there was still some marks from sanding that I was scared to sand out with fear of sanding through the paint....

I also had an EPIC fail on the bonnet, the bonnet was a brand new one from peugeot, as the old one had suffered one to many impacts with various turbo setups etc, and was quite honestly "past it"....so anyway, in my wisdom, I fitted the new bonnet, primed it and painted it...When I look back I dont know how or why I didnt, but I guess just on the thought "its new in primer" I decided not to sand it down...well that turned out to be a mistake, and one even when I went to pull some masking tape off, it pulled the paint right off the bonnet, just like vinyl!



So another lesson learnt, just because something is new, dosnt mean its ready to paint, if the paint is dry, you need to key it for adhesion....

So with the bonnet fail, and the general un happy feeling with some other areas...I decided to leave it alone for a while, with the thought that I might just re paint the entire car, with a better gun nozzle, and a different approach, but for now, it was put back in the shed for another few weeks while i pondered over it!

And another video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYPPwMhEblg