Bringing the shine to a spray-can clearcoat

[elohel]

Hey all,

Been working on a project for my car and it's almost complete. I painted side skirts, front lip, rear lip and the grill on my car. The paint itself came out great. The clearcoat is a little "eh", though. It went on nice and smooth (4 very fine coats), but after it dried.. no dice. The surface isn't very smooth - it has a very mild texture to it.

I used the rubbing compound that I bought with it (from paintscratch.com), but it really did very little. I'm trying to do it by hand. Any product suggestions? I'd really like to get a clean, smooth-as-glass surface if it's possible.

Thank you!

[Mike Phillips]

If you want it smooth and flat for high gloss and crisp reflections then you need to sand it flat and then remove your sanding marks.

You can try to do this by hand by sanding with some high grit papers like #2000 to #4000 and then using either our M105 or our Ultimate Compound, work your sanding scratches out by hand.

This will requires some work on your part and also you'll need make sure you have enough paint to work with because sanding will remove some paint and so will using M105 or UC.

Also, test this process in a small area first and make sure with this paint, these products and your skills and abilities you can be successful in one small area before tackling the entire panel(s)

This type of work is usually done with sanding and then using a rotary buffer but with our new SMAT products it can be done by hand if the paint isn't too hard, (not likely since it's from a spray can), if you finish with a high enough grit paper and if you have good hand skills for working compounds over the paint.

[elohel]

Thanks Mike. Just ordered a bottle of M105. I had read that there are certain cloths that are made for this, any truth to that? If not, any specific kind of product you'd recommend I apply this stuff with when working it in by hand?

Thanks again.

[Mike Phillips]

I had read that there are certain cloths that are made for this, any truth to that? If not, any specific kind of product you'd recommend I apply this stuff with when working it in by hand?

Thanks again.

100% cotton terry cloth, you want a towel with a large and plush nap. The nap is the cotton loops that make terry cloth, terry cloth.

Find a quality spa style bath towel and cut it up into squares anywhere from 4" square to 6" square. Fold the cloth in half and use this to work the product over the paint.

There are some terry cloth applicator pads in the market, there use to be a terry cloth applicator pad by Detailer's Choice which was okay, most of the commercial applicator pads have a small nap.

The nap acts as a gentle form of abrasive and will help to give your choice of abrasive chemical a little more bite as you work it over the paint.

After you remove the defects using cotton, you'll want to either re-polish the area using foam to remove any toweling scratches or haze left by the more aggressive nature of the terry cloth. You can use foam with the M105 or get some foam applicator pads and use them with something like M205 for your finishing process.

[elohel]

Thanks Mike! Last question (I promise! )

Would either of these products work for what you said? Is one preferable over the other?