New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

[tomsteve]

New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

First off, this is a follow-up to my previous posts I made about fixing up my son's 1995 rag top mustang. I had repainted the Mustang and had to color-sand and buff out all the paint. All of the advice from this forum was excellent and helped me get the job done right the first time.

I wouldn't suggest painting, sanding and buffing out a car for anybody as it is VERY time consuming.

I color sanded the car (by hand) with 2000 grit and got the paint nice and flat. I used M105 with a PC 7424 and the L.C. yellow and orange pads. The M105 and yellow pad worked pretty well, but there was a LOT of work involved to get the paint scratch-free. I had to go over each area 4 times.

After the M105 I used M205 with an orange pad and the paint looks awesome!!! There are some tracers in the paint still, but you have to be in the right light to see them. I followed up the M205 with a coat of NXT Tech Wax and it is sweet!

Once again, I wouldn't recommend sanding down a paint with the idea of buffing out the sanding marks using a D.A. Polisher as it is very time consuming, (well over 3 hours per panel from start to finish), If I took a little more time I could have gotten the tracers out, but the car still turned out beautiful.

My son got home from Iraq on Friday and saw his car for the first time Saturday. He was geeked with it and said the paint job was awesome. I have to thank you all again for your help and expertise in tackling this project.

Now, I bought a rotary and gotta go play on MY car (1996 Taurus, Metallic Red with 200,000 miles of the paint not being properly taken care of) and learn how the big boys do it.


Pictures

[Mike Phillips]

Re: PC 7424 Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Congratulations!

Just goes to show what you can do with persistence and perspiration! We would like to thank your son for serving and you for being a Super Dad! We'd also like to thank you for coming back and posting a follow-up to your other threads and sharing the status of the project Mustang for your son. Many people join the forum to get information about how to tackle a project but so often we never hear or see the follow-up, so thank you.

Here's a list of your previous threads that led up to this one, you've really put in a lot of online time into researching this project and then a lot of hard work offline into making it happen.

New here and here for my son
color sanding and all that good stuff by hand
is outside temp important when color sanding
a question about cleaning paint b4 wet sanding
color sanding and taping off edges
m105 and removing sanding marks


Everyone would love to see the finished work, better yet, the picture of your son when you showed him the car, (you took that one didn't you? )


If you're not familiar with how to work with photos on forums, it's not to hard once you do it once or twice but for the benefit of everyone, if you e-mail me the pictures I'll upload them into your gallery here on the forum and insert them into this thread.

[Superior Shine]

Re: PC 7424 Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Nice job - DO IT TO IT!!

[TxRado]

Re: PC 7424 Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Great stuff! And yes thank your son for us

[tomsteve]

Re: PC 7424 Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

thanks all and thanks for gettin the pics up for me, mike. i will be back shortly with pics of my taurus and will work on learnin how to get them posted.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

First of all, Please give your son a big welcome home and Thank You for serving our country.

Thanks for doing the final follow up on your project car for your son. The paint turned out fantastic. The Mustang looks great.

It has been a pleasure reading up on all the progress you made with this Car.

Once again great job and give your son a thanks.

[yalerd]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Amazing job!

What impressed me the most is you could do all this work with a PC, it shows you have determination and do not finish until you've completed the work

Congrats on the job well done and my respects for an amazing gift for your son.

[Murr1525]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Looking sharp... I am sure he has been happy to drive around and show it off.

Its almost a shame that there has to have been several nice restoration jobs to welcome family and friends back from the military.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

First off, this is a follow-up to my previous posts I made about fixing up my son's 1995 rag top mustang. I had repainted the Mustang and had to color-sand and buff out all the paint. All of the advice from this forum was excellent and helped me get the job done right the first time.

I wouldn't suggest painting, sanding and buffing out a car for anybody as it is VERY time consuming.

I color sanded the car (by hand) with 2000 grit and got the paint nice and flat. I used M105 with a PC 7424 and the L.C. yellow and orange pads. The M105 and yellow pad worked pretty well, but there was a LOT of work involved to get the paint scratch-free. I had to go over each area 4 times.

After the M105 I used M205 with an orange pad and the paint looks awesome!!! There are some tracers in the paint still, but you have to be in the right light to see them. I followed up the M205 with a coat of NXT Tech Wax and it is sweet!

Once again, I wouldn't recommend sanding down a paint with the idea of buffing out the sanding marks using a D.A. Polisher as it is very time consuming, (well over 3 hours per panel from start to finish), If I took a little more time I could have gotten the tracers out, but the car still turned out beautiful.

My son got home from Iraq on Friday and saw his car for the first time Saturday. He was geeked with it and said the paint job was awesome. I have to thank you all again for your help and expertise in tackling this project.

Now, I bought a rotary and gotta go play on MY car (1996 Taurus, Metallic Red with 200,000 miles of the paint not being properly taken care of) and learn how the big boys do it.


Pictures

You put an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and love into a vehicle for your son. That is something to be commended, along side the service your brave son has given to our country serving in Iraq.

Reading this thread gave me chills, and reminded me of my favorite commercial of all time...well, it is more of a heart warming short video (few minutes long).

Thanks to you, and your son for your great work and service!

PS- the car looks amazing! That paint looks better than factory new...

[dvtldav]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Thank your son for serving our country. When you first posted about doing this project, I thought what is this guy getting himself into, but you did and excellent job and should be highly complimented on the job you did. Congratulations on a job well done.

Dave

[akimel]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

Tomsteve, I am awed by the gift you have presented your son. I do not know how many days you invested in this car, but I know it was many. Congratulations! I'm not surprised your son was "geeked." The car looks great!

Please convey to your son my thanks for his service to our country. Two of my sons have served in the military. My eldest gave four years to the Army and served in Bosnia. My third son is now serving in the Marines, as did my father. We are indebted to these young men, many of whom have given their lives for us. May God bless them and keep them.

Al

[tomsteve]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

thanks all. i really couldn't say the amount of time invested as i didnt keep track, but here is a wee bit of it.
since the clearcoat had failed i sanded the car completely......with an electric da. all possible parts to come off came off( bumper covers, trim, rocker things, mirrors, etc.) and there's about 25-30 hrs in that. sanding with an electric is quite time consuming. after gettin "Raquel to the shop to paint, which was about 3 miles down the road, about 3 hours taping and prepping for primer. after primer, about 9 hrs wet sanding. after the car came back from paint, about 10-13 hours in reassembly( should have color sanded before reassembly). after that, she sat for a few months while the paint cured. then it was about 25 or so hours invested in colorsanding, using the m105 and the m205, and wax. plus there was about 10-ish hours in the interior as i took out the seat and cleaned it up nice.
so, yes, quite a bit of time, but all fun and worth it!! i must say i would not have done it without the knowledge gained here. thank you all.
if someone might be planning on doin all this for the first time, go for it!!!!! there's a wealth of knowledge here!!! just keep in mind it is VERY time consuming( there were a few times i had to walk away because of frustration), but the rewards are worth every bit of work.
the last i talked to Shawn, he had already put over 1000 miles on her!!! think he might have slept in her too!!!

[Mr Mustang]

Re: New Paint on the Pony! - Color Sanding and Buffing follow-up

that looks incredible for a do it yourself job!

thanks so much to your son for doing what he's doing [salutes]