scratched up white paint

[Tom Weed]

just wanted to post a couple of pics of a car I am currently working on, not sure if' it's ever been polished or waxed before, but it's a favor to someone. I'm not real good at taking good photo's, especially of a white car, but here's a trunk shot and a picture of a headlight I wet sanded and buffed out.
The car isn't coming out perfect as some of the scratches are pretty deep, but it's looking a lot better...



I am spent, so I will resume this project again tomorrow...

[Teak]

Looks good so far. I will keep an out for the finished product.

Eric

[Tom Weed]

well, unfortunately I didn't get any afters as the batteries in my camera went dead I was in hurry to finish this car up today.

I know this is worthless without pics, but my steps were:

wash
clay
84 on the rotary with a maroon cutting pad
83 on the rotary with a yellow polishing pad
82 on the PC with a yellow polishing pad
2 coats of MPPP with a finishing pad

I had to make several passes with 84/83 to bring back any gloss to the finish and to remove the scratches/spider webbing. The trunk pictures were after the polishing passes. I really underestimated the time I had to put forth on this car, but seeing it was for someone who doesn't have much and the look on their face made it worth my time.

[gb387]

I can't believe the headlight turned out that good! It looks new.

Tom Weed Quoted:
I really underestimated the time I had to put forth on this car, but seeing it was for someone who doesn't have much and the look on their face made it worth my time.

Sometimes thats worth more the $$$$. I am sure it looks like a new car!

[Teak]

I am sure the car looked great when you were done.

Is the car a Galant?

Eric

[Tom Weed]

Thanks much Teak and Gb387, I appreciate the kind words. The car isn't too far away and it's in a garage waiting for her daughter to get her license. I maybe able to take a pic, but to really appreciate the difference, I should have taken a before pic due to be being marred up and dull. I know they really appreciated the effort I put forth on this thing, and that really meant a lot to me.

Teak, I believe it is a Galant, not sure of the year or anything, all I remember seeing was it was a Mitsubishi.

gb387, on the headlights, this was a first for me, but reading how people had gotten good results on here, I decided to to wet sand the headlights. After soaking my Meguiars/Niken sanding papers overnight in water and a little 62, my steps were:
Wet Sanded 2000 grit paper
followed that with 2500 grit paper
followed that with 3000 grit paper
I then used a 3" wool pad on the rotary with 85
and finally used a 3" foam polishing pad with PlastX on the rotary to finish them off. Made a huge difference, not sure If I needed to use the three steps in papers the way I did, maybe someone who is familiar with doing the headlights can offer some suggestions to cut down on the steps. I got the 3" foam pads from autodetailingsoultions and would have used the drill, accept I didn't have the adaptor for the backing plate for it.

[SiriusRIMZ]

You did a fantastic job on those headlights!

I would only reccomend that you start with a lower grit sand paper to save yourself some work. I started with 600 on mine, but if I had it to do over again, I proably would have done 400. I found the pitting and grime was easier to remove and then I went to 1000 grit, 1500, and then 2000 grit. I think you could go staight to plastix as it as similar MDATs that #85 does, I'm just not sure on how they match up on stregnth.

But... If it works and it looks great, why change a thing?