Did I just sand off my paint?!

[Xist]

So, this annoying mechanic said that if you have scratched paint, you can use Scratch Out and a buffer to make your car look good again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxni0iqsP0o

I do not want to ask you guys about everything, but maybe I should, which is sad, but I looked into this, and it seemed that since I could barely feel my scratches, they were only in the clear coat, so if I buffed them down, the scratches would go away, and then I needed to apply a new layer of clear coat.

I planned on hiring a professional to do the last part.

The kid at O'Reilly recommended Meguire's over Scratch Out, but it did not do anything. The bottle recommended using their rubbing compound instead of their polishing compound for hard jobs, and that made the scratches look bigger, which I figured was a start. I looked into it further and read that I could use 800-grit sandpaper, then 1,200, and finally 1,600.

Autozone had a pack with 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, and 2,500-grit wet-dry sandpaper, but I did not notice the cracks fading until the paint itself was.

Mom keeps telling me to go to Maaco. Since I usually only have cars for a year or two, I guess that I might as well. If I still have this car when the paint looks worse than before I tried to fix it, hopefully my finances are better.

I like to do stuff myself, but I do not think that anything good would come out of painting my own car!

[redpoint5]

Those don't look like scratches, but cracks in the paint. As far as I know, you can only fix cracks by repainting.

That said, I wouldn't bother trying to make it look good, as long as the metal is protected.

Here was my old ride, before I bought the TSX.


Believe it or not, I still had beautiful girlfriends that were willing to date a guy that drove that. It's what's inside that counts.

[Cobb]

If I were you I wouldnt be wearing clean underware any more. I used turtle wax scratch x and it was like tooth paste. It left a white chips all over the place. The paint I was using the buffer on was scratch free.

[user removed]

From the looks of your picture the clearcoat is "crazing" which means it has cracks. If that is the case then the only solution is to remove everything, reprime with urethane and sand and repaint.

As far as doing it yourself, considering your track record on other repairs, I would just wax it and leave it alone. A complete strip and repaint is an expensive proposition.

I added a picture of the roof on my Sentra. It has a tan base coat, then a metallic and clear combination coat, then the final clear coat. I can't see painting this car, it's just not worth it.

To paint a car today, you need to not expose yourself to any fumes, or any direct contact with your skin. The overspray is very toxic and should be properly filtered, collected and disposed of. You need a very good spray booth and professional materials. I have painted 300 cars all over and many more partials in 10 years doing bodywork.

regards
mech

[user removed]

Your paint actually looks like the lacquer paints did decades ago. If your car is black and you have to do something, take the hood off and have it painted with a single stage black. You could strip it with an electric drill and scotchbrite to save most of the labor, then the pro would only have to actually sand the primer and paint the panel.

regards
mech

[War_Wagon]

1. Yes you did sand off the paint.

2. It doesn't matter as it's cracked anyway, there was no easy fix for it so don't feel bad, it was already wrecked.

Sometimes you can make stuff look better by wet sanding it then re-clear coating it, but by the time you do all that it would have been easier to just repaint it. Scratches can usually be fixed, or at least made a lot better, but when the base coat of colour is damaged then all the polish/wax etc in the world won't fix it.

[pgfpro]

I'm with Mech and the others on this one. This is my expertise. Sad to say lol I'm a certified PPG, BASF, Dupont now Axalta, and Chem Spec painter. I have been painting cars since the mid 80's. Part of my job description now is to figure out paint problems. Yeah its very boring. lol

Anyway the pic shows crazing or what we used to call "Lacquer check". Its cracking the clear-coat and base-coat and primer by the looks of it. Usually it's caused by not enough UV protection. You living in Arizona makes it even harder on the finishes.

The only way to fix it in this case is to strip it all the way done to bare metal and work your way up with a epoxy or etch primer and then a two part Urethane primer then a base coat clear coat system or single stage Urethane color if its a non-metallic color.

If you give me the paint code I can give a estimate of paint cost tomorrow when I get back to work. In fact we have stores in your area
"KC Auto Paint and supplies". I'm the store manager of KC Auto here in Paint Coeur d' alene. But just a warning its not going to be cheap. The cost of refinish paint has gone up on the weighted average of 6.0% every year for the last 10 years. So usually you can have the job done for around the same amount of money including labor then the cost of the paint.

But to answer your question you defiantly sanded through the paint but the paint was already a bad.

Also as Mech suggested you should be doing this in a well ventilated area. I prefer a paint booth. The primers and clear coats contain Isocynate and its very harmful to the body. A 3M part# 7193 respirator will run you around $24.00 alone. You should also have iso eye protection and a iso body shoot suit to keep it from contacting your skin.

If you have any another question feel free to ask.

Russell

[Xist]

I have fixed everything that I started fixing, although I never finished the power steering delete, because the car always needed things that were more important.

Painting, though, I understand to not be something that just takes longer if you are still learning, if you do not know what you are doing, it will look bad, and then fail.

PGFPro, are you saying that I could pay someone else to paint my car for what the paint alone would cost?

I looked into repainting my car when I first purchased her. I read about paints that were allegedly as good as the name-brand ones, but much less, and they insisted that you could prime, paint, and clear-coat with one layer.

None of that made any sense to me.

Nobody says that it is worth redoing, but I could remove the remaining 99% of the paint with a drill and Scotchbrite, and pay someone else to actually paint? I would just need the ISO safety equipment and booth to actually paint, right? Not that I want to be breathing my old paint!

Well, it really sounds like I needed to ask you guys about this before I started. How long would touch-up paint last?

Crazing goes all of the way through the paint and primer, but you can barely feel it?

Someone tried to convince me to purchase Dad's Focus. She said that prospective employers look at applicants' cars and it made a big difference with dating, too. She said she used to do the hiring at a temp agency and used to send out minions to look at the car of people being interviewed.

That is a strange story...

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by Xist

I have fixed everything that I started fixing, although I never finished the power steering delete, because the car always needed things that were more important.

Painting, though, I understand to not be something that just takes longer if you are still learning, if you do not know what you are doing, it will look bad, and then fail.

PGFPro, are you saying that I could pay someone else to paint my car for what the paint alone would cost?

I looked into repainting my car when I first purchased her. I read about paints that were allegedly as good as the name-brand ones, but much less, and they insisted that you could prime, paint, and clear-coat with one layer.

None of that made any sense to me.

Nobody says that it is worth redoing, but I could remove the remaining 99% of the paint with a drill and Scotchbrite, and pay someone else to actually paint? I would just need the ISO safety equipment and booth to actually paint, right? Not that I want to be breathing my old paint!

Well, it really sounds like I needed to ask you guys about this before I started. How long would touch-up paint last?

Crazing goes all of the way through the paint and primer, but you can barely feel it?

Someone tried to convince me to purchase Dad's Focus. She said that prospective employers look at applicants' cars and it made a big difference with dating, too. She said she used to do the hiring at a temp agency and used to send out minions to look at the car of people being interviewed.

That is a strange story...

I should of been more specific, sorry I meant if your just going to paint the hood only you can probably have someone paint it after you strip it for the same cost of the materials to paint the hood. The reason is because the quantity that the primers, sealer and color and clear come in.

What we do today in the refinish world is we set up our customers with a complete mixing bank and scale that runs off a computers system that allow very small amounts of product to be made (primers,sealers, color and clear). Down to two ounces. So a Body Shop will only use 20% verse you buying the products based on the containers the product come in. In other words you will have a lot of material left over from a job. Now this is OK if you are going to do other jobs and will be using the left overs at a later date?

Now the other factor that is the big one is most likely you will not be happy with the your first attempt of painting your car. Just last week I know of three customers that wanted to do their own painting, and all three screw the pooch and are re-doing their jobs over again One of them is on his third try. One is doing a motor cycle and has thrown away over $1000.00 in materials. Thanks to cable shows today,the flip this car and restoration shows are making people think this is very easy work and very profitable. The man hours that go into a paint restoration job are unreal!!! They never show how much time it takes to prep and paint a car. They just drop it off and the next day its ready. Its a total joke!!! I have been on a filming set where as soon as they are done shooting one step and the cameras are off about eight body men come in and start thrashing on the car. It looks like a ant nest that just got stepped on. lol OK enough of my rant. lol

[pgfpro]

OK I'm at work and just ran some numbers.

For our top of the line PPG DBC Base Coat system you would be at 461.85 before tax.

This includes
bare metal primer
Sanding primer Surfacer
Primer Sealer
Base Coat color based on Honda code NH547
Clear coat

I also did some job costing in our computer system that we provide our Body Shop customers with, and it came to $139.00 before tax with a 30% mark up. This is based on the small amounts to do a Honda hood.