Hump Day "The Perfect Gloss": Wet sanding, full correction, Permanent Coating [HD]

[KoshiL]

Fiber Glass Work by Tim Mullan at South Side Performance TX. Tim built 3 SEMA cars in 2013 and this is his latest project.

As with all SEMA cars built here, I'm stuck with keeping them clean. I love it. :dblthumb2:

Paint work was done in house using PPG paints, we painted in our garage. Not idea but we worked around it.

Sanding:
Nikken: 1000 Grit by hand
Nikken: 1500 grit by hand
Meguairs Unigrit / Nikken: 2000
3M Trizact 3000 (spot) 5000 (planes)
Various backings: Soft (curves) Hard (flat areas / clear runs)

Correction
Air Compressor Setup I used:
FLEX Rotary: Megs DSW x 2, LC Wool M100, Orange FG400, White CCS M205

Speaker set up, my team mate Chris used:
Rotary DSW M100, CCS Yellow 105, CCS Orange FG400, CCS White P085RD

Coating
CeramicPro Cleaner previous day prep, and again before applying
CeramicPro 9H first coat was heavy (1/3 a bottle) and after 20 minutes we steadily coated until we ran out (about 4 more coats)


Additionally, I wanted to test a theory with oil based polishes "swelling paint" causing coatings to fail. Not sure how with our prep process but we wont know until we try!

Wet sanding the primer.

Filling in pits, dimples, and fish eyes. Then we sand it again.

Getting painted, after laying the clear coat. No clarity.

The next day after the clear coat has hardened, you get the gloss as most OEM cars have.

No 50/50 tape lines here, judges look at this piece too closely. Tapping it would risk "stepping"

Finishing polish... right down the middle. She's lookin good...

on my side i've cut all the weird shapes using 8" double sided wool only. #noburns wooo

We were swirl free HOURS ago. This is paint finishing.

After Priming, we leave the paint to breath and reharden until tomorrow. I could smell the fiber glass resin still even after sitting in a hot shop for 5 months

Priming again to prep for 9H Coating

Results...


https://flic.kr/p/nurjxA

https://flic.kr/p/nurexy

https://flic.kr/p/nurezh

My favorite:

Wet

 

[Niblick]

That's absolutely stunning work! sounds like you really enjoyed it too :dblthumb2:

 

[Tato]

Amazing work, thanks a lot for detailed write on this job.

If every 'OEM' part came out from factory this way, we would all lost our jobs hahahahah

Congratulations mate.

 

[Radarryan]

Wow, beautiful job there! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Looking good! Nice work!

 

[Pureshine]

Great work!

 

[hernandez.art13]

Great Job!

 

[Justin at Final Inspection]

Nice!! Loving the glass look after that coating

 

[KneeDragr]

Is it ok to put a coating on fresh paint? I always thought you had to wait weeks to months for the paint to breathe.

 

[Zelfiris]

That's a crazy project. Very nice work!

 

[KoshiL]

Is it ok to put a coating on fresh paint? I always thought you had to wait weeks to months for the paint to breathe.

Depending on how you mix in reducers and hardeners in the clear coat. The more reducer you use the thiner it will be, the more coats your have to spray and more likely to have runs. Hardeners give you work time between coats. Its kind of a balance...

The cars i detailed at SEMA were painted less than 24 hours before i sanded and buffed it out. Im not sure how our painter mixed it that time. You can never be too careful.

That fiber glass resin box took MONTHS to stop smelling bad. And when i was buffing it, the heat actually made the smell worse.

Thanks for all the feed back!

 

[brondondolon]

Looks great! Looks almost like its still wet! Great job!