Well, this morning was bright & sunny down in deepest Devonshire, so decided after being told "Do what you like" to have a go at wet sanding an area or two on the MX5, which overall kind of let the car down when you got up close.... The panels were the flat bit which I think is part of the hood, above the bootlid, and the offside rear wing top....

Now, I did a SHEDLOAD of research into wet sanding before I undertook this, so please do the same.... It is very easy to totally f**k up your paintwork using this kind of last resort method to bring back dead paintwork from the grave. Bear in mind this was purely experimental, and the finish is not meant to be crystal clear 100% - Just a marked improvement on before.

This is how it went.....

After wiping the overnight rain off, this is what I was faced with

First stage was a decent, low pressure, application of a wet 2000 grit piece of wet & dry

And I definitely thought "f**k!" when I wiped it clean as it looked well bad (Should have known it would of course!)

Which was followed after wiping clean by the same with 2500 grit W&D

I then set about it with my DAS6 orbital and a small, high cut pad with my strongest cutting menzerna gunk

And I was pleasantly chuffed with the finish after just that.

Finally a similar polishing up with final gloss MZ polish just to be sure.

My next shot came out badly, but looked the same as the one 2 above really. I decided then whilst everything was out to do the top of the rear wing - In a bad way!

The usual W&D mess!

And the leftovers once all cleaned off!

Set about it again with the same machine polishing setup

Some areas of cloudiness so did a little more wet & dry in those smaller areas, and polished up again.

An idea of improvement, trying to get a reflection from where it was real cloudy before.

This afternoon I hope to W&D specific areas of bird-poo damage, on the bootlid.

Great job Jason

Just realised, I suppose I should slap some wax on it to seal the freshly exposed lacquer?

Just realised, I suppose I should slap some wax on it to seal the freshly exposed lacquer? B)

That might help Jason

Nooooooo!!!!!

Sealer first!!! :'(

Good job, but to be honest I don't think wet sanding was necessary. Pretty sure Menzerna Power Gloss on Orange pad would have shifted the defects. You should also wet sand in straight lines only.

Nice one.

Yeah, sealant now, plus a few wax coats - look look ace then, I have a feeling

Steve

I had tried just machining before and it didn't touch it to be honest.

Now looking into really aggressive cutting polishes. Heard good things about 3M fast cut plus.

Have you not got a spot pad packing plate? Would definately invest in one of them. Looks like a good job though. Better off to mask up rubber seals etc before using the machine though.

Shame you haven't got a PDG Jason as It would have been nice to know how much clearcoat you took off, but good job. One point to pull up on, don't rest your m/c upsidedown on the paint work for photo's

Shame you haven't got a PDG Jason as It would have been nice to know how much clearcoat you took off, but good job. One point to pull up on, don't rest your m/c upsidedown on the paint work for photo's

I was thinking that as I took the pic, but was also thinking... "Well, the owner wouldn't really care" and I did place it down nice and carefully.

Have been given the ingenious idea of using an eraser as a "block" to do small patches of wet & dry work, to get that proper flat surface. Thought that was a real good idea too!

Nice work Jason and I remember the days when you didn't give two hoots about cleaning your car and now your wetsanding.......

Good results there and would back up the point about a smaller backing plate for that little area......

Looks like the roof on the MX-5 needs a new piece of glass hey?

Edited 21 February, 201016 yr by Baker21

It's a plastic rear screen, and yeah there's two great big cracks in it currently covered over with duct tape (and doing a good job I should say of keeping the water out)

The owner has a new hood ready to fit in the summer, but whilst I have it, it's leaky leaky time (it's not too good by the drivers side of the hood in heavy rain.....)