Decided to be brave and sort out the chips on my new Yeti ("something" has chipped the bonnet edge, taken a couple of chunks out of the bonnet on the way back and snapped the bottom edge off of the A-pillar plastic)

 

Chips have been idenfified and cleaned.

 

Then roughed up a little with a fibreglass pencil.

 

Then cleaned again.

 

Colour and clearcoat have been mixed and blobbed on using a decapitated cotton bud and now I'm leaving well alone while it dries.

 

Next step I'm going to attempt is sanding with 2500 wet & dry.

 

My first thought was to lubricate the panel well with the same spray detailer that I use when claying (G3 bodyshop detailer or similar Autoglym stuff), but not sure if this is the best approach. Any tips for this stage of the process? I've seen mention of soap, washing up liquid, long term soaking of the paper etc, but wonder if there's a fairly foolproof recommended approach.

 

Oh, and should I use a sanding block or simply move the piece of paper with my fingers to feel for high areas?

 

 

Waste of QD, water does the job just fine! The paper does benefit from being left in water for a few hours or overnight - makes it softer & more workable if your not using a block.

Happy sanding

Cheers, I'll chuck the paper in a bucket before I go to work.

Yeah. Clue is in "wet" and dry. No need for anything fancy and a reasonable soaking is all the paper needs along with ensuring area to be treated is soaking wet too.

Well, it's gone OK.

 

Not great, but OK.

 

I've realised that some of my paint wasn't deep enough, and some had some bubbles in it, so I need to do a couple of bits again to get a perfect finish.

 

It did however give me a chance to test drive my new Halfords 240V polisher. I now have copious quantities of G3 scratch remover paste splashed across my jeans.

 

Hopefully the gentle sanding and machine polishing won't go through the clearcoat any time soon.

A Halfords polisher!!

They are fairly/totally useless

Best using a rotary after wet sanding Gyp

It's this one:-

 

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_918599_langId_-1_categoryId_165640#tab1

 

It seems to be doing a reasonably good job...

Well, results so far are promising, though I need to build up a couple of the chips a little more and re sand/polish to get the best results.

 

Having moved to a sanding block to try and make sure I spread the load however, it has become apparent that whatever caused the biggest chip has ever so slightly dented the bonnet.

 

Think I'll have to go back to hand sanding in that area and hope for the best :-(