What Do I Do NOW???
09-23-2006, 08:59 PM
#1
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: MD
Posts: 520
What Do I Do NOW???
(you can skip the first 2 paragraphs if you don’t care to read how I got to this point)
I’ve been dealing with some funkyness with a ‘glass hood (it’s actually a factory SLP hood that had some problems from the get go and was repainted by the dealer in ’97 and looked good at the time). It looks like a piece of painted masonite that has been absorbing water from the sides along much of the passenger side of the hood. That’s the long term problem which I’m not going to fix right now. I just caused myself a short term problem. Even with the ‘glass weirdness it was a good 10’ car, even at 5’ most people couldn’t spot the problems unless they knew what they were looking for and got the light at just the right angle.
Well, I talked to a few body guys that I knew and they were all pretty much in agreement that the problem was solvent/resin shrinkage making any prep and sub surface stuff show through and were suggesting that I might be able to compound it out enough to hide it.
Well, I started with some really fine swirl remover which made things better at say 10’ but made the blemishes more obvious closer up. FWIW, the paint is super soft, and almost has craters in it where water spots were, some bug impacts…. Anyway, I tried some fine, 3m compound next and all was going well till the bonnet tore and the rubber backing pad hit the paint giving me this (in a low spot):
That is about 6-8” long and maybe ¼ wide. I made it worse since the first little bit that could have been polished out just looked like a bit of overheated compound and I waved the buffer over it again till it was very obvious that something was wrong.
I’m looking for a good, 10’ repair (I realize that I probably won’t completely hide it without repainting the hood, but I’d at least like it not to look totally messed up to everyone walking by). The only good thing about it is that at least it’s in a low spot between the scoop and the high spots by the fenders, that from most angles can’t be seen.
My instinct is to clean up the area, scuff it with a scotch bright and then float some clear coat into that area, maybe even the little touch up stuff with a brush, then gently wet sand it out and polish it up. Is there even a chance that I can pull that off (I’ve done similar repairs on doors and flat areas on hoods, even where they required some color coat, but the softness of the paint that’s already there + the curved surface makes me really nervous)?
The second problem with that idea is that the 2 circled areas in that pic _might_ be just barely exposing the gellcoat (looks lighter and I know that the hood has white gellcoat, the dealer burned through the paint when they did the repairs 9 years ago and I saw it). Is it possible to do this without sanding out the grooves in the pain there, just floating the clear over it and smoothing it out, or will the grooves show?
Would spray with a vignette (soft edge, hand held) mask be a better way of doing it?
Other ideas???
I’ve been dealing with some funkyness with a ‘glass hood (it’s actually a factory SLP hood that had some problems from the get go and was repainted by the dealer in ’97 and looked good at the time). It looks like a piece of painted masonite that has been absorbing water from the sides along much of the passenger side of the hood. That’s the long term problem which I’m not going to fix right now. I just caused myself a short term problem. Even with the ‘glass weirdness it was a good 10’ car, even at 5’ most people couldn’t spot the problems unless they knew what they were looking for and got the light at just the right angle.
Well, I talked to a few body guys that I knew and they were all pretty much in agreement that the problem was solvent/resin shrinkage making any prep and sub surface stuff show through and were suggesting that I might be able to compound it out enough to hide it.
Well, I started with some really fine swirl remover which made things better at say 10’ but made the blemishes more obvious closer up. FWIW, the paint is super soft, and almost has craters in it where water spots were, some bug impacts…. Anyway, I tried some fine, 3m compound next and all was going well till the bonnet tore and the rubber backing pad hit the paint giving me this (in a low spot):
That is about 6-8” long and maybe ¼ wide. I made it worse since the first little bit that could have been polished out just looked like a bit of overheated compound and I waved the buffer over it again till it was very obvious that something was wrong.
I’m looking for a good, 10’ repair (I realize that I probably won’t completely hide it without repainting the hood, but I’d at least like it not to look totally messed up to everyone walking by). The only good thing about it is that at least it’s in a low spot between the scoop and the high spots by the fenders, that from most angles can’t be seen.
My instinct is to clean up the area, scuff it with a scotch bright and then float some clear coat into that area, maybe even the little touch up stuff with a brush, then gently wet sand it out and polish it up. Is there even a chance that I can pull that off (I’ve done similar repairs on doors and flat areas on hoods, even where they required some color coat, but the softness of the paint that’s already there + the curved surface makes me really nervous)?
The second problem with that idea is that the 2 circled areas in that pic _might_ be just barely exposing the gellcoat (looks lighter and I know that the hood has white gellcoat, the dealer burned through the paint when they did the repairs 9 years ago and I saw it). Is it possible to do this without sanding out the grooves in the pain there, just floating the clear over it and smoothing it out, or will the grooves show?
Would spray with a vignette (soft edge, hand held) mask be a better way of doing it?
Other ideas???
09-25-2006, 01:53 AM
#2
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: San Antonio
Posts: 206
Re: What Do I Do NOW???
From what I can see, it looks like you burned through the paint. There is no "fix" for this. You are going to have to get some paint and try to touch up the area and then wet sand it back down to try to match the level of the paint and then buff it again. As long as you clean the damaged area thoroughly and be very carefull when you apply the paint, you should have a pretty close match.