Paintwork query

matt_fsr · 11 Aug 2009 at 12:04

Hoping for a bit of advice - my newly purchased (el cheapo) Mercedes has had some wing repairs done, and been sprayed up reasonably OK but then left with a rough, matt finish.

I've gone over 1 of the areas with rubbing compound and got it lovely and smooth, but I think I rubbed slightly too hard and took some of the paint back towards its original silver colour, not the light metallic blue that it has been resprayed to. (Slight colour disparity on 1 wing now, not a massive issue)

I'm wondering if you can recommend anything less vicious than the rubbing compound, that can still get the paintwork fairly smooth? Would a detailing clay be enough to smooth this over, or is that really the wrong kind of thing to use on this? :confused:

mcalladine · 11 Aug 2009 at 12:09

we use a compound called g4 but that is quite coarse but they do another g10 which is just like a polish that works great if you can get your hands on it

Clarkey · 11 Aug 2009 at 12:26

Rough, matt finish is caused by dry spray. Needs re painting, try to wet flat it out and you will just end up sanding all the paint off, likewise with compounding as you have found.

matt_fsr · 11 Aug 2009 at 12:44

Clarkey said:
Rough, matt finish is caused by dry spray.

Dry spray? Care to explain further... im not exactly too well up on paintwork terms? Ta.

Clarkey · 11 Aug 2009 at 13:37

Sure. It's a noob mistake, done it myself. Essentially it's what happens when you don't spray the paint out wet enough. When you spray it should be just wet enough so that it 'flows' into a nice smooth film, not enough paint and it won't flow, you'll get the grainy horrible finish.

Here's one I did earlier

You can see the top half is nice and shiny and the bottom is dull. There's a simple reason for this, I never had good lighting while painting it, I could see the top fine but the bottom was too dark, ended up screwing up.

Lack of gloss...

That can't be flatted out, the low spots are too low, before it gets flat, you strike through the clear, and then through the base, as you can see here..

matt_fsr · 11 Aug 2009 at 13:52

Yep, can see exactly what you mean - thanks for the piccies Clarkey, spot on.

Wasn't me who did the spraying, thankfully - I can spraypaint, but dont have a garage at the moment and dont think it's worth taking the wing off to work on really. May be able to scrounge garage space off the old man.

Will ponder getting a can of Halfords mixed-up spraypaint for it, got a touch-in pot already. Thankfully I managed to pick the right colour from the charts, thank the Lord himself that the respray had been done in Mercedes paint, got no paperwork at all for the car!