Thought I might share this with all of you. I spent many hours with Bill at Arnies Auto Body Supply in Joliet Il fine tuning my methods. He has the red 69 some of you may have seen me post next to mine.
This is a special d/a Hutchins 4500 this is an ultra fine finishing sander. I beleive the stroke is different than normal d/a's. There are others out there, but be sure it is a fine finishing sander. I think they are 3/32 stroke. Start the d/a on a slow speed. Sure you will anyway, but I dont think I ever reached anything near full speed.
On the d/a 3m 5251 pad 3m 5277 interference pad 3m 00850 1500 paper I used it dry cleaning often with microfiber towels. You will use more paper but can see what is happening better. Well worth the few extra sheets. Being able to see the peel dissapear as it happens is worth the cost alone to me, but the time saving is incredible. While I did not have the guts on the bird,I went over all sorts of curves on my wifes 98 SS hood?
For the buffer. I used 3m 5973 This will remove 1200 scratches with a wool cutting pad. Be carefull.
Then 3m Finesse it II with a 3m superbuff 2 sided pad. I loved this pad! The finesse it 2 is kind of pricey but great results. It will remove 1500 scratches with the cutting pad, but the 5973 was much faster and cost effective.
Then 3m 5995 for light color cars (Product is white) or 5996 for dark cars (Product is dark) Both are the same stuff. You will use a 5725 foam pad with this. This stuff will make it pop! Been using it for many years. You will love it. At times it will start to leave material on the paint. I clean the pad in a bucket of water then spin it dry. Then if its not to late while you are sitting there looking at that thing glow, try a hand applied Meguires show car glaze! You really won't need the hand glaze now but something has to get you out of the chair! There are many other many other proven methods and compounds out there, but this worked for me. Be careful near edges and contours! Enjoy!
I altered Tony's system a little bit. The local Painters Supply shop didn't carry the exact products he used and recommended this system. The new system from 3M is called Perfect-It and uses a dampened disk on a regular d/a with a bigger stroke. The larger the stroke the more arresive the disk is. Dampening the disk and the surface with just a little spray of water eliminates the J shaped marks left by older style disks on a large stroke d/a. It was taking a little longer than I liked to get out the orange peel (I ended up with quite a bit on the top of the car. I'm guessing because the sun was shining on that side of the plastic sheeting wall of the booth.) So I went back to 600 grit and did a quick sanding to take out 90% of the orange peel. Then followed up with a 1500 grit disk, then a 3000 grit disk and finally with 3M Perfect-It compound. This compound uses a chemical cutter along with very very fine grit. It almost feels smooth when you rub it between my fingers. Here are some pictures of the left rear quarter after this method. Only the quarter and sail panel are done in these pics. It was to dark when I finished the top for my cell phone cam.
Also my new dual tail pipes tips are here so I can get rid of the camaro extensions.
