This is really more of a general bodywork question...but it applies specifically to the Insight and the paint on this car. So if anyone happens to know...
When I picked up my '01 5-speed last August, there were many great things about it (not the least of which was only 29K on the odometer!) but there was one downside -- the car looked like it had either spent its life towed behind a motorhome with no cover on the nose or it had been driven through repeated, severe sandstorms. The front of the car, especially the front half of the hood, was just pelted with "micro-dings," many of them too small to call "chips." A lot of them were so small that it looked more like talcum powder on the car.
I tried to take care of the worst of this with a product called Dr. Color Chip that is essentially a wipe on/wipe off process (http://www.drcolorchip.com/). It worked pretty well...especially for the really tiny stuff. But with the larger chips, as expected, the paint sat down into the chips and no matter how I tried to "skim" the surface to remove the residual paint, I was removing paint from each imperfection and still leaving a "crater."
So, after talking about this with a buddy of mine back East who used to own a body shop, I decided that the best plan might be to get the factory touch-up in the new applicators with the needle-ball and dab the paint into the chips, leaving a slight glob of paint that would -- in the reverse of the above situation -- stand up over the surrounding surface. After it dried, I would then sand it down and then use a polish to bring the paint back.
I tell you what, I have never experienced something as counter-intuitive as taking a piece of sandpaper to a glossy paint surface! I mean, I've seen it done on all the shows like AHR, OverHaulin', etc...and I understand what's going on. It's just that it felt so WRONG
Still, I went ahead with 3M 2000 wetordry and a sanding block, trying very hard to not put down any additional pressure that would unnecessarily sand the clear coat.
Long story short, it seems to have worked pretty well...and everything polished right back up. For sure, it's a lot better than it looked last August. But if I had to be critical of my own work, I'd say that it looks like I could have sanded more (which, of course, is preferrable to having it look like I should have sanded less)...the touch-ups are still visible to me when I really get down and look at them...and I was hoping they would blend better. But I was just petrified that I was going to sand down through the clear coat. In fact, in places, the sandpaper was starting to come up with a pinkish slurry (the car is red).
Does anyone know how thick the clearcoat on the Insight is? With a 2000-grit paper, could I have sanded more and perhaps further blended the touch-up globs? Or did I get about the best that I could hope for, short of re-shooting the hood?
When I picked up my '01 5-speed last August, there were many great things about it (not the least of which was only 29K on the odometer!) but there was one downside -- the car looked like it had either spent its life towed behind a motorhome with no cover on the nose or it had been driven through repeated, severe sandstorms. The front of the car, especially the front half of the hood, was just pelted with "micro-dings," many of them too small to call "chips." A lot of them were so small that it looked more like talcum powder on the car.
I tried to take care of the worst of this with a product called Dr. Color Chip that is essentially a wipe on/wipe off process (http://www.drcolorchip.com/). It worked pretty well...especially for the really tiny stuff. But with the larger chips, as expected, the paint sat down into the chips and no matter how I tried to "skim" the surface to remove the residual paint, I was removing paint from each imperfection and still leaving a "crater."
So, after talking about this with a buddy of mine back East who used to own a body shop, I decided that the best plan might be to get the factory touch-up in the new applicators with the needle-ball and dab the paint into the chips, leaving a slight glob of paint that would -- in the reverse of the above situation -- stand up over the surrounding surface. After it dried, I would then sand it down and then use a polish to bring the paint back.
I tell you what, I have never experienced something as counter-intuitive as taking a piece of sandpaper to a glossy paint surface! I mean, I've seen it done on all the shows like AHR, OverHaulin', etc...and I understand what's going on. It's just that it felt so WRONG
Still, I went ahead with 3M 2000 wetordry and a sanding block, trying very hard to not put down any additional pressure that would unnecessarily sand the clear coat.
Long story short, it seems to have worked pretty well...and everything polished right back up. For sure, it's a lot better than it looked last August. But if I had to be critical of my own work, I'd say that it looks like I could have sanded more (which, of course, is preferrable to having it look like I should have sanded less)...the touch-ups are still visible to me when I really get down and look at them...and I was hoping they would blend better. But I was just petrified that I was going to sand down through the clear coat. In fact, in places, the sandpaper was starting to come up with a pinkish slurry (the car is red).
Does anyone know how thick the clearcoat on the Insight is? With a 2000-grit paper, could I have sanded more and perhaps further blended the touch-up globs? Or did I get about the best that I could hope for, short of re-shooting the hood?
