Re: Paint, paint, and more paint

[Gerard <gerard@poboxes.com>]

I too had unsightly fine scratches on most of the paint on my 200
when I bought it some 10 months ago (yeah, told ya I could match
anyone's problem!!!). I moved to Welkom in the Free State and after
some 2 months found this new car valet joint, they did paint
restoration. I was shown a chemical that would smooth off the paint
and also a extremely badly oxidised old Toyota that had had the
treatment. The paint on it went from pure oxidised white back to the
beige it originally was. The stuff is used on aircraft to produce an
incredibly smooth finish. There are several treatments, the first
removes fine surface scratches and takes about 1-2 hours of application
and buffing with an offset head buffer. The strongest treatment removes
deep surfaces scratches, it softens the paint a bit and spreads it.
This was done to an mid-80s M5, it has 1 coat of paint in diamond black,
someone put the stuff on and applied the buffer but held it in the same
place for a second to long...and all the expensive diamond black came
off!

Anyway, I paid the $20 for the treatment and amazingly I lost all
surface scratches and was left with only the deep ones. The finish was
superb and smooth for months. I was planning to take it back for the
$50 job to fix the deep scratches which are pretty back on the trunk
and the roof (huh? someone park under a low-branched tree?) and other
places. Also to remove the stone chips from the front. Never did it
due to money being spent on a oil leak fix. The valet service also left
the damn dead town!

Then I went looking for some good wax to use. I got a botttle of STP
which was supposed to be good for all paint finishes. NOT!! Went on
easily, wiped off really easily, no tough buffing. But I was left with
a completely scratched paintwork. Huge swirl marks and scratches, very
visible in sunlight. I now have to use coloured wax to hide them.
I did then try something called "Diamond Guard" (some TV product) from
a friend, it had done a superb job on a previously badly scratched
Sentra, and the thing did a good job, but did not remove all the fine
scratches (can still see everything in sunlight). I then applied a very
fine buffing agent that was supposed to be for metallics. Only did
it on the trunk of the car. Not happy. I now have some straight fine
scratches over the swirl marks and both are visible. Bring back the
coloured wax!

I'm still trying to find another place in Cape Town that does the same
thing that shop in Welkom did. The stuff they used really  worked
wonderfully!! I'll need to do some online research to see if the stuff
has a site online.

Sorry for the wasted bandwidth with this long message.

Ciao.

G.
-- 
"a thousand miles from here, there is another person smiling"
1990 Turbo (200t, MAC13A ECU, 1.4-1.6 bar (1.8 bar with faulty WGFV!),
FWD auto)
name   : gerard van vught
tel    : +27-21-696 0331 (h) / 082 923 9609 (cell)
url    : http://www.poboxes.com/gerard/
e-mail : gerard@poboxes.com  / han.solo@galaxycorp.com