[roger1]

Originally Posted by Dave1969

Your car is looking great won’t be long and you’ll be tearing it up. I wanted to let you know I went with the non AC front coil springs from Ames and standard rear coils. I purchased the complete polyurethane graphite steering package from PST along with same for rear control arms except I’m installing rubber on the upper control arms at the rear differential. I’ll let you know how it all works out once it’s back on the road.

Thanks.
I'll be anxious to hear how you like your stance and see photos.
I'm guessing the Ames front springs are Moog. Can you see a 4 digit number stamped into them? If so, let me know what that number is.

Originally Posted by Andretti

It's nice to see her face again after all this time. Soon the bugs will love that fresh paint :\

Yes it is! It's getting even more fun to look at the car when I walk into the shop.

Originally Posted by dataway

Roger, what is your preferred system for sanding/buffing/polishing the SPI clear?

I'll be using the Porta-Cable polisher.

I've got a roll of Dura-Gold 2000, and a roll of 3000, plenty of blocks but I've yet to decide on what compound/polishes to use. The test I did and posted in another thread was done with a sheet of 3M 2000, and Chemical Guys #32 and #36 polish, turned out OK. Was doing some work tonight with the Dura-Gold and was getting some scratches that surprised me ... only difference in technique was I was spraying water from a bottle instead of dipping the block in a bucket of water .... maybe picking up some grit that wasn't getting washed off the paper?
Anyway, any pointers, product suggestions etc would be appreciated ... I have this feeling that you are very accomplished at polishing.

Over the years, I've tried many different processes and products and wasted a lot of money doing so. I never could see the point in sanding with 2000 and 3000. You can't tell if you've done it enough or done it too much and can't tell if the paper is worn out or not Tried the bumpy foam pads with a few newer 3M compounds and all the Chemical Guys products including their pads and ended up giving it all away when I couldn't get it to work for me very well at all. I kept going back to the old tried and true method of using a wool bonnet on a rotary with the older 3M compounds I was used to. My only problem with the wool pad method was introducing swirl marks from contaminates in the air.

Then back in about 2014 or so, I happened to read a forum thread on how to remove orange peel without sanding:
https://www.autopia.org/forums/paint-correction-and-gloss-enhancement/41226-game-changing-performance-carpro-denim-orange-peel-pad-review.html
I also watched a couple youtube videos on the process.

I wanted to try this out for myself so I bought a few of the Car-Pro denim pads and a bottle of Menzerna 400 compound. I already had a nice Rupes Bigfoot 15 orbital but my rotary was pretty old so I bought a new DeWalt DWP849X to use for the denim pads.
At this time, I was working on my '57 Chevy pickup which I had just painted with a dark green single-stage paint.
Immediately, I was impressed with what these pads and compound could do.
I did this without any color sanding at all:



This took about 4 or 5 iterations of applying compound to the pad and running the polisher over it.
For the next area, I color sanded with by hand wet with a rubber block and used a progression of 1000, 1200 and 1500 paper and then polished with the denim pad and Menzerna. This brought out the shine perfectly with just 2 iterations of compound/polishing. I thought this made more sense so that's the way I did it for the rest of the truck. I did figure out that depending on how much peel a particular area had, I could skip the 1000 or both the 1000 and 1200 and just use the 1500. The Menzerna 400 is a diminishing type of compound. Even though they call it a heavy cut once it drys out a bit, it will continue to polish to very high level of shine as you can see.

You can apply a final type polish on a foam pad if you want to but from what I found, it doesn't give much additional benefit. I have been using Meguiar's 205 on a Lake Country white foam pad and my Rupes orbital for that. It also makes a good maintenance polish when needed.
If a more aggressive maintenance polish it needed, I found using Meguiar's 105 on an orbital with a Lake Country HDO-550F microfiber pad works really well. Then follow up with the 205 on a white pad for a final.

My next project was my '83 El Camino which I painted with SPI single-stage white. I used the same process as I ended up using on the pickup.



I painted my Bel Air back in 2011/12 with base/clear (SPI Universal Clear). It came out so well as sprayed, I didn't color sand it at all back then. However, after I finished my El Camino, I went back and used the denim pad and Menzerna 400 on without color sanding at all. Then finaled with the 205 and white pad.
I used an LED flashlight to check for flatness, swirls and micro scratches:



I've also done this on some factory cars (no color sanding). It worked really well on the 2008 Corvette I owned and a couple of other late model GM cars. I tried it on a friend's 2002 Porsche that had a lot of micro scratching and it did not work well. Something different about the clear coat on that car. The denim pad would grab and jump and even when I could hold it steady for a while, it didn't polish well.

It does take some practice to polish with a denim pad on a rotary. You have to be very conscious about holding it perfectly flat on the surface while keeping the pressure relatively light. Otherwise it can jump around on you and damage the edges of the pad. Speed is important. I use between 900 and 1300 and check for heat often. It can definitely build some heat but it will burn the compound before it damages the paint. I've never damaged paint with the process but have burned the compound a couple of times and it's hard to get off if that happens.