Little Deuce Coupe - Hotrod Detailing

[Mike Phillips]

Little Deuce Coupe - Hotrod Detailing


This is my buddy Doug's 1932 Ford 3-window coupe in the same vein of the Beach Boy's Song Little Deuce Coupe.

Each time I've seen this car it's been at the Tuesday night Stuart Car Show that Autogeek sponsors and it's usually around 5:30pm or later so the sun is low in the sky.

I thought the paint was in pretty good condition so asked Doug if I could use his car for a special project and Doug said "yes".

Looks pretty good in these shots...











Florescent Lights
Now let's inspect the paint using the overhead florescent lights


Sanding Marks Not Removed

After moving the 1932 Ford into the garage that's when all the paint defects starting showing up under florescent lights. In these pictures I'm going to point out all the sanding marks that were not completely buffed out during the wet sanding process.

These were hard to see at the car show but stand out like a sore thumb under florescent lights....





























Scoured Paint
These look like wool pad scratches from the buffing step, the paint literally looks scoured....

[Mike Phillips]

Continued...



Camera Flash
Now I'm going to use the flash from my camera to light up and reveal the holograms.

Holograms are a specific type of scratch inflicted into paint from the mis-use of a rotary buffer and usually a wool pad but it can also be done with a foam pad.

The type of compound used can also be a huge factor as to how bad the holograms are as well as how deep the holograms scratches penetrated into the paint.





The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.








The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.








The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.





I don't see holograms in this shot just dull paint left after the buffing process....





The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.












The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.





The below picture is cropped out of the above picture, the wispy looking lines indicate the direction the rotary buffer was moved over the paint. These are holograms.






Just a cool shot of the monster fat tires on the back...




This is two types of light to help you inspect and document paint defects in the paint. A third way would be to use overhead sunlight and if the weather cooperates tomorrow I get those pictures too....

[Mike Phillips]

Overhead Bright Sunshine
Now let's inspect the paint using the sun....


Car looks good and by default the paint looks good when taking pictures from this angle...






Now lets move around to put the sun in a position so the sun rays bounce back at our eyes....




In the below pictures you're going to see swirls and then "lines" in the swirls. The lines are actually holograms which mimic the direction a rotary buffer was moved over the panel. This car has holograms....













































Back to the future....
Now the car is back into the garage for the makeover tonight....






One last thing...
The paint utterly fails the Baggie Test!

[ZimRandy]

Is that a small burn through on the body line, just below where the light is reflecting?

Great pictures to document what is 'really' there.

Randy

[Mike Phillips]

Is that a small burn through on the body line, just below where the light is reflecting?

It looks like it in the picture and it probably is but I'll take a closer look to find out.

I plan on taping off all the raised body lines and edges with the 3M blue vinyl tape as a precaution against the potential for what I call,

Whisper Thin Paint

Caused by the other guy....

Great pictures to document what is 'really' there.

Randy

Thanks Randy.... I just sent the link to this thread to the owner for him to see what I captured with my camera.

I was going to test out a new tool on this 1932 Ford and I still will but first I'm going to need remove all these sanding marks, tracers and scouring from the last buff job.

I've recommended machine wet sanding with the 3M Trizact #5000 discs as this will safely level the surface without having to do heavy compounding. Then just do light compounding as #5000 grit sanding marks are so easy to remove.


I'm scheduled to teach a class on machine sanding at Mobile Tech Expo next year and if I do I'll use the pictures from this project for the class.

I always use pictures from my own detail projects for my classes.

And for your listening enjoyment.... here's the Beach Boys singing their hit song,

[allenk4]

Great Photography

Looking forward to the "Afters"

[Tato]

This kind of 'poor work' is becoming common sense, when it should be exactly the opposite, information nowadays is just a click away.

Mike, what are your opinions on #5000 grit wet sanded by Flex 3401? I saw your thread on 3401 sanding, and I suspect it should work ok.

Any tip? My plan is using a 6" interface on the 5.5" standard backing plate, and 3M 6" #5000 grit disc.

Thanks in advance,

Good luck on this project.

[Mike Phillips]

Great Photography

Thanks Allen, I appreciate the compliment...

Looking forward to the "Afters"

Me too! That will mean I've done!

The overwhelming scope of a project like this doesn't really sink in till that first moment when you start the sanding of the first section of paint... then the totality of what you just committed yourself too hits you like a ton of bricks.

This kind of 'poor work' is becoming common sense, when it should be exactly the opposite, information nowadays is just a click away.

I talk to "car guys" all the time about what's involved with painting a toy like this and what I tell them is you can hire the best painter in the world but it's the guy that does the wetsanding, cutting and buffing that determines the end-results.

And then in order to do their best work it helps a little to have the best products, that is tools like the 3M Trizact sanding discs not some cruddy generic, cheap wet/dry sandpaper. It helps a lot to have a GREAT compound and there are at least a half a dozen on the market now, etc. etc...

And it goes without saying that having the best tools like the Flex PE14 for the cutting step just makes doing the grunt work a lot more enjoyable.

Mike, what are your opinions on #5000 grit wet sanded by Flex 3401? I saw your thread on 3401 sanding, and I suspect it should work ok.

Here's what I always say about this topic because it comes up often....

You can use any DA polisher to remove sanding marks, especially now day with all the great pads and compounds on the market. But the fastest and most effective way to remove 100% of all the sanding marks is by using a rotary buffer with a wool pad.

It already takes a long time to do this type of work... why would a person what to make the project take longer by doing the cutting step with a less powerful tool?

No me... I cutting with the RB tonight....

Any tip? My plan is using a 6" interface on the 5.5" standard backing plate, and 3M 6" #5000 grit disc.

With that combo it will make removing the sanding marks easy, so easy you could do it with a Porter Cable 7424XP or even by hand as I've documented on this forum. But for me I would still use a rotary buffer.

The only reason I would take the extra time to remove the sanding marks using a dual action polisher would be for the sole intent of showing and documenting that it can be done.

Maybe another day, maybe another project I'll do this but not this car and not this day.

[Mike Phillips]

So we begin....

[Mike Phillips]

Now it's time to inspect the finish to make sure all the contaminants have been removed. You can still see swirls, scratches and sanding marks in the paint, that's next.













Paint and glass feels smooth as glass and that was the goal.

"A glossy finish starts with a smooth surface"