'76 Corvette and 3D One Impressions

[osiapstndp]

Hello everyone,

This weekend I worked on a very nice ‘76 Corvette. It came in for a one-step and deep scratch removal. The customer isn’t the first owner and doesn’t know much about the history of the paintwork. It was repainted at some point with base coat and clear coat.

The paint was in bad shape - the fiberglass body is cracking in numerous places and the paint is bubbling in even more areas. There are many clusters of dense orange peel and more than a couple spots of solvent pop. And, to add insult to injury, the car used to be red and the painters just sprayed the purple base coat right over the red. The underlying color actually shows in a few places.

Since a one-step was in order I decided to try 3D One. The parts that I sanded were compounded, but all painted surfaces received a few passes from 3D One.

I don't have a lot of before photos, but I'll include what I can.

Before I started.



Many areas had deep scratches. After doing a few areas I couldn't spend any more time taking pictures of the sanding job, but I got a few nice before and afters.













3D One Impressions

First thing, a little bit goes a long way. I was surprised how little I had to put on my pad to get a good result. It also cleaned off the pads very nicely. And it actually smells good! I was very pleasantly surprised! The working time was good. I noticed that it stops cutting after a set of around four section passes, maybe a bit less. Maybe it's just me, but I made sure to note that its cut tapers off after working it a bit. This is absolutely not a negative thing and I liked the way it worked with the paint on this Corvette. Does 3D One use diminishing abrasives?

Here's an example of what it did on this aftermarket paint job after four passes on a Flex 3401 with a Hybrid Force orange pad, about ten pounds of pressure and between one and a little less than one inch per second.




Here are the same photos cropped.







Here is the result in the falling daylight.













Products Used
Flex 3401
Griot's DA with their heavy duty three-inch backing plate
Flex PE-80
Griot's G15

3M 3,000-grit three-inch Trizact foamed discs
Meguiar's 1,500- and 2,000-grit finishing papers
Meguiar's soft sanding block
Other sanding blocks to help remove RIDs

3D One
Griot's Fast Correcting Cream
McKee's High Performance Glass Restorer

Meguiar's three-inch microfiber discs
Griot's three-inch Boss white foam pads
Griot's 5.5 Boss microfiber discs
Flex two- and three-inch green pads
Lake Country Hybrid Force 5.5-inch orange and white pads

McKee's N914
Pinnacle clay
McKee's clay

McKee's High-Def Paint Sealant (the old formula)
Wolfgang tire dressing

[LSNAutoDetailing]

Wow!!!! Amazing results!!!! Nice write-up, fantastic before/after pics and overall great work! Nice line up of products and knowledge of what to pull out of the tool box.
Absolutely fantastic... you should be proud and I bet the owner is elated!

[hoyt66]

That's a great job! When I saw the first pics I thought what a pile of junk and I would not even want that car. You made the car very desirable afterward. Really nice turnaround.

[osiapstndp]

Thank you. The owner is definitely happy. The car was vandalized a while ago and the result was about 60 inches of deep scratches across the entirety of the body. I got about 70% of them out. This weekend he wants me to remove the remainder.

This is a great project car and overall it's in really good shape for its age.

[camaro2ssblack]

Great job - and awesome that he is coming back for more work. You probably have a customer for life now.

[Oz_TCH]

Beautiful. Great job.

[Sizzle Chest]

Nice work! It looks a TON better now! Nice pics too!

[Klasse Act]

That cropped pic really brought it home, looked like 2 different pics, AMAZING JOB

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[osiapstndp]

Thank you! On Saturday I'm going to to sand both fenders and one or two spots on the passenger side hood. I've had way more paint touch-up jobs and sanding jobs this year and I'm getting much more comfortable with both kinds of work. I machine sanded the passenger side of the T-top roof on the Corvette because the damage was so bad all throughout the surface, but I forgot to take before pictures. Maybe next time.

Sanding is proving to be a very good thing for my business.

[JKDesign]

Great work!