# Practice Panel



## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Hi Folks, i'm looking to pick up a junk panel the next few days to practice my new favorite hobby!

I was thinking maybe a dark door panel and 2000 grit and 3000 grit sandpaper. I was just going to wrap the sandpaper over my carpro application block to make some scratches.

My machines are a BOSS griots 15mm throw, griots 3 inch mini and a mini shine mate rotary.

Lots of different pads and 3D one, sonax cutmax and perfect finish and gyeon primer has the poilshes.

My personal car is a soft paint toyota so i hope to fine a japanese car panel.

Much appreciated if anyone has experience using practice panels and any tips or ideas. :buffer:


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## 20vKarlos (Aug 8, 2009)

My suggestion is to break the panel into many different sections. 

I had a Passat B5 Boot to learn on and I broke that into sections. 

1 - I used 00 grade wire wool
2 - I used a key at different levels of pressure (Light, Medium, Hard)
3 - sprinkled stones from around 3 or 4 foot height (to mimic deep stone chips) On this panel I needed to wet sand and some marks were ‘too deep’ too correct.
4 - This panel was left as the standard paint
5 - This panel was left in standard paint but machine polished
6 - Wet sanded and machine polished standard paint 

It’s amazing what results you can get with some patience. I don’t have much patience, so I find it very rewarding when I’ve spent a fair amount of time correcting a panel and the results it can give.

My final note is this... do not assume every panel to be the same method on each car. And with that, do not assume that every car will be the same too. They won’t be! :thumb:


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Pretty comprehensive test. wow

I will be starting out with some sand paper. But reading your post i never even thought of just correcting the paint has is first! 
Very interesting tests though. Especially if you wanted to be a professional.

Thanks for the insights.


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## Jack (May 14, 2007)

If you can get a bonnet it would be better, larger area to practice on and will fit securely on a panel stand. Have fun inflicting scratches. Take your time and play around with you pads and polish cobos to see what gets you the results your happy with.


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

I finally a got practice door panel. Its off a black 1500 ram. 

Great fun! The door was from a fire department mock exercise where they torn open a crushed car to save someone. So its trashed! Can only use 2/3 of the panel lol. Fits very nicely on an old kitchen table though. 

Great fun though, i HIGHLY Recommend for car guys!


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Just another shout out for gyeon primer, i've been hammering the panel with different test sections. Lots of different pads/polish combos. Started scratching the panel with fine steel wool that ends up looking alot like the little swirls i have in my personal car, so its great.

When i got 65-80% correction maybe its more or less on a couple tests, i'm no pro. I hit it with gyeon primer and it makes at least a 5-10% increase in the appearance. Maybe not true correction but it makes a difference. And its soo easy to wipe off!

Now i need to find a japanese panel, this panel was very stubborn to remove defects. Medium pad and polish didn't have a big impact but it really was trashed.


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Decided to go down and grab another scrap panel from the same truck. Its actually a chevy tahoe. 

Very stubborn paint compared to my toyota. But it is super trashed.

I've been thinking about the whole test spot thing more. I really can't be bothered with changing to a fresh pad when testing different compounds. I started using the same pad, i'm sure there is some minor differences..maybe. But its only 3 or 4 sections passes before i try another compound for comparison.

I've tested 2 new pads too. Rupes DA yellow and LC orange SDO. 

The only thing i have to compare the pads to is my 2 orange BOSS pads.

Rupes yellow fits my backing plate great - LC not so - and i love the contour pad or whatever its called. Its fun working over body lines.

I found my main pad.

Seems to hold dirt particles more but oh well can't have it all.


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Another shout out for gyeon primer lol One of my favorite products so far for anything to do with car detailing. Going to put CQUK3 and Cosmic V2 side by side - over primer in 24h - on the junk panel and lay it in the backyard.


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## Alan W (May 11, 2006)

noorth said:


> Another shout out for gyeon primer lol One of my favorite products so far for anything to do with car detailing. Going to put CQUK3 and Cosmic V2 side by side - over primer in 24h - on the junk panel and lay it in the backyard.


Have fun and let us know how you get on. :thumb:

Alan W


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## noorth (Jul 10, 2019)

Well i aggressively put the steel wool to the LSP's and polished out most of the scratches. 

Great fun, can't wait to polish my car again. I think the next 5 degree Celsius day i might try to work on my trunk.

Test panels are great fun. Getting much more comfortable with my polishers and learning how to polish. 

For instance, i stopped using an IPA after every work set, its a pain to work with. And probably unnecessary.

And after closing a few caps on polishes/compounds that spit polish 3 or 4 feet straight up in the air, i started closing the cap by pushing it into the pad.


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