# Wetsanded my door today - long thread!



## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Hi guys,

Well today i should have been up in sunny Blackpool giving some light treatment to a 5 year old Black Freelander, but given that it's monsoon season, we decided it was best to rearrange! That gave me the perfect opportunity to finally get cracking on my own car. As it was OK yesterday, I washed it and left it in the garage at my Mums overnight and commandeered my missus Mini as she's gone on holiday with her Mum for a week and left me on my todd! (Marvelous!) 

So, i plan to wet sand the whole car, panel by panel. I simply don't have the time to do it in one go, which is why this is part 1. No idea how many parts there will be, but no better place to start than the drivers rear door where there were a few nasty scratches and plenty of swirls!

Here are a few before shots:



















So i started off my taping up and polishing the upper part of the door, and worked my way up to a Lake Country Foamed Purple wool spot pad and Wolf's WP-6H. I wanted to remove as many of the RDS and swirls as i could. Jesse from Wolf's really gave me the confidence to manhandle the paint, really digging the edge of the pad in to remove individual scratches. Found it worked really well on the hard German paint! This is after one set with the wool and WP-6H:



















Nice! Plenty of holograms and swirls inflicted by the aggressive combo! This was then polished using Wolf's WP-5N and a Lake Country yellow compounding pad, removing most of the holograms;










This was further polished with Wolf's WP-3N and a Lake Country Crimson light pad. I used a brand new pad, primed with a good amount of polish and then used a small amount for the panel as shown here:










Here is a 50:50 after the 3 sets, IPA wipedowns in between each set.



















The horizontal marks are the reflection of the grid from the other halogen on the stand! I couldn't figure it out at first! So i carried on and did the other half of the top section. Moving on to the lower section, you can see the nasty scratch in this pic:










Another badly scratched section:










Here is the real heart thumper! After sanding with 2000 grit paper soaked in a weak dilution of car shampoo, and constant spraying with Wolf's Pink Slip clay lube. Paper was mounted on a Megs sanding plate










Special attention paid to the scratch:










Further refining with 3000 grit paper, and i started on the lower section with the 2000 by this point!










Started polishing out the sanding marks using a new Wolf's Alpha cutting pad (prototype foam which isn't as good as the production version!) and WP-5N:










This didn't quite cut it so i stepped up to the wool with WP-6H, half the door done.










I didn't tape up the silver strip as i hate it when the tape snags in the pad, i feel it can sometimes do more harm than good!

At this point i stopped an re-taped the door handle, ensuring the tape was well tucked in to the recess so it wouldn't snag on the pad:










Some innovative use of my work folder allowed my to leave the door slightly ajar meaning i could polish all the way to the edge without touching another panel!



















I then polished the whole door using the following method:

- 2 sets with Purple Lake Country Foamed wool pad and Wolf's WP-6H - worked at speed 1500-2000rpm - no refining
- 1 set with Yellow Lake Country CCS Compounding pad and Wolf's WP-5N, Spread at 800rpm, worked at 1500 for 7-8 passes and refined at 900rpm for 3-4 passes - This is the most amazing polish, so oily but cuts really well, allowing such a long work time
- 1 set with Crimson Lake Country pad and Wolf's WP-3N, spread at 800rpm, worked at 1100rpm for 5-6 passes and refined at 900rpm for 2-3 passes
- I then refined the whole door even further using a Black Lake Country finishing pad and Wolf's WP-1N at 900rpm for many many passes - lost count in the end! I really wanted to jewell the finish. 
- IPA wipedowns in between each set ensured I could see the true finish.

Here are the results after polishing, before any LSP, plenty of dust!



















Here is the area by the door handle:










Inside the handle was polished with a small amount on Wolf's WP-5N on a hand polishing pad:










Looking good so far - scratch in the middle of the panel gone!










So, the finish was then further refined/glazed with Britemax BlackMAX using a Chem Guys Hexlogic Black finishing pad and the Dodo Buff Daddy DA - applied at speed 3










Left it to cure for 5mins before effortlessly buffing:










Really brought out the lovely flake in the paint!





































Next stage was Britemax Extreme Elements Cream Sealant using the DA and a Lake Country Black Finishing pad - spread at speed 3 and left to cure for 20mins










Finally, 2 lovely coats for Britemax Vantage paste wax:



















Effortlessly buffed with a new very plush Eurow towel, to leave this. As said, monsoon season so outside shots were off the menu!





































While i was at it, i decided to do a little test on the gloss black B-Pillar using Autofinesse Tripple3 and a MF pad:

Before:



















After one short go:










Well impressed!




























I also hoovered the interior very thoroughly with Hetty, and protected it with Wolf's new Trim sealant, Textile Coat. However as we were in the garage, pics were shambolic! So i decided to protect my golf umbrella too!



















Excellent stuff! Smells pretty solventy though, had to have a window down on the way home or i would have poisoned myself!

Did manage to grab a few outside shots of the door too... in the rain!



















Nice beading!





































So there we are, part one over - by the time i will be finished i'll probably be at the end of the PCP term in 3 years!

See you soon! Thanks for sticking with it!

JB


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## GJH0702 (Oct 21, 2011)

Looks Great Jon, not a wasted day !


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## alexj (Apr 12, 2012)

Nice one looks like you got stuck in there

Played at Ormskirk last year in an open comp, top course


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

GJH0702 said:


> Looks Great Jon, not a wasted day !


Yeah thanks Graham, i'll be rearranging with Peter soon but today would have just been useless!


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

alexj said:


> Nice one looks like you got stuck in there
> 
> Played at Ormskirk last year in an open comp, top course


Yeah it's lovely, my girlfriends parents are both members there so i play there a lot, only 5 mins from my flat! Best thing, there's only 300 members and only 40% of them play so it's never busy!


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## awallacee30 (May 4, 2011)

The door looks great fella, nice work :thumb:


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## AaronGTi (Nov 2, 2010)

Excellent Jon :thumb:


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

Nice work, I had my first crack at wet sanding on Saturday, I did the bonnet on our tt, I managed to remove all of the pigtails and sanding marks from when it was painted. There is some dust in the paint work but without a paint gauge I didn't want to push my luck.


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

SteveTDCi said:


> Nice work, I had my first crack at wet sanding on Saturday, I did the bonnet on our tt, I managed to remove all of the pigtails and sanding marks from when it was painted. There is some dust in the paint work but without a paint gauge I didn't want to push my luck.


Yeah same here, i did measure the paint a couple of weeks ago and all was well, but my mate wanted his PDG back so i couldn't measure as i went along.

Better to be safe than sorry i guess but Jesse from Wolf's gave me the confidence to give it some stick!


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## The Cueball (Feb 8, 2007)

wow... that is a lot of polish and set combos there!!! 

great result though, door looks very good...

:thumb:


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

The Cueball said:


> wow... that is a lot of polish and set combos there!!!
> 
> great result though, door looks very good...
> 
> :thumb:


Thanks mate, I was on it for about 5 hours, but wanted to make sure it was properly refined and glassy as hell!


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## The Cueball (Feb 8, 2007)

I can see that! :lol:

how do you like the Wolf's polish?!?!

:thumb:


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

The Cueball said:


> I can see that! :lol:
> 
> how do you like the Wolf's polish?!?!
> 
> :thumb:


I love it, tried 3M, Menz and Scholl before settling on Wolf's, they were all good but in my opinion Wolf's polishes are just awesome, especially WP-5N!


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## suspal (Dec 29, 2011)

job well done :thumb:


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

I'm tempted to buy a scrap panel to see how far you can push it, I did ours by hand but want to practice with a da. I used the mets mf pads and they worked quite well


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## mnmc (May 26, 2011)

Nice mate, I've been doing the same on my daughters car, panel by panel depending on the rain. (outside)

Your results are better than mine, but inspirational...


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Managed to grab a pic in the morning sun outside work! Looks ace!


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

Looks great, and a nice colour too, makes a change from silver and black that the CC's usually are


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Yeah there's a good few out there in those standard colours! I had a choice between this, a silver and a black one, but went for this as it was a bit different with the two tone black/cream leather!


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

sounds like a nice colour combination


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## Garybmw320d (Mar 22, 2012)

Looks great mate 4 hours well spent!


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Garybmw320d said:


> Looks great mate 4 hours well spent!


Thanks! Now for the rest of the car! :wall:


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## lanky659 (Feb 20, 2012)

great write up looks good!


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