Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

[dmsteele92831]

Ok, so I know this has been talked about before, but I figured I’d go into a little more depth and talk about my experience with this. I researched all of it through the Mopar message board with the guy who had the charger and the two VW’s. I decided to go this route for a couple of reasons. First off I didn’t want to pay a minimum of $2000 to $3000 for someone to do a mediocre job, second I am not looking for a show truck, just something that looks better than your average beater and may get the occasional complement. Thirdly the entire reason I bought this truck was so that I could do a lot of the work myself! Now, I’ve never sprayed before, I don’t have the tools or even a space to spray it. I figured I could roll this in my garage and learn as I go. I read the entire conversation on the Mopar message board to make sure I had the most knowledge possible before tackling this. I also just started with one panel because I wanted to see if it would work (or if I’d be happy). First I started with two spots that needed to be bondo’d on the panel. I think I did a pretty good job on them, they are by no means PERFECT but unless your standing at the right angle you won’t notice. Ok, so after sanding the entire panel down with 400 grit I started with a 3 thin coats of the diluted Rustoleum (with mineral spirits). Using a High Density foam roller it was still leaving the orange peel look so I sanded (per instructions) with 600 grit. This smoothed it out pretty well but it also cut a little too deep in a few spots and went entirely through the orange. Next I painted a few more coats and then went to 800 grit. I still had a few issues with sanding too deeply and going through the orange. I also noticed that even after sanding with 800 grit as soon as I would put on another coat(s) of paint it would still have the orange peel effect. Finally I just put on 4-5 light to medium coats of paint (figured I’d build it up a bit) and then sanded with 1000 grit. This way I was able to sand a little more off without going through the paint. Then I stepped up to 1200 grit WITHOUT repainting then 1500 grit without re-painting. At 1000 grit I just made sure the paint was smooth to the touch even if I could still see a little orange peel. (This is all wet-sanding by hand!) Going from 1200 to 1500 grit I was able to get almost all the orange peel gone. After that I used the Turtle Wax polisher, first two coats by hand then one with my 10 in. orbital electric polisher. It looked ok, but I was still a little disappointed. Then I used a coat of Meguiars NXT Generation wax and that’s when it really started to shine! I put on two thick coats and really rubbed it in. The paint started to soak it up immediately! Afterwards it is SUPER smooth to the touch and looks pretty good! I did notice that I can still see a few surface scratches and even a little orange peel but overall I think it came out pretty impressive (by no means show). Once I move on to the next panel though, I will sand at 400 grit, put on 5 light-medium coats, go to 800, then 1000, then 1200, then 1500, then 2000 consecutively if I can without repainting. I think if I just don’t try to get it to smooth with the 800 and 1000 grit I have a good possibility of really smoothing it out with the higher grit papers and avoid re-painting in between. Anyway, here are the before and after pics!