Paint Polishing

When I got back to working on the 330 in 1999, I wet sanded the paint and did a quick polish job using a direct drive polisher.  This works well for removing the sanding marks, but it does leave swirl marks from the polisher bonnet.

Last year (2006), I bought a random orbital polisher at Griot's garage sale.  Now I've finally gotten around to polishing the paint on the 330.  Since it's been 9 years since I did the quick and dirty job, a lot needed to be done.  When the guy at Griot's was doing the demonstration for me, he mentioned that I would probably have to start with their #1 polish (most aggressive) as the swirl marks were pretty deep.  He used #2, but some marks were left.

I started on the right rear quarter panel, down by the bumper.  I figured it was better to learn there on a place that isn't as visible as the hood.  After a pass with #2, I agreed that I needed to start with #1.  However, even with several passes, there were still some scratches that weren't getting polished out.  So I went back to the direct drive polisher, using it on a low speed and only polishing with the outside edge of the pad with light pressure.  This kept the marks it was making all in one direction and I could polish across the existing scratches thus making it easier to determine when they were gone.  Now I had much finer scratches in only one direction that the #1 polish could remove with a few passes.

After using the #1, one moves to the #2 polish and finishes with the #3.

The final step is to was using Griot's Best of Show wax.

I also have a place on the rear fender where the paint was bubbling up just like a rust issue.  However, the underside is in the trunk and not subject to any water nor could I feel any rust.  On one of the many times I painted my trunk lid, I sanded this area smooth and just repainted it.  Of course, the bubbles came back after a couple of years.  This time, I dug out the bubbles down to the steel and did find rust.  Since I had done a bare metal repaint using Rust-Mort (a rust converter) on the steel, I'm not sure how any rust got started there.  Anyway, I again used Rust-Mort to stabilize the rust and then filled the holes with bondo.  Then I used a Dremel to remove the surface coat on the bondo.  Now I am slowly filling the holes with paint until the new paint will be above the original surface.  Then I'll be able to sand it flush and polish that area.  If it doesn't end up looking good, I'll have to repaint that area.

This polishing was culminated with the local Ferrari dealer's annual Ferraris on 12th event in downtown Seattle.  Not too bad looking for a 40 year old car with a 20 year old paint job.  As usual, I had the oldest Ferrari there.