Anyone in the Mid-A have any experience in Wet-Sanding and Polishing. I plan on doing this on a CF hood this weekend. If you have any experience and are willing to help me out it would be much appreciated. I will have some beer or top shelf liquor for the one that helps out. PM me for my cell phone or contact info.

 

Anyone? I might be doing it today as long as I can find a place that has it in stock.

 

if you are trying to fix cracks, don't even bother, you are wasting your time. If you are trying to clear build-up...maybe yu can just claybar and wash. I tried to have the cracks taken out of a hood i purchased and it did not work

 

carbon fiber is a very very thickle object to wet sand and polish.

as its just clearcoat and weave.

its not like a painted hood where its clearcoat then paint. it might not be succesfull to try and take out small spyder cracks and stuff..

 

I fixed my friends CF hood that was dulled up with a high speed buffer to like new condition....... it did not take long for it to start dulling up again, I think a wet sand
and reclear is the best option. gl

 

I wet stand paint all the time, never tried a CF part but if its a clear coat, it should be just as easy.

However, before wet sanding, try using some 3M rubbing compound, chances are that alone will take it out, I use sand paper when I want the job done fast, but compound alone + rubbing, will remove most scratches. Sand paper just works faster.

Start with 3M rubbing compound and a damp rag, from there I move up to Scratch X, then after that I finish it up with my normal wax.

If I use sand paper I start with 1500 grit + water then either jump straight to the compound or go to 2000 then to the compound.

ALWAYS test out an area first, my Acura TL is soooo easy to wetsand/buff, my red line 350Z takes A LOT more effort to get it back to a perfect shine.

 

I know MDRacer76 does wetsanding and polishing, but not sure if he ever did it on CF.
Most people say you should not do this on CF as in most cases the clearcoat (if it even has one) is soo thin you will sand thru it and mess up the CF weave. But I met one guy at a Car Toys 2 meet that says he does it all the time and he can fix CF parts like new.. Can't remember his name and I think Car Toys is closed now.

Good luck man.

 

+1 jeffie...but i would not go from 1500 to compound...if your doing it yourself and are inexperienced start with 2000 or 2500 even..it will be harder for you to burn thru then got to a extra cut compound then polish....its not hard...and deff use a sanding block!!!!

 

My whole car is carbon fiber with tons of airbrush work. Some of the parts were clear, some are gel coat.

I took a scuff pad to every piece by hand and cleared every single part.

CF only last so long being weathered. Spend the extra cash and clear everything. You will never be happy until you do.

Stay away from abasive compounds. Do not touch it with rubbing compound. I have seen cheap cf parts not take to this. Not to say that yours are cheap, just not worth the risk.

i would go with 3m swirl mark remover and then go to 3m ultrafina. Asssuming you are using a variable speed buffer(Dewalt rocks for this).

Never put wax on carbon fiber, or your car for that matter. It puts a haze on everything. You dont notice it at first, but after a while you will see it.

The step mentioned above is the only thing that touches my car(swirl mark remover and ultra fina). I only use 3m products too! Maguires sucks. Make sure that you use the ultrafina pad too.

Some people may disagree with the wax thing, but I have seen it first hand on tons of vehicles. I can go behind them with my tools and show them. I usually demo this at some of the older/hot rod car shows. Those old guys do tons of stuff themselves and help them out.

Hope this helps.

 

THanks guys for all your input.
Special thanks to Mike- MDRacer for all his help and info. He talked a lot to me on the phone and took a look at the almost finished product.

So I was working outside this weekend on the hood.
I wetsanded it with 1500 grit sand paper, then did it with 2000 grit sand paper. Then I used a polishing compound and waxed it.

I did an "OK" job. I need to re-sand it again with 2000 gritt sand paper and do the whole process again.

The problem was that I was doing this outside in 10 degree weather for 4 hours and it was cold! Frigid!

It looks 10x better then it did before.

Pics can be seen at this thread:
https://my350z.com/forum/exterior-an...ml#post6829981

Any other input is more then welcome!