Finally some pictures!!
Onto the cut and buff stage. Already found out that the passenger side fender will need a respray. It had a run in the clear right at the front, above the indictor, which caused some discolouration, so sanded off the clear in about a 1x1 foot area and blended in the paint. Didn't work, it's come out a lighter shade, which is odd as it's from the same tin, was stirred thoroughly etc. Didn't want to flat the whole panel down and respray it all, hence the small repair but it looks like i will be... flatting down the whole panel and respraying again
But i'm taking a new approach on the project - steps forward first, then steps back. So rather than halting production and spending a weekend not progressing, but instead prepping, sanding, painting etc. i will carry on with to do list and tick off everything and then come back and start doing things. So maybe in a month or 2 i'll come back and do this.
Started with the passenger side fender, then will do the pass. door (as they both had blends so need to be cut and buffed due to the paint transition) and work around panel by panel.
Started with 1,500 on a block:
Then 2,000 on a soft foam pad:
Then onto machine compound with a compounding buffer head, then machine polish with a polishing buffer head, then 2 coats of wax. All of this will be undone within a couple of months on this fender due to needing to repaint it, so used it as a test panel as i've never cut n buffed before, so may as well do it on a panel that one can make mistakes on. And i'm really good at making mistakes.
After compound and polish:
After wax:
Here's the blend in the panel, camera didn't pick it up too well, will be interesting to see how bad it is in the sunlight. And yes, i'm hoping after enough exposure to the sun it will make the darker paint lighter and the lighter paint darker so it's far less obvious
Mirror had some runs (was hanging upside down when painted) so used a razor blade to flatten them (before any work) :
After razor blade, 1,500, 2,000, compound:
After polish:
After wax:
Tomorrow (Thursday) will start on the passenger door, hopefully get it to 2,000. Then Friday compound, polish and wax. On Saturday, should have the heater matrix, so can fit that, plug it all in and run it and fingers crossed the transmission is ok now and can reverse it into the sunlight (and see how bad the fender is). Rest of the day will then be spent swapping out the steering linkage on the 3rd gen. Sunday should be able to get back on it and then hoping to get the drivers side fender and door done. Then work my way through a panel each evening.
_________________
How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).
How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").