Page Fifty-Eight - A Severe Case of the Runs

 

Geez, I hope this works!

It’s not just a run here or there, a few sags in the clear coat, it weeps like the audience when Bambi’s mother is killed, when Old Yeller dies, when Farris Bueller destroys the Ferrari… It’s bad!

It's hard to get a good pic of the runs.  Here's an attempt.
Like I said, they're bad.!

Original Plan:

Step 1: Gently sand down each run.

Step 2: Wet sand entire panels with 1000, 2000 and finally 3000 grit paper.

Step 3: Buff it to a deep radiant glowing shine!

Best laid plans, am I right?

Absolutely terrifying to take a razor blade to the paint,
but with some practice, I got better at it. 

After the scraping, I sanded it down with 220.
Now to fix the sand-throughs

New Much More Precarious Plan:

Step 1: Gently, carefully, meticulously, terrifyingly scrape each run down with a razor blade!

Step 2: Sand down the runs with Maguiar’s Unigrit sanding blocks (1000 grit followed by 2000).

Step 3: Sand everything flat with 600 grit.

Step 4: Cover spots where I ground through to the primer with leftover color coat, using a small foam brush.

Here's an example of a fill-in color coat "fix" - unsanded

Step 5: Wet sand the edges and bubbles in the fill-in color coat with 1000 grit because when I used 600 grit, it ground through to primer again!

Here's a couple of sanded fill-in color coat "fixes."
I'm praying they will blend when I spray clear coat over them!

Step 6: Fix all of Alphie’s runs because I’m bound to sand through to primer in other spots, which I already have in several spots, if you must know!

Step 7: (I haven’t done the next steps yet because I haven’t finished sanding through to the primer, er, I mean fixing the runs.) Respray clear coat (hopefully two coats) over each spot where I sanded through to primer AND PRAY IT MAKES MY “FIXES” DISAPPEAR! 

The doors, boot lid and bonnet lid will get complete clear coats while other places will only get spot resprays.

Step 8: Wet sand the entire car to 3000 grit

Step 9: Buff Alphie to a deep radiant glowing shine

One encouraging note – where I didn’t run the clear coat, it has sanded down brilliantly.

My first plan was decimated when it met reality as plans often do.  I’m about 89.9% sure that in the end, you won’t be able to tell where I “fixed” the runs, but I won’t know until Step 9, unfortunately.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll figure it out but until then, cross your fingers!  I’ll update the blog when I respray and sand out the clear coat and begin buffing.