Restoring white paint

arcon5

Got a white van which has gone a bit dull...lost all it's vibrancy and has oil finger marks over the bonnet and wing




Any tips on how to freshen the paintwork up please?

Goudy

You could spend hours and hours with a cutting compound and a cloth, but probably better to get it professionally mopped.

A detailer or body shop should be able to do it for you, they'll use an electrically powered dual action piant mopping machine and the right grades of cutting compounds and polishes to bring the paint back to life.

I wouldn't recommend you buy or rent one yourself and try it, it's very easy to burn right through the paint if you don't know what you're doing.

jk0

T-cut and then a coat of turtle wax?

EdGasketTheSecond

G3 and a coat of turtle wax but go easy with the G3 or you'll rub through the paint.

debtdebt

Goudy wrote: »

You could spend hours and hours with a cutting compound and a cloth, but probably better to get it professionally mopped.

A detailer or body shop should be able to do it for you, they'll use an electrically powered dual action piant mopping machine and the right grades of cutting compounds and polishes to bring the paint back to life.

I wouldn't recommend you buy or rent one yourself and try it, it's very easy to burn right through the paint if you don't know what you're doing.

It's actually very difficult to burn through the paint with a dual action machine.

DigForVictory

With the snow & ice & grit landing, is this the right week to get a van back glossy white?

Could you cope without the vibrancy (eh?) in favour of increased visibility and then get all the yeuch scrubbed off after the gritters have gone back into hibernation?

Or do you need it to look glorious for resale/annual accounts valuation etc?

TheTalkingDead

Not the right time of year for this. Head over to AmmoNYC on youtube to research a few tips and tricks or the forensics detailing channel.

neilmcl

debtdebt wrote: »

It's actually very difficult to burn through the paint with a dual action machine.

It actually is quite simple and the risk isn't about "burning through the paint", it's more to do with removing all of the clearcoat, which is what you're actually doing during paint correction, ie, removing layers of clearcoat.

jeradon

I would do these basic detailing steps:

1. Wash
2. Use claybar
3. Ultimate compound
4. Polishing compound
5. Wax