Black is do-able but your prep work has to be really really good and then your final wet sanding has to be pretty much perfect otherwise the paint will be covered with deep scratches. And then you need to be able to polish the living daylights out of it afterwards to get any decent depth of shine back up.

Like I said, it's do-able but it's also an awful lot of very precise and mistake free work.

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1. 69chargeryeehaw: kudos along to everyone else who has done this. also, very nice porsche. its not fiberglass junk is it? nice beetles too. im a vdub freak. owned a whole bunch of em. got 2 now. also owned my fair share of mopars. a couple furys and newports as well as d50s and 150s.

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Yes it is a fiberglass kit car!!! I could never afford a real one, my car is a CMC car built professionally with 2000mi original, built in 1997. It's built off a 66vw, converted to IRS, all the good VDub stuff, sways front/rear, 1835CC motor with dual Dellortos, leather interior, very well put together, no expense spared, and it's perfect. I actually would'nt want a original one, parts are expensive, and to me the kit car is the best of both worlds, cheap VW parts, porsche body, like a sheep in wolf's clothing!!!

I really like seeing all the before/after pics, a big to all the guys that have pulled it off.

Martin, when I was doing VW's that Speedster was real high on my list of cars I wanted to build
I did have a 74 Karmen Ghia with a 2074 on NOS was a real spotlight surprise.. Engine later ended up in our dune buggy.

i just missed the speedster widebody by 3 days. a friend had one in his back yard and i didnt even know it. we had a party and he brought it up cuz he seen all my vdub stuff. then he proceeded to tell me yeah i just took one to the dump 3 days ago cuz it was rotting away. so i hightailed it to the dump and it had been smashed by a crane. what a nut lolol

right now im looking for a double cab or nice lookin bus.


anyways, a lil off topic there, the metallic and clear are sprays. but they are still enamel. the thing with the metallic if you use it is keep the panels like they sit on the car. this can be a little difficult with the horizontal surfaces since paint cans dont like to be sprayed sideways.

Well last coat is done, tomorrow I will start to install the interior of the truck along with a new radio/speakers. I figure by the time I get that done I'll be ready for the buffer compound thing.
Any thoughts in the Pinnacle products? or Turtle wax compounds?

Haven't tried anything yet but I bought a foam pad kit and it came with a couple of Pinnacle products, I see Poorboys is sold more oversea's from here and not sure I want to pay to have it shipped in but your results are outstanding
Did you wetsand first or just go straight to the swirl remover?

Those two shots were both taken of the hood of my car. I did a dodgy wetsand using 1500 and then hit it with the different swirl removers to see which would be the best method.

Although I was really impressed with the SSR2.5, there are still some small scratches in the paint where I didn't sand the hood properly.

The final wet sanding is a lot more important than the polishing. I'm practising with my 'race' bootlid (with a wing on it) and even though an abrasive cutting compound like Poorboy's SSR3.0 will easily remove sanding marks from 1200 grit paper, it is the little scratches caused by the bits of dust etc in the paint that cause the real headaches.

It is just so important to do a second wet sand with 2000 grit paper to remove these little scratches so that the finished panel can look like a bc/cc job.

ok so, WHEN attempting to wet sand, should you use a hose or a spray bottle? im not sure how to use the spray bottle method

ok im goin to be lazy here and i really dont want to look all the way back through cuz i dont know where its at. what was that other site with the 2 part urethane that was brought up. they had a 1 part orange and thats what i want. and im goin to try some pearl in it.

ok nevermind i found it. it was in text. not a clickable link. you guys might wanna check them out. they have a single stage and clear. but the clear is very pricey and doesnt add up. $90 a quart or $125 a gallon. hmmmmm i would deffinitely buy a gallon. that could be later down the road. prices on 1 part isnt too bad at $21 a qt or $77 a gal.anyways nuff jabbering heres the link
other urethane

After reading for a few months, I finally took the plunge yesterday. I decided to start with my old GMC van's hood, which had a bad case of clear coat peeling, especially on the hood, which was also severely crushed by a falling limb a while back. A few days of polishing up my hammer, dolly and bondo skills (still neds a lot of work)I put the first coat on her yesterday.

My car is a 1993 GMC teal factory color. The Rustoleum 7527 Royal Blue is close, but its not teal, so I decided to try a color match. The original paint is a metallic paint, so I don't expect an exact match. The pictures of the paint can held up to the body make it seem closer than it really is. So, since teal is blue and green, I also bought a can of Rustoleum Hunter Green and proceeded to try small amounts of mixture with blue and green mixed. I finally settled on 2 parts blue and 1 part green, but I may go bluer in the end. The picture with the masking paper makes the paint look a lot lighter than it really is and the last picture makes it look darker. The amount of color variation in these pictures just goes to show how much the camera can fool you, depending on the light quality when the picture was taken. These are all of the first coat of paint!

I mixed 25% mineral spirits, 50% blue and 25% green and got out the rollers. I think the first coat was too thick as it seemed to cover too well. Millions of bubbles showed up, but about 2 minutes later I stroked it with a dry foam brush, and like magic they mostly disappeared. I could see the brush strokes fairly prominently (see the last picture taken as it was getting dark and I was quiting. I was sure I had it too thick, but this morning I can see a color variation where the stokes are, but cant feel any surface lines. I don't see much orange peel yet. I am going to put on the second coat today, unless I decide to wet sand a bit first.

By the way - I bought an empty paint can with a lid at Home Depot because I was mixing colors. When I am done at the end of the day I just pour what is left in that can and put the top on it. I think the metal quart size can costs something like $1 or so.

smyrna5 - are you using a brush? looks like it from the pics, also looks like your applying too thick coats, resist the urge to apply thick coats, you want them to go on really really thin, if your getting lots of bubbles, mix the paint more, like alot, and expirement with your thinning mixture until you get the hang of it, keep working on only the hood until you perfect the technique and your happy.