hi guys,


My black jag has a lot of scratches and I was thinking of a respray but its dawned on me that there in the gloss transparent coat rather than the paint.
Is there a way to polish them out or strip back thr top coat without damaging the true paint......??

I was told duroglit would do it but that's just made it a lot worse, any ideas please.

 

Possibly, but depends how deep the scratches are. The process is to attempt to "wet sand" the clearcoat with a very fine sandpaper, like 1500 or 2000 grit, which basically reduces the thickness of the clearcoat below the depth of the scratches. Then polish the surface to make it glossy again. The danger is possibly burning through the clearcoat into the base coat at which point the panel has to be resprayed. I'd be afraid to try it myself without a lot of practice but you can consult a professional automotive detail shop or even a paint and body shop would have people who know what they are doing. Its probably well worth exploring as possibly some or all of the paint can be rescued and only the worst panels would need resprayed.

 

Don't know how it is done back in the kingdom but over in the colonies we use something like Mequire's Shirl Remover on a Black & Decker double action polisher. After acquiring my car I polished and buffed the paint to near new condition.

If you have surface issues beyond such a polish I would suggest that you start with a 3000 grit W/D padded disk on an air DA device then a polishing compound such as G3. Google it.

Look through this;

Polish | Meguiars Car Polish | Meguiar's Direct

 

My xk8 repaint had scratches and other blemishes in the clearcoat when I bought it. I consulted Dave of Innovative Detailing on the Detailing Forum and he suggested wet sanding with 2000, followed by polishing with three grads of Adams polishes. The results were spectacular.

I believe it would be very difficult to sand through the clear coat with 2000 wet, which I did by hand. The bonnet alone took twelve hours, but I was being cautious.

 

Don't know how bad your scratches are, but when I bought my 2001 the car had been sitting for a year under the GA sun (and "southern tropical like" rain) and ultimately had water spots cooked into the clear coat no regular buffing products would handle. I stepped up to some Meguiar medium cut compound - it did the job marvelously. Patience is required, so as little "layer" test at a time. 2 years later and paint still as nice.

Cheers

 

If you can't 'catch' the scratch with a finger nail, you can safely polish it out.
First try some Meguiars Scratch-X and see the result.
Then work up to medium compound, followed by swirl remover and finally wax.
The trick is to do it on layers that get progressively finer.
I use a Meguiars random orbit polisher and various foam pads.

 

2000 grit paper is pretty aggressive, you'll burn through high spots pretty quickly if you don't know what you're doing. If wet sanding is necessary, I usually start with 3000 grit wet sanding. Then some Meguairs Fine Cut Cleaner, the some buffing compound, the polish. Probably not something you want to take on yourself though if you are inexperienced, it's very easy to burn through the clear. It took me about 5 years and several beaters to develop decent technique. The last time I had it done for me was on the 06 Mustang I used to have, and it was about $350, so maybe more for a larger car like the Jag.