Topic: cut & buff

[sixthwisconsin]

I had a little incident with gas overfilling on the tank of my newest 550 for storage and had some staining. It needed a major cut & buff so I thought I would take that opportunity to line the tank as well.

KBS liner. Good stuff, I have had it in another 550 since 2010 and it has held up great. This Pic is of the front right part of the tank.
Bought a dual action polisher from Harbor freight to do the buff. I sanded to 1500 grit consistently and bought good Meguiar’s cutting compound to do the job. It says it will buff out 1200 or finer grit and it really did the job fast.

I did buff, polish, finish and it turned out great. No more orange peel on the side of the tank and now a mirror like finish with the metal flake glistening.
I also went up to 4” on the decals and it looks more in scale than the 3” I had on it originally.

Originally I sprayed Duplicolor black lacquer, metallic clear lacquer, and then clear lacquer. I left it for the summer as it was not that bad without the final cut & buff. I knew i had to finish it and the staining on the side of the tank pushed me into it.

[jgger]

Don't you just love it when you get your paint corrected and shiny?

Which pad on the buffer and which Meg's prudent did you use. It looks very nice, good joob.

[sixthwisconsin]

Don't you just love it when you get your paint corrected and shiny?

Yes!!
I didn't' realize how much better it would look once cut & buffed. I just couldn't bring myself to sand a perfectly good paint job! I'm still learning this painting stuff.

Here is what I used with the appropriate pad.

[jgger]

Good choice the 105/205 is a good combination.  The orange pad and 105 can be pretty agresive  so you may not want to use it again on that tank. The 205 with the blue or even the black pad can jewel it even better.

A good over the counter product is Meg's Ultimate compound because it has diminishing abrasives, DAT is war they call it. It breaks down and gets finer as you buff.

It can be a sickness I tell you, but it's also satisfying. Some of the detail forums have a "fix" for the HF buffers  where they change out the bearings and it makes them smooth as silk to use.

Again very nice job, congrats.

[sixthwisconsin]

Some of the detail forums have a "fix" for the HF buffers  where they change out the bearings and it makes them smooth as silk to use.

Again very nice job, congrats.

I'll have to check that out. I did disassemble the head of the buffer and repacked the grease. Their was a tiny dollop of grease in the housing and it didn't even touch either gear! They were running totally dry and it sounded like it. Its much better with a proper grease job but the bearings are still a little noisy.