re: Using rubbing compounds

[Jay Negrin <jmnegrin@domain.elided>]

I'm strictly an amateur at this, but I tried something on my fiance's
non-Alfa recently.  She had some parking lot scrapes, dings, and
accumulation of other paint.  (No comment on that, please.  I didn't ask
much, myself.)  I used some Dupont rubbing compound on the first
offense, and it left the metallic paint looking a bit dull in that
area.  The offending non-original paint went away, so I was a partial
success.  On the second attempt, in a different area of the car, I tried
a plastic polish after the rubbing compound.  This, under the assumption
that I may have abraded the clearcoat, if there was any.  The plastic
polish, Meguiar's I think, helped to some extent.

An assumption I made was that metallic paints these days are protected,
so to speak, by clear coat, and this can be a bit tricky to deal with in
conventional, i.e, old-fashioned, ways.

My question is, "Did I do what I think I did, or is something else at
play there?"  If your Fiat is metallic, and may have been clear-coated
(???), did you do with the finish on your car, what I did to a couple of
small areas on my fiance's Nissan?

My tuppence on that subject.

Jay Negrin
ARO So Cal
76 Alfetta GT - looking at new paint in the forseeable future. (I hope,
I hope)

----------------------

I'm attempting to "rub out" an oxidized Fiat.  It's
metallic medium green and I'm using 3M Perfect-It II
Paste Rubbing Compound - Fine Cut.  The finish does
look better for a few minutes but after the oils
either soak in or dry it again looks dull again.  Will
this go away after waxing or am I on the wrong track?
Also the results are uneven for each section that I
work on.  Does anyone have advice or know of a good
source of info on the subject on the web?

Thanks,
Jerry, San Francisco

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided