About a year ago I decided to take a pair of stock F-150 tail lights and black them out to match my truck. To me they looked great although the clearcoat was "grainy". I didn't mind this much so I've been driving around with them like that since. Today however I decided, "Hey, why not polish them out and make them look as if they were professionally done". So, out came the sandpaper, FLEX, and Meg's #83.

The tail light on the left in the picture below is what it started as. The tail light on the right is what the polishing resulted in (I only did the section above the reverse light). The gloss looks great from far away but I accidently grabbed the wrong sand paper and wreaked havoc... I tried polishing out all the deeper scratches thinking I put down enough clear to get to it prior to the black paint but I noticed black starting to show up on my pads so I stopped. I tried Meg's #80, #83, and Plasti-X, all on speed 6 with an orange CCS pad.

I really want to fix my mistake but don't know the best approach for it. If I spray the "messed up" area with a few coats of clearcoat will the deeper scratches be filled in or will they still appear, just under more clearcoat? I'm pretty ticked at myself right now... Any suggestions on how to fix this?

You can see the sandpaper marks very clearly...

 

id start over almost honestly. wet sand them down and give another light coat of tint then couple good clear coats and then polish with rubbing compound first

 

yup, I'd sand them down to get the black off and redo 'em.

 

Speed 6 with orange pad with a Flex? Seems a little too fast...

Sand down, and respray. When wetsanding, use 1000, then 1500. Don't leave 1500 until all the orange peel is gone, then hit up with 2000. After that, 80 with a white pad on speed 4-5 with the Flex. What other chemicals/pads do you have?

 

I've got orange, white, green (the soft green, not the coarse one), grey, blue, red, and gold CCS pads. As far as chemicals I have Meg's #80, 82, 83, Color-X, and Plast-X. The #83 worked really well until I sanded again and ruined everything...

I was talking to a friend of mine and we decided just as you suggested to sand, re-clearcoat, sand, repeat until it's nice and smooth again then follow it up with polishing.

You mention you think speed 6 is too high. I was under the impression that for paint correction, or in this case plastic correction, you tend to use a high speed. I'm still learning and have a long ways to go so could you explain why a slightly lower speed would be better in this application?

 

Sanding them down to start over would be a headache. Lacquer/paint thinner works great with NS tint, and is actually what they recommend to remove it. Much, much easier than sanding through all those layers.


I think it looks fixable, though, before trying to start from scratch. I'd do what you are thinking about. Spraying a few more coats of clear on there will make the sanding marks less noticeable. You should be able to polish them out after a few more coats of clear. Worst case is that it doesn't work....then you can start over.

 

i agree man just throw some more clear coat on there and see if it fills it up a little. Like he said if it doesnt work then your right where your at now.