Pics of my E93 M3 post KDS wet sand and paint refurbishment
Discussion
Westy Pre-Lit said:
Mr Whippy said:
I made it clear on the very next post I didn't mean replicate your process, just do *something* to improve what they let out.
If enough people refused to purchase the cars then they would have no choice but improve the paint finish. However i'd hazard a guess that the general Joe Bloggs doesn't understand or have a clue what they should be getting in a way of a finish. As such they are happy with a paint finish that the more discerning person finds appalling. They probably have an attitude...well it's a BMW, it's £50000+ so all is good. A lot of their cars are probably company owned anyway, so i very much doubt paint finish is of high importance. If they are getting away with it and it's cheap for them why bother?Is that Kelly's fault that he is able to produce a top quality show standard finish and make a living from it ?
Not Kelly's fault at all. Did I say it was? Not many manufacturers will aim for that level of finish, while some customers will want that on their car, so there will always be a business model for it. BMW just give him even more business by being so lazy with their clears it seems
Westy Pre-Lit said:
Mr Whippy said:
Also, I still believe that orange peel under the clear is a problem area that is near impossible to resolve, but it is clear in your examples that it is clearcoat orange peel that is the enemy on some very modern finishes, especially BMW's!
Am i missing something here?You say "I still believe that orange peel under the clear is a problem area that is near impossible to resolve"
But then you say "but it is clear in your examples that it is clearcoat orange peel that is the enemy on some very modern finishes"
So why do you still believe the problem is under the clear.
maybe I've misunderstood something because I'm getting lost now LOL.Kelly has clearly demonstrated in the pics that he has achieved a finish without even going though the lacquer. So where's the problem ?
Do i sense a bit of back tracking ?
Unfortunately primers and bases can suffer from orange peel too. All orange peel is, is a description of texture, it isn't localised to clear coats.
So yes, orange peel UNDER the clear is still possible. Whether it is deemed a problem or not is another thing. Almost any metallic finish has a very fine orange peel to the base as the final flash off is a dusting coat (not flatted)
Sometimes that can be quite noticeable, and not something you can correct easily.
YES, orange peel in modern clear coats is clearly a big problem, as this BMW M3 exhibited it massively.
I don't believe, nor ever did, that the orange peel/roughness was under the lacquer in this example, I was just pointing out that orange peel isn't exclusively found in clear coats to be flattened to a mirror finish. It can also be found UNDER the lacquer where it can't be corrected as easily (ie, respray is likely needed)
I am back tracking on my point (well, I did after my first post when Kelly got a bit angry) about how easily you could rectify the issues on the painting line at BMW. I said you could match the finish, when I meant to say you could ADD at least *some* process to improve the levels of flatness enough to make what we saw in the 'before' pictures of the M3 a lot less noticeable, to the point I for instance, wouldn't want it fixing.
KDS can offer perfect top-coat flatness, great... if that is where the defects are, or the ones you care about.
Dave
Yep i painted my beetle....well i helped anyway and it was painted in cellulose with many coats.
IIRC all we did was give it a quick clean with thinners on each coat of paint.
The only cutting back was once we had finished the top lacquer to get a flat finish. This was done by hand and it took me bloody ages as i had no money at the time to do it properly. It was that hard i finally gave up bothering but that's another story.
Who gives a toss how orange peely the undercoats are ( if they are), the peaks can have the height of Mount bleeding Everest for all I care, so long as the top coat is flat and fills the troughs that is what matters.
On that note i give up.
IIRC all we did was give it a quick clean with thinners on each coat of paint.
The only cutting back was once we had finished the top lacquer to get a flat finish. This was done by hand and it took me bloody ages as i had no money at the time to do it properly. It was that hard i finally gave up bothering but that's another story.
Who gives a toss how orange peely the undercoats are ( if they are), the peaks can have the height of Mount bleeding Everest for all I care, so long as the top coat is flat and fills the troughs that is what matters.
On that note i give up.
Edited by Westy Pre-Lit on Monday 4th May 18:01
Wow thats some polish he uses.
Can I buy it from Halfords?
Only joking Hi Kelly.
Not long till my cars in to you. Then I wil have to start cleaning it afterwards as cant be bothered at the moment.
Brand new M3 E93 and with FREE Swirl and buffer marks what more can you ask for.
Can I buy it from Halfords?
Only joking Hi Kelly.
Not long till my cars in to you. Then I wil have to start cleaning it afterwards as cant be bothered at the moment.
Brand new M3 E93 and with FREE Swirl and buffer marks what more can you ask for.
Edited by mccltd on Tuesday 5th May 21:41
Thought I should say that my friend DAN has decided to get his E92 M3 done through Kelly!
He saw my car at a friend's wedding on Saturday, asked me who done the work and had already booked his car in for the works! (Due to be completed in July).
Dan's car has been in a shocking state since he got it, BMW did some paint damage and it's been detailed by a local detailer, who's well-respected and actually pretty good. However, the swirl patterns are still evident and this has Dan pretty annoyed.
He's given Kelly the job of getting his P&J upto standard and I'm sure he won't be disappointed. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post the pictures of this car once it's done, Kelly. DAN's car is a sort of purpley black and should look absolutely fantastic when it's finished, it'll also sound good as DAN tells me he's going to have a new exhaust fitted!
He saw my car at a friend's wedding on Saturday, asked me who done the work and had already booked his car in for the works! (Due to be completed in July).
Dan's car has been in a shocking state since he got it, BMW did some paint damage and it's been detailed by a local detailer, who's well-respected and actually pretty good. However, the swirl patterns are still evident and this has Dan pretty annoyed.
He's given Kelly the job of getting his P&J upto standard and I'm sure he won't be disappointed. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post the pictures of this car once it's done, Kelly. DAN's car is a sort of purpley black and should look absolutely fantastic when it's finished, it'll also sound good as DAN tells me he's going to have a new exhaust fitted!
mccltd said:
Brand new M3 E93 and with FREE Swirl and buffer marks what more can you ask for.
It sounds like BMW are trying to rectify this orange peel themselves, badly, leaving the cars with orange peel lacquer AND swirls and buffer marks.Interesting that BMW seem to do that so badly too. You'd think if they were going to set to work on a £50,000+ car they would do some reading/practice on their process!
Goes from bad to worse doesn't it
Mr Whippy said:
mccltd said:
Brand new M3 E93 and with FREE Swirl and buffer marks what more can you ask for.
It sounds like BMW are trying to rectify this orange peel themselves, badly, leaving the cars with orange peel lacquer AND swirls and buffer marks.Interesting that BMW seem to do that so badly too. You'd think if they were going to set to work on a £50,000+ car they would do some reading/practice on their process!
Goes from bad to worse doesn't it
J-P said:
Mr Whippy said:
mccltd said:
Brand new M3 E93 and with FREE Swirl and buffer marks what more can you ask for.
It sounds like BMW are trying to rectify this orange peel themselves, badly, leaving the cars with orange peel lacquer AND swirls and buffer marks.Interesting that BMW seem to do that so badly too. You'd think if they were going to set to work on a £50,000+ car they would do some reading/practice on their process!
Goes from bad to worse doesn't it
This is only a couple of days old and orignally came to me to buy the best products and some training on how not to put swirls into dark coloured paint , so when i walked out to show the customer how swirls free his paint using a 3M sun lamp as it was a overcast day i found swirls all over the entire car !
MCCLtd then came back with the car now 8 days old when it was sunny so i could take some photos to send to the dealership
And here is J-P's friends car a year old after a dealership and professional detailer tried having a go at the paint at different times here is some of the lovely handy work that can be seen for all to see
these photos are clear indication of bad machine polishing correction technique leaving the clear signs of such process known as holigrams !
And here is the orange peel finish that comes as standard on late bmw's
this is the same car as the buffer marks left by machine correction above so now has even more problems than just orange peel
Rear bumper
As you can see in this photo i now have deep scratches , orange peel and buffer marks and less paint (laquer) to play with than J-P's car if left alone in the first place
Drivers rear wing
Passenger C pillar
bonnet
and a picture of the customer with his hand on the drivers door glass with taking a photo of the top part of the rear wing , nice
Eeek, some terrifying stuff there for new £50,000 cars!
I had a look at my Z4 a little more closely and it is fairly orange peely. My partners 2000 Ford Cougar roof on the other hand was very very good. I viewed telephone wire reflection in the bonnet, on mine it was a bit diffused/wavy, on the Cougar it was almost perfectly straight/flat.
Starting to notice my Z4's bobbly top-coat now
b
ks 
I had a look at my Z4 a little more closely and it is fairly orange peely. My partners 2000 Ford Cougar roof on the other hand was very very good. I viewed telephone wire reflection in the bonnet, on mine it was a bit diffused/wavy, on the Cougar it was almost perfectly straight/flat.
Starting to notice my Z4's bobbly top-coat now
b
ks This is how bad the orange peel was on my BMW before Kelly wetsanded it.
And after......
The car will be going back to KDS soon as I have setup a maintenance package with Kelly, every six months he very lightly machine polishes it to remove any swirls and to apply a few more coats of sealant/wax to bring it back to that amazing finish.
And after......
The car will be going back to KDS soon as I have setup a maintenance package with Kelly, every six months he very lightly machine polishes it to remove any swirls and to apply a few more coats of sealant/wax to bring it back to that amazing finish.
Mr Whippy said:
Westy Pre-Lit said:
Mr Whippy said:
I've been getting into wet painting
KDS said:
i been wet sanding for over 17 years
I wet sanded my Tornado IDS to get rid of the brush lines on the 1:72 scale model I did
Dave
Started this in 1991-1992 and finish in 1994 and since have done loads of re-paint wet sand and wet sand only
from this as standard
during
during
engine bay painted along with shell
then paint panels next
Doors after paint and left door has been wet sanded the right door is waiting for such process
rear quarter panel wet sanded
Tail gate halfway through wet sand on top surface
bumper before wet sand
bumper during wet sand
All finished painted, wet sand and detailed some 17 years ago before the fashionable word detailing was around , look at the lovely MGBgt and Montego in the background in for insurance work !!!!
Where's the pics of your Tornado you wet sanded dave
Hehe, that Tornado went up in smoke with estese rockets where the engines were meant to be (around age 10 I got heavily into blowing things up)
That work is fantastic. Did you flat the base coat before the lacquer went on at all?
Looks good though, the lacquer on that bumper looks flat enough *before* you started on it... that is dedication to then attack it to get that extra bit from it! (attacking those BMW's seems a no-brainer in comparison, but that Lancia looked good before to me )
Dave
That work is fantastic. Did you flat the base coat before the lacquer went on at all?
Looks good though, the lacquer on that bumper looks flat enough *before* you started on it... that is dedication to then attack it to get that extra bit from it! (attacking those BMW's seems a no-brainer in comparison, but that Lancia looked good before to me
)Dave
rsstman said:
where could i get a bodyshop for some paintwork that would pay thyat much attention to detail?
Why get respray? Why not ask Kelly to take a look at your car and ask his expert opinion on whether his wet sand and paint refurb process would work on your car? If you absolutely need a respray, Kelly knows somebody who'll do that work for you, then give the car to Kelly to give it the ultimate finish!Money no object, that's what I'd do with my car!!!
N-N said:
wtf is orange peel..? i dont want this new M3 now..
If you look at ANY new car closely (apart from an Aston), you'll notice that the paint has a dimpled effect that looks a bit like orange peel - there are some photos of this effect on this post.Pretty much all new cars have it even Audis, Mercs etc, the difference with the BMW cars is that this effect is pretty pronounced i.e worse than most other manufacturers. To be honest it's the sort of thing that most people don't notice but if you're fussy (like me) then once you have noticed, it just gets on your nerves for all time!
I paid Kelly from KDS to reduce the effect of the orange peel and I'm now over-the-moon with the paint finish on my car but it's not a cheap process. I understand that on a new car BMW will contribute towards having the work done, the problem for you is that you're in Scotland and will have to find somebody who can do this work up there. There are very few people in the country with the necessary skill and dilligence to do this sort of work, so I'd consider leaving your car with Kelly for a couple of weeks down south anyway, if you decide that a) you still want an M3 and b) the orange peel bugs you. If you're not bothered by the paint finish, then just enjoy the car as it is.
I think that my M3 is one of the best cars on the road, subtle, fast, awesome handling. Not as flash as a supercar but able to give most supercars a fright! I totally love it and now that the paint looks right, I think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
Don't let the paintwork put you off the car; the way it looks is important (to me anyway) but the way it drives is far more important and in this respect it's second to none IMHO.
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