Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
Well I'm done with the first cut on my aluminum. Everything is nice and shiny. I used the brown compound and am now debating if I want to go back over with the white. My plan is to tint these panels a copper/gold color after I form them and I don't know if the extra effort is worthwhile.
I thought that I'd clean any of the buffing compound residue off with some WENOL. It didn't work too bad but it's difficult to do without leaving a smeary finish on a panel this large. I need a decent hand held buffer to get things better.
I'm sure that there are a lot of guys out there that figured out I was an idiot long ago. For those of you that weren't quite convinced, - let me describe the way I buffed out these panels.
First of all try to imagine that you're holding onto about 6 square feet of razor blade. You have a bench grinder with 8" buffing wheels on it. The bench grinder spins at 3450 RPM. That equates to around 7500 SFPM (surface feet per minute). I know that I've lost some of you already, but that's the approximate recommended speed for this work. That is roughly 85 miles per hour.
Now the trick is to keep the 6 square foot of razor blade-like material from getting snagged by the wheels that have that surface speed of 85 miles per hour as you struggle to reach every square inch of it you can. Things get really hairy when they don't go right. This isn't a job for the faint of heart. You need to be idiot enough to be willing to do it but not idiot enough to kill yourself. You'll know when I've reached that second plateau when these posts stop.
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Well I'm done with the first cut on my aluminum. Everything is nice and shiny. I used the brown compound and am now debating if I want to go back over with the white. My plan is to tint these panels a copper/gold color after I form them and I don't know if the extra effort is worthwhile.
I thought that I'd clean any of the buffing compound residue off with some WENOL. It didn't work too bad but it's difficult to do without leaving a smeary finish on a panel this large. I need a decent hand held buffer to get things better.
I'm sure that there are a lot of guys out there that figured out I was an idiot long ago. For those of you that weren't quite convinced, - let me describe the way I buffed out these panels.
First of all try to imagine that you're holding onto about 6 square feet of razor blade. You have a bench grinder with 8" buffing wheels on it. The bench grinder spins at 3450 RPM. That equates to around 7500 SFPM (surface feet per minute). I know that I've lost some of you already, but that's the approximate recommended speed for this work. That is roughly 85 miles per hour.
Now the trick is to keep the 6 square foot of razor blade-like material from getting snagged by the wheels that have that surface speed of 85 miles per hour as you struggle to reach every square inch of it you can. Things get really hairy when they don't go right. This isn't a job for the faint of heart. You need to be idiot enough to be willing to do it but not idiot enough to kill yourself. You'll know when I've reached that second plateau when these posts stop.
View attachment IMG_3795.jpg
View attachment IMG_3797.jpg
View attachment IMG_3798.jpg
