K7 Tank Polish (wet sand to wax)

[SA14]

New delivery of my K7. First job...make her purdy-er. Starting with the paint (I'll get to the forks later - look away - oh the horror). I restore and polish headlights for a living so I decided to use the same method except without the hard sanding. I started with a wash and clay bar, then rubbed it all down with a 3,000 trizact 3 inch disc (by hand), then 3,000 Cartec compound on a 3" rotary polisher (good for small polishing jobs like headlights and tanks) followed by a 12,000 Cartec finishing polish and finally X-Wax by Meguire's. Not 100% show quality perfect but pretty good I reckon. The photos show how the bike arrived (with 3 year old dust still on it) and after the polish.

Here's a video showing the before (after wet sanding) and a small section that I finished to show the difference. If you're scared to wet sand, get a 3,000 trizact disc from your local automotive paint supplies and have at it. It's very mild and removes a lot of small scratches.

[grog]

SA, trizact easy to use? I have some small scratches. Even a novice on paint sanding, me, wont do any damage. Just a 75mm sander tool needed?

[KiwiCol]

Looks amazing alright

[SA14]

SA, trizact easy to use? I have some small scratches. Even a novice on paint sanding, me, wont do any damage. Just a 75mm sander tool needed?

Super simple, just do it by hand, that's what I did. I only used the polisher (Milwaukee M12 BPS) for the compounding and polishing. Its just very accurate sand"paper" except on a fabric backing and computer generated exact grit that doesn't clump (as some of the cheaper brands can do) causing deep scratches. Cleanliness is extremely important as always but it'll be just like sanding. You can use the disc raw or with a backing pad like I do for a better grip, to take the finger tracks out of the equation and to make it easier to handle. I'll go out and take a picture of it and post below. Walking the doggo at the moment.

[SA14]

[Mick_J]

Well I might try the Trizact 3000 but no way am I going to stump up for the PBS.  I'll wait till Notty buys some and go round and pretend to be his best mate 

[SA14]

Well I might try the Trizact 3000 but no way am I going to stump up for the PBS.  I'll wait till Notty buys some and go round and pretend to be his best mate 

Yeah, luckily I use P85 Crystal Coating (85% SiO2) in my business so I have some lying around. You only need a few drops but I'm keen to see if it's a possible solution to the problem I read a lot of people are having in here and that's constant polishing. I use this stuff to prevent headlights from going yellow after I restore them and it really works so I'm guessing it might also work on metal. We shall find out. Happy to be the guinea pig on this.

[gsxbarmy]

Given how thin Suzuki paintwork is, I'm in awe that you were able to find enough paint and lacquer to sand and still have paint left!

Great job though 

[SA14]

Given how thin Suzuki paintwork is, I'm in awe that you were able to find enough paint and lacquer to sand and still have paint left!

Great job though 

Very very very light touch and only by hand. Just enough to introduce a slight haze (like my movie above) as it takes off a few microns and smooths out some peaks leading to a great shine. And I'll only ever do it once. Once polished my paint needs to be protected with wax (or ceramic) so it never needs to be done again.

[Notty]

Well I might try the Trizact 3000 but no way am I going to stump up for the PBS.  I'll wait till Notty buys some and go round and pretend to be his best mate 

You could sell one of your fleet Mick and buy a litre or 2 ?? 
@mjgt

[Mick_J]

Well I might try the Trizact 3000 but no way am I going to stump up for the PBS.  I'll wait till Notty buys some and go round and pretend to be his best mate 

You could sell one of your fleet Mick and buy a litre or 2 ?? 
@mjgt

Not a chance, I am actually considering buying another, just looking at what might fit the bill.