would anyone recommend a certain brand of polish to use on a carbon fiber hood? i want mine to keep its luster -ALAP-

thx

 

damn, i wanna know too. i just got a cf hood from jdmhondaparts and i wanna know how to keep it nice. SOMEONE REPLY !!!

 

just go to your local bodyshop and let them put a layer of clear coat on it. wax it with mother's or something every now and then. the more the better.

 

can you use wax without putting a layer of clear coat on it? About how much would a clear coat cost anyway?

 

I'd like to know, too.

 

Most c/f hoods nowadays come with a clearcoat, you can protect it with regular car wax. I use Meguires carnuba, works great.

 

I recommend 3M or Meguiars Mirror Glaze.

 

My cf hood is looking like crap, it is developing tons of swirl marks and scratches, what can I do about that?

 

most people use boat/marine wax because the hood is gelcoated most times, dont go out and do it until someone confirms this

 

i suggest a nice coat of PPG paint, a color that matches the rest of the car, thats the only way a CF hood will look and stay nice.

 

I recommend not listening to MTK

 

I second that recommendation

 

I just use any wax I got around the house. It will probably fade on me someday so I plan to just paint it when I save enough $.

 

is the vis hood cleared or gelcoated

 

all the good hoods have a clear gel coat not a clearcoat that is applied after the hood is made.

if the clear coat is applied after the hood is made it is usually to hide the flaws that occured during the manufacturing process. like vis' hoods which are made overseas are sprayed with a clear acrylic which turns yellow and fades. that is why you wax residue on the edges of the hoods when you get them from VIS or who ever distributed them. yea they look good at first but if you want your hood to last a long time get a hood that only has clear gelcoat.

but you still have to maintain both types of hood. dont get me wrong you can't neglect the hood and expect it to last forever.

 

yeah.. good advice fellas.. im just tryin to restore beauty.. and get rid of mismatched body panels. sorry for giving my recommendation.

 

Why don't you guys just listen to Andy from bknw, he makes hoods, he should know.

 

polish? ummmm body color paint then just wash it like the rest of the car

 

I use megiuars polish. It works great and keeps all the swirls away. I have a VIS hood and have had it for about 6 months. It has not faded one bit and has not one swirl, scratch or mark on it. Looks freaking awesome. It also has rolled edges and fite perfect. I am very happy with my VIS. As far as painting carbon fiber i guess it can be ok. Depends on the car. I really like the look of my carbon lip and hood with the dark CTR headlights on a red car. Just makes it look very aggresive and mean, but whatever floats your boat.

 

I got your back bud.

Match it, unless the color of your car "matches."

 

wax it up!!

 

You don't need no miracle wax. What I recommended is what I have found in the past 4 years to work well with CF hoods. I have tried a lot of waxes out there and 3m and Meguiars seems to work really well. I always recommend to my customers to not only wax there hoods every 2 weeks, but to also buff it every 2 months.

Also no one clearcoats there hoods except us. It is a pain in the butt process and not as easy and very labor intensive. We only do that to our deluxe line of hoods. Not only does the hood have a deeper gloss, but a lot more depth. You can easily tell the differnence between a gel coat and clear coat usually by application.

 

NO ONE? Spoon? VIS? FiberImages? Etc.?

I find that a little hard to believe since you are self-promoting your own product.

My last hood was clearcoated and it was confirmed by my bodyshop, Body Pros, in Garden Grove California.

 

I sell many different types of c/f hoods every day at my job.One of the most important things to look for is if the hood is UV coated if it isn't it will start fading and turning a dull whiteish color.Mega Ek if you bought your hood from body pros chances are thats probably one of my hoods wally and them always get hoods off of us (nice hood)

 

Nope VIS is not clearcoated, Fiber Images is not clearcoated, and I know for a fact the Spoon hood is not clearcoated. I have been doing this for 4 years, and I have seen almost every hood worth looking at. I even know the manuf. overseas that make the hoods for 90 percent of the companies here in the states. All of them use some form of gel coat, and that is all. I have tried a lot of gel coats and nothing will compare to the look of a urethane based clear coat on top of a hood. It's almost like night and day. I don't need to self promote my own products, I have plenty of honda-tech customers that will back me up....and I am also just stating FACTS. Out of all those companies I have been one of the only ones that come on the boards and tell it how it is. Do you see FI, VIS on these boards. I don't see Chris the owner of VIS on here posting and helping you out and telling you anything. Albert from FI isn't here. My opinions are pretty much just true fact. I actually have 4 of my DELUXE Hoods made. 2 of them have a UV Protected Gel Coat, and the other 2 have a Urethane Based Clear Coat. If you saw them side by side you could tell the difference. I could also show you the amount of time it takes to clearcoat a hood correctly, the labor involved as well as material cost. The materials and labor alone cost more than your average CF Hood even if it was made overseas with there labor rates.


[Modified by BodyKits NW, 12:47 PM 1/31/2003]