Just amazing what some Wet Sanding can do

[someotherguy]

There are a couple people that I believe shouldn't be here. We probably know who they are...

(raises hand) me me me!! yes! Finally getting the recognition I deserve.

Richard

 

[Caman96]

Good info don’t come cheap.

 

[Boots97]

(raises hand) me me me!! yes! Finally getting the recognition I deserve.

Richard

Not quite what I meant lol. But seriously, I'm surprised how much older people are than me on this forum. I'm 21 and going to be 22 in July and a sizable portion of users on here are 2-3x my age. I thought this forum would be a bunch of younger people like myself, but am surprised that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[Caman96]

Not quite what I meant lol. But seriously, I'm surprised how much older people are than me on this forum. I'm 21 and going to be 22 in July and a sizable portion of users on here are 2-3x my age. I thought this forum would be a bunch of younger people like myself, but am surprised that doesn't seem to be the case.

When I was 21 we only had reality. No forums, Facebook, Tik Tok, Snap Ch*t…

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

When I was 21 we only had reality. No forums, Facebook, Tik Tok, Snap Ch*t…

Yeah, when I was 21, all we had was the public library and Hot Rod magazine.

 

[Caman96]

Yeah, when I was 21, all we had was the public library and Hot Rod magazine.

What about the magazines you found on the side of the road?

 

[someotherguy]

What about the magazines you found on the side of the road?

When I was about 13 or 14 I found one on the city bus, magazine was called "Sensuous Sisters" (yeah I remember ALL KINDS of pointless information) - I'd make some joke about wet sanding but this is a family joint

Richard

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Not quite what I meant lol. But seriously, I'm surprised how much older people are than me on this forum. I'm 21 and going to be 22 in July and a sizable portion of users on here are 2-3x my age. I thought this forum would be a bunch of younger people like myself, but am surprised that doesn't seem to be the case.

Yup there's a lot of 50- something's on here....I resemble that remark!

 

[Boots97]

Update #1:

So I got my truck back from the shop yesterday and I finished up wet sanding all the headlights. I clear coated all the headlights and taillights with Meguiar's headlight coating suggested by @Caman96 and they're already looking great! The coating also has kind of an artificial fruity smell to it as well.

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Just got to wait 24 hours to let it set. We're in a heatwave in my area rn and one nice thing about it being 86F is how quick the layers of clear coat dry.

 

[Road Trip]

Not quite what I meant lol. But seriously, I'm surprised how much older people are than me on this forum. I'm 21 and going to be 22 in July and a sizable portion of users on here are 2-3x my age. I thought this forum would be a bunch of younger people like myself, but am surprised that doesn't seem to be the case.

Speaking only for myself, physically I'm close to 3x your age, but
my outlook on life seems to be frozen right around when I became
old enough to vote? (Undiagnosed adrenaline junkie, didn't
understand why people thought Rainman was all that unusual, etc. :0)

With any luck at all you will also get to refuse to fit into whatever stereotype
that others assign whatever age you (get to) attain. You're only issued a
single, contiguous experience of finite duration, so be sure to get your money's worth!

****

Seriously, I thought I'd share how I polish headlights simply as another data point.
With frugality forced upon me through no fault of my own, :0) when the OEMs
switched from glass to plastic I was one of the first to experiment on what I
had in place vs. just buying new replacements at the stealership.

Here's the very first thing I did to my newly acquired chore truck when it
first followed me home:

Polished on Passenger side vs 'as purchased' on Driver's side.
Bright eyes for ~50 cents worth of materials helps make truck 1st among equals (In the '20+ year old chore truck still in service on Syracuse streets' category)

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Used 2000 grit wet-sanding (by hand) followed by Meguiar's 110. (will optically clear all the way to 1500 grit scratches) Note: The more you work it, the finer
it breaks down. A lot of times it's the only polish you need. Going for the Gold, I followed up with the 210 for the last 0.5% improvement. Then wax. That's it!

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By the way, when you are first starting out the price of admission for the Makita variable-speed rotary buffer
(or equivalent) may seem exorbitant, but it paid for itself just in how much precious polish was no longer
flung all over my tool boxes (and shirt) because it has such a decent low-speed start.
(And easy speed change while running.)

Also, in terms of price-per-use I don't have an exact number, but after 12+ years of service I think I've got
it down to maybe 25 cents per use? So, I guess the total cost of bringing both headlights back is maybe
75 cents, not 50 as first stated. :0)

Total time expended? 8-10 minutes total, per each. NOTE: I used to make all this a really complicated multi-step
thing, but over time I kept trying to simplify it as much as possible. And depending upon how much sunburn
the lights get afterwards, they usually look good long enough that I might touch them up annually. Well worth it,
just for the bright eyes look alone -- makes it really stand out from all the rest of the beat down/ignored chore
trucks around here.

FWIW -- just another data point in the GMT400 info constellation...

Buff it Up! (This is how I sing this song when buffing.)