Miata Mailing List: June 1999, Message #233

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First, let me tell you, I am a smart cookie when we are talking Quantum
Physics or Analytic Geometry. I was a certified tutor for the Texas
Education Agency for three years in Algebra, having taken it once when I
was in seventh grade. No dummy.  However, I am one of "those" people who
will stand outside your window, while it's raining, and wonder why you
want me to come inside out of it...

Here goes.
My little- teeny- area that you have to shoot to get your key into the
lock on the trunk (while you have groceries, luggage...etc, etc...) is
very scratched up from me and the previous owner. So...smart Brandi
decides to take a COPPER brush to it...I don't know why. (It WAS a
detailing brush, ya know...maybe for the engine, but *detailing* is what
it is for...) Then, to add insult to injury, I tried to use spot paint
on top of the gray smudges. Uh-uh...globs of WHITE paint were screaming
"bad paint job!" So...on top of that, I take my 1500 grit SAND
paper...you know the rest.
I thought, "It looks like crap, what do I have to lose?"
I used a white paper towel soaked with lacquer thinner to thin out the
spot paint. Well...I have this GLORIOUS new white finish on the trunk
area...all the gray marks are gone; all of the spot paint is gone ,
also, and it is as shiny as the other side of the trunk area that is
untouched. Same gloss. I know it isn't that the lacquer thinner cleaned
off grime that was on the car, because as anyone who met me at Miata '99
can attest to, I can TRUTHFULLY say that I have the cleanest car-
probably in the world. No joke. I am a little, uh, obsessive, no?

Anyway...What happened? Did being an idiot pay off? Or will the paint
curl in the next few hours, and I would have saved $100 X 10^10 dollars
on a paint job had I not tried to play body shop tech?

Any thoughts on this?
Don't flame me for being long or whatever...
After all only YOU have the power to DELETE. <nudge, nudge>   :)
:)
Brandi in "Happy Birthday to Me" Dallas
Please forward all cash gifts to your local SPCA ;)