Add Wetsanding to Your Services

[Shaun Carollo]

Today, a past customer called me to get out 3 scratches out of his Lexus SC430. I had seen the scratches before, ran my fingernail over them and sure enough they caught so I told him about how I knew how to wetsand, and that would be the only way that they would come out .

The customer was reluctant to go for it but I slowly persuaded him to let me go at it by explaining todays paint system (CC) and how you are leveling the surrounding clear to match the lowest point of the scratch, thereby removing it.

Anyways, I picked up some Meguiars unigrit 3000 ($28) and a Meguiars sanding block ($3) and started. Within 10 minutes I had made all my money back and still have 24 sheets to go.

The best thing about this process is, even you guys with a PC can take out the leftover sanding marks/tracers. I accomplished this with a PC 7424, maroon compounding pad, and IP, followed by FP and NXT paste.

Just dont sand near any edges!

Good luck,
Shaun

 

[Bell]

How much clear did you remove? Do you have a paint thickness meter?

Since most of todays clears are only about 2.5 mils, the UV absorbers residing in the upper 1/2 mil, OEM manufacturers only recommend no more than 3/10's of a mil be removed or you will compromise the UV absorbers which will lead to color fade and possibly clear coat failure.

When the dealer learns it was wetsanded they will not honor the paint warranty so before anyone decides to just go out and buy some wetsanding sheets and get started they may wish to re-think that. The major mistake wetsanders make is that they sand until the paint is nice and flat and then forget that they need to buff the paint, thus removing even more paint, to get out the sanding marks. Repaints can be wetsanded as they generally lay down a thicker clear coat.

 

[Superior Shine]

I recently wetsanded the tops of a 1994 cadillac to rid the finish of waterspots, bird etching and some bad micro marring.

I used a ETG to measure film thickness. I got 4.5 mils.

When the process was completed I had 4.3- 4.4 in the worst spots.

 

[Shaun Carollo]

What grit paper did you use?

How would a dealership know it was wetsanded? There are no marks whatsoever on his BLACK car, so unless they go around every inch of a car with a ptg when and IF you ever had to take it in for the paint warranty, you should be safe.

 

[Bob]

Yeah, unless you really mess it up or something I don't see how the dealers would know.
Good job Shaun.

 

[Bell]

Perhaps my post was unclear. In the EVENT of clear coat failure the dealer (manufacturer) will not honor the warranty if they find out it had been wetsanded. My point being that many detailers make wetsanding sound easy and that others should do it also but it is not for everyone, so caution should be the expressed, especially to noobs.

 

[Shaun Carollo]

Perhaps my post was unclear. In the EVENT of clear coat failure the dealer (manufacturer) will not honor the warranty if they find out it had been wetsanded. My point being that many detailers make wetsanding sound easy and that others should do it also but it is not for everyone, so caution should be the expressed, especially to noobs.

You are completely right, what I should have said was "if you are comfortable with wetsanding, then you should offer it as a service." By all means I don't mean for anybody to go practice on a customers car, it's not like I learned rotary on a customers Ferrari or even an escort.

I have removed dents from fenders, used body filler and sanded it smooth, primed/sanded, painted/sanded, cleared/sanded fenders in body shop class so I know I am comfortable with it. Sorry for the confusion.