Color Sanding after a re-paint.

mgm2003

mgm2003

New member
We were gifted with damage on the hood of the Tahoe.

Either the bug/stone guard “just missedâ€� or someone decided to lob a rock about ½ the size of a brick on the hood of the Tahoe. It left a $700 blemish.



Ahhhh!!!!! :furious:





I gave the body shop instructions (and several reminders).



• Do not wash

• Do not machine buff

• Be generous with the clear, because I planned to color sand.





Process Used:



Micromesh 3200 & 4000 grit paper



Water soap mix for lube & rinse downs



Here are a few shots during the wetsanding process:





IMG_0007.jpg




IMG_0003.jpg






Polishing:



Clay



HTEC x 3 @ 1700-2000 RPM using wool polishing pads



I had a few sanding marks that the rotary couldn’t touch.

These were addressed with Power Gloss by hand (thanks to the help of my neighbor, who saw frustration on my face)



Menzerna IP @ 1700 RPM using a LC flat polishing pad.



I picked up a piece of grit on the inner 1/3 of my pad, and installed Olympic hoops over a 2 x 2 area. After a "moment", PG by hand was used to correct my mistake & another session with IP for clean up.



Z-PC @ 1400 using a LC flat green polishing pad



Z-PC @ 5 on the PC using a LC flat polishing pad pad



Protection:

Z-CS



A few after shots:





IMG_0011.jpg




IMG_0012.jpg




IMG_0014.jpg




Lessons learned:



• Keep your paper clean & rinse often.



• Inspect your work. Sanding trailers are a bi-atch to remove.

I didn’t think I would have many (if any trailers) using 4000 grit paper,

but I was wrong.



• Removing scratches by hand using PG is very effective (and a time saver).
 
Wonderful writeup. I plan on color sanding my truck soon, how long did it take you for the whole truck? Did 4000 grit remove all orange peel? How much did you have to buff or how hard was it to remove sanding marks? Where did you get your materials?





Sorry for all the questions, I just got excited about color sanding my truck.
 
Wow, the orange peel was very obvious, when you color sanded. So, did you get rid of the orange peel? Crazy deep paint, hope you can take a few full view shots :)
 
Great work John! I am glad to hear that the shop followed your requests. The hood looks stunning, and I would guess you saved quite a bit of time doing it yourself rather than correcting their mistakes.



Greg
 
Brandon1 said:
Wonderful writeup. I plan on color sanding my truck soon, how long did it take you for the whole truck? Did 4000 grit remove all orange peel? How much did you have to buff or how hard was it to remove sanding marks? Where did you get your materials?





Sorry for all the questions, I just got excited about color sanding my truck.
Click to expand...



Thank you.



I spent a solid 10 hours on the hood over 2 days, and still have a few corrections to go :)



I didn't wet sand the entire truck. It's a daily driver, and I don't want to sacrifice anymore clear that I already have through polishing.



4000 grit will remove orange peel. It's very forgiving and slow cutting.



8 of the 10 hours were spent on buffing and correcting the sanding marks (still have a few isolated scratches that I missed). It's a slow process (for me).



The sanding marks are a PITA to level. The rotary didn't touch them with HTEC or PG. PG by hand with a spritz of water, took them out fairly easy. Unfortunately I didn't try this early on, but I'll remember it the next time.



I get micromesh paper at Scientific Instrument Services (google it).
 
WOW! 10hrs on just the hood! I may have to send my truck to someone. I dont have the time or paitence to spend that kinda time on that.
 
It shouldn't take you that long to do the whole truck. I think it took me about 4-5 hours to sand my whole truck down with 2000 grit paper (ext cab silverado). Buffing and polishing took about 8-10 hours. 3M makes some nice color sanding blocks and I'd recommend getting one if you plan on doing it. They are only a few dollars and they seem to make the process go faster plus you don't run the risk of leaving knuckle indentions. I used 3M 05936 for the compounding and 05937 for the polishing. If it is factory paint you really have to watch what you are doing though. It won't take many strokes to cut through the clear.
 
Nah, it's been repainted no more than a week ago. I didnt think sanding/buffing took that long, but I have been wrong before. I always thought about 10hrs for sanding/buffing the whole truck, but thats just me.
 
Brandon1 said:
Nah, it's been repainted no more than a week ago. I didnt think sanding/buffing took that long, but I have been wrong before. I always thought about 10hrs for sanding/buffing the whole truck, but thats just me.
Click to expand...



You typically get generous layer of clear on re-paints, so you should be good to go.



As far as the amount of time you have to invest:

It all depends on 'what you can live with'. I tried to get my hood *perfect* -and still have a few spots to go.
 
looks great but in the sanding pic, were you intending on removing all orange peel? the after pic looks like its pretty much gone but the sanding pic says otherwise:confused:
 
mgm121499 said:
• Inspect your work. Sanding trailers are a bi-atch to remove.

I didn’t think I would have many (if any trailers) using 4000 grit paper,

but I was wrong.
Click to expand...

Micromesh doesnt follow ANSI standards when rating abrasives which could be why you had trouble. Their 4000 grit is roughly comparable to standard (Mirka, Megs Unigrit, etc) 1500.
 
Brandon1: Thanks man.



VaSuperShine:

I think between sanding & compounding the hood is 95% or better OP free.

I didn't want to get too aggressive with sanding and make a mistake.



GregCavi: Thanks. I'm not sure if I ended up saving any time, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome.
 
That hood looks beautiful! Time well spent. I'm sure it would take me longer.



I'm curious as to how PG works faster applied by hand than rotary? :confused:



VaSuperShine said:
looks great but in the sanding pic, were you intending on removing all orange peel? the after pic looks like its pretty much gone but the sanding pic says otherwise:confused:
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If you polish with an aggressive abrasive like PG, wouldn't that level the small "valleys" that the paper didn't get?
 
itb76 said:
If you polish with an aggressive abrasive like PG, wouldn't that level the small "valleys" that the paper didn't get?
Click to expand...





I'm really not sure never used pg, ive been sanding alot of paint for a body shop owner and any time my sanding looks the way that does, i keep sanding, then again hes paying me for very very little peel, that black look nasty wet and straight as is, i was just curious.
 
itb76 said:
That hood looks beautiful! Time well spent. I'm sure it would take me longer.



I'm curious as to how PG works faster applied by hand than rotary? :confused:



If you polish with an aggressive abrasive like PG, wouldn't that level the small "valleys" that the paper didn't get?
Click to expand...



Thank You.



Believe it or not, PG by hand leveled out the deeper sanding mark "valleys" more effectively than a few passes with the rotary.



I'm only talking about a few spots that needed to be done by hand -the rotary handled the majority of the hood with no problems.
 
bigfoot said:
Where was the impact spot? Are you sure you got hit by something? It looks like nothing happened! Great Job!
Click to expand...



LOL. Thank you.



The rock landed on the drivers side about 1/2 way up the hood, skipped a few times, and rested on the windshield wiper arm. It happened while the truck was parked. My wife brought it home to show me. I called it a few names and chucked it in the garbage:grrr
 
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