Mandatory to use wool pad after wetsanding?

E

efinirx7gt

New member
Today I wetsanded my rear bumper with 3000 grit and did the initial polish with the yellow pad and hi-temp extreme cut on the rotary. It removed the sanding marks easily with only 3 passes and I finished up with some lighter polishes. In direct sunlight the finish is flawless, no sanding marks or swirls but in the sade if I look at the reflection in the paint closely I can see that the paint is not level. I just looks like the paint is uneven from the sanding. So my questions is will the wool pad level my paint out? Any suggestions will be appreciated.
 
lex89 said:
with just 3000 grit you could've just used the pc and you probably wouldn't have lost so much paint
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True, sort of. When you are more than simply spot-sanding, even 3000 grit can make some pretty good ridges, especially if the paper and paint aren't rinsed frequently; and of course, if you push real hard, the paper is more aggressive that if you feather it lightly.



lex89, if you are seeing smooth "rows" in the paint, then you didn't completely remove the sanding grooves, so you can probably just hit it with the yellow pad again and then finish with a final polish.
 
RAG said:
True, sort of. When you are more than simply spot-sanding, even 3000 grit can make some pretty good ridges, especially if the paper and paint aren't rinsed frequently; and of course, if you push real hard, the paper is more aggressive that if you feather it lightly.



lex89, if you are seeing smooth "rows" in the paint, then you didn't completely remove the sanding grooves, so you can probably just hit it with the yellow pad again and then finish with a final polish.
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I already tried hitting it with the yellow pad, would the wool level the paint out?
 
I really don't know if the wool would do the leveling but I'd doubt it. Often compounding/polishing will make uneven paint more noticeable rather than better...I'd try to get it more level with 3000 or even finer paper rather than do it via the polisher.



My painter gave me some 4K that really does seem quite a bit milder than my usual 3K stuff. But at some point the fine papers aren't right for really leveling something that's too uneven. In fact, he was telling me I oughta get over my fear of 1500 and use that to do the initial leveling, he insists it'll work out better in the long run and that I'm messing up by only using very fine papers (with the expectation that I can just sand longer).



FWIW, I'm for more accepting of imperfections on plastic bumper covers, it's much harder to get things just right compared to metal panels. Paint often lies differently on plastic and it seems like you sometimes just can't get it the way you want no matter what you do. Heh heh, I know that living with it is not the way you want to go though ;)
 
Accumulator said:
I really don't know if the wool would do the leveling but I'd doubt it. Often compounding/polishing will make uneven paint more noticeable rather than better...I'd try to get it more level with 3000 or even finer paper rather than do it via the polisher.



My painter gave me some 4K that really does seem quite a bit milder than my usual 3K stuff. But at some point the fine papers aren't right for really leveling something that's too uneven. In fact, he was telling me I oughta get over my fear of 1500 and use that to do the initial leveling, he insists it'll work out better in the long run and that I'm messing up by only using very fine papers (with the expectation that I can just sand longer).



FWIW, I'm for more accepting of imperfections on plastic bumper covers, it's much harder to get things just right compared to metal panels. Paint often lies differently on plastic and it seems like you sometimes just can't get it the way you want no matter what you do. Heh heh, I know that living with it is not the way you want to go though ;)
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Thanks accumulator for going in depth with my question. I agree with you on the plastic bumper vs the metal panels. I've done plenty of touch ups on metal panels and it comes out perfect but for some reason on the bumper it just doesn't want to work with me. I guess I'll try to get some 4k grit and see if it levels it down.
 
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