new paint - wet sand polish ?

David Fermani said:
..my point is that there's no need to wait to sand fresh, unbaked paint.....



That's been my experience as well. The fresher it is the easier it'll cut, so you need to be a bit more careful when it hasn't finished curing/outgassing, but I've sanded fairly fresh repaints and people sand fresh touchups all the time.



The painters who work on my vehicles wetsand as needed shortly after the paint dries, never been a problem.



I *have* had one or two cases where fresh/unbaked paint was incredibly soft, and sanding that woulda lead to problems (just using the PC on it caused problems!) but that's not all that common IME.



amgtorre- I'll point out that if you have the painter do this work then *he's* 100% responsible for how things turn out. Otherwise he might say you messed up his wonderful work ;) Taking off too much clear could cause problems down the road, problems that won't be immediately apparent.
 
amgtorre said:
and the vehicle I can use for practice is this one :

ago102008Huaxtla043.jpg



Awesome shot, and it takes balls to park so close to the end. :kewlpics
 
You can use a permanent marker and draw a line on the paint. The marker will o into the orange peel. Wetsand until the permanent marker is gone. This is one way to make sure you don't sand too far. Good luck to you.





John
 
Good advice John. Probably a little difficult to see your marker on black, but still is a great idea. I'll have to try that.
 
well, if I post it here is because I'll polish the car myself,

I doubt the painter will have the patience and dedication to

make it look really good.



here is a practice section in the hood of the cherokee

I'll follow by practice on a vrtical panel



the leon will be a challenge, only the hood has a small flat area, the rest of the car is all rounded



anyway here is the practice wiht the jeep



initial condition

100_3147.jpg




section sanded with grit 2000, by hand no sanding block

100_3148.jpg




after M#95 and cutting pad, I took 3 tries, until I got close to 2000 rpm I got rid of the sanding marks

100_3149.jpg




after M#82 and finishing pad

100_3150.jpg




I'll need to check under daylight , but I think if it looks ok with the flourecent light it will also in the sun



we'll see
 
amgtorre said:
..I'll need to check under daylight , but I think if it looks ok with the flourecent light it will also in the sun



we'll see



Not to sound all critical, but you might want to reconsider the above. I find fluorescent lighting to be *so* forgiving that only the very worst flaws are visible....I simply cannot evaluate paint under it because all my "befores" look close to perfect in that lighting. See how it looks in the sun.



For inspection indoors, I do a *lot* better with *incandescent* lights, which show a zillion times more flaws than any fluorescents ;)
 
Its not that bad really. it just needs a good sanding! p.s. if you never have done it don't attempt to!! pay someone to do it right! good luck!
 
pb_foots said:
Nice! Pretty dramatic improvement, what was your process?



turtle wax polish and lots of elbow grease ... j/k ! ;)



The steps were:

wet sand 2000 followed by 2500 (3m paper)

wool + m95 @1800rpm

yellow polishing pad + m82 @1500rpm (I wanted M83 but I'm till waiting for it)

Beige finishing pad +m82 @1000rpm

One grand Blitz Carnauba
 
Ask the painter hos much clear is on there, if he says 2, I honestly wouldn't wetsand.

If there's 3, block the peel with 1500. Don't be too aggressive, and tape off edges. And don't try to completely get it flat (unless it's a show car)
 
amgtorre- Glad it's turning out so well!



How do you like the 3M paper? I've heard that some of their current stuff is a lot better than the (older) 3M paper that I'm always bashing, not that it'd probably be a huge issue with the wool/M95 combo any how....
 
Looking good!



You're right about the painter not having the patience (and now-how) to cut

and buff. It is very time consuming as most here already know. This *part

of the refinishing process is where shops loose quite a lot. Spending 4+ hours

or for a quick cut-n-buff for a hood is costly (imagine an entire vehicle).

And so, most shops, don't spend the hours involved and leave it as is.



Many ASSume that the painter should be able to shoot the paint like "glass"

with zero orange peel and zero nibs. This, however, can nearly be done but

it takes a LOT more preparation than most shops are willing/can do. And

i will include my shop in this category as well. Yah, most shops wont admit

to this but i do because it's a huge reality for 99% of body shops regardless

of size, equipment, training, etc... BUT, most of my important paint jobs

are good (no swirls and minimal peel). :)



Accumulator, 3M sand papers are fine; doesn't last as long as Nikkens or

Eagle (nor consistent) but they do the job.
 
Flashtime said:
Accumulator, 3M sand papers are fine; doesn't last as long as Nikkens or Eagle (nor consistent) but they do the job.



Ah, OK. They must've changed 'em since back when I got mine.
 
Accumulator said:
amgtorre- Glad it's turning out so well!



How do you like the 3M paper? I've heard that some of their current stuff is a lot better than the (older) 3M paper that I'm always bashing, not that it'd probably be a huge issue with the wool/M95 combo any how....



I liked it better than the sanding paper sold by Meguiars



it does last less, altough, I had less tracers with 3M
 
:shocked after a couple of days the hood in the car looked like this ...

100_3225.jpg


holy cow!



so I tried again ... after 1 pass with wool and M95 looks perfect , right?

100_3229.jpg




but this time I washed after each pass :idea

I can see how the wool+ m95 removed the sanding marks, but left some buffer marks and slightly hazed

then I did Marron cutting pad +m95, it changed the buffing marks and improved the brightness of the finish

finally got some M83/polishingpad this removed the hazing left by the cutting compund but still left some buffer marks, much finner than before

Finally M82 and finishing pad for a much better looking finish



Here is pic on how it looked in the end, the picture is not great, it is a bit overexposed so defects are more apparent with the poor light I'm using, a bit out of focus as well, autofocus plain did not like to take a picture of this, so I did adjust it manually which I didn't do to well either

100_3233.jpg




so ... this is still work in progress



I need to get me a decent lamp, the one I'm using does not help me during the day, and I end up with surprises like this. also at night there is the noise in the neighborhood plus I got desperate much quicker, last night I only did 1/3 of the hood.
 
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