Color Sanding, Buffing, Polishing, Etc.

I just finished painting my black Trans Am - 2 coats base, 3 coats clear of PPG Deltron...now, I want to make sure I don\'t screw up the buffing...overall, the paint job came out very nice, with a few nibs here and there that I want to eliminate. I purchased Wizards Turbo Cut and Shine Master and I have a Sears 6\" variable speed buffer....can someone help me in choosing the correct pads? Wool, foam, etc? Just want to make sure I don\'t screw this up...

Also, I wet sand the panels until there\'s no \"shine\" left anywhere, is that correct?

Thanks.

wow, i think this is one for rossco RDS.

his usually the guy to talk about paint with.

but awsome that you painted your trans am yourself... got any photos?

for wetsanding, get 2000 or 2500 grit paper and a small bucket of water, and just start sanding away at the panels using a fair bit of the water. always best to just stay a couple millimetres away from the edges of panels or any sharp creases, as the paint will actually be pretty thin there, and you'd hate to break through.
but yeah, scuff VERY gently. any visible light scratches you put in now will be a pain in the ass to remove with buffing, so gentle saves alot of time really. you want the finish to look like very dull and grey, like a neat 'matt' finish. its odd to explain, but you will see the orange peel dissapearing, as it first takes away the tiny high points (this will look like tons of shiny dots over the area)... and you're obviously just trying to get down to the low points to make it even.

ANYWAY, as for buffing.. im not sure. i use foam pads on a small RO. im not sure if yours is a random orbital, or just an orbital/spinning buffer thing.. but if it just spins, make sure you dont leave it in one spot - as it might burn the paint. probably best to mask up all panel edges for this aswell.
basically, i start with a course pad with a cut (gritty polish) until any marks are gone, then polish in two steps on two lighter polishing pads.

just because it might help, the brand of pad i use is 'EDGE'. cutting with a yellow pad, and then polishing with the green and white.

righto. good luck with it. maybe best to ask a bodyshop for any help...

thanks for that,

Next question.
I finished wet sanding with 2000 and started with 1500 but I am having a hard time seeing where I have sanded and where I haven\'t. Is there a trick to this?

Ummmm, looking at different angles in the light should help. Where ever you have sanded will be really matt. You should get clear, sharp reflections off the sanded areas, as opposed to blurry ones from where the orange peel is.

yea it should just be matt black or dull area

ill see if i can get some photos up of my Galant when we did the wet sanding on the bonnet.

fastfm wrote:thanks for that,

Next question.
I finished wet sanding with 2000 and started with 1500 but I am having a hard time seeing where I have sanded and where I haven\'t. Is there a trick to this?

nono... unless i missed something, why are you about to start sanding with 1500?? 2000 is as low as id go.. sandpaper quickly takes ALOT of paint off! :S
as for seeing where youve been, upload some closeup photo's and ill describe. it should be pretty obvious where youve been though, and once you have an area down to a dull matt finish with no shiny specs left, there is no need to go any more.

i just tried to sand today with 400 grit sand paper. and yeah it took paint of fairly fast.

Yeah def dont go lower than 2000 if you just want to remove orange peel. One step of 2000 ought to be perfect, you will be surprised at how much paint it actually eats. I had half a bucket of water and was amazed at how quickly it turned red from just washing the paper.

Heres a good pic to show what has and hasn't been wet sanded. Also shows how bad the peel was on my bonnet. I buffed up that little spot in the corner as a test cause I was scared of screwing up the whole thing.

Another pic of my test.
The place where the shiny dots are needs to be sanded more, the dots are the lowest points in the orange peel.


Matt door jambs FTL.

WOW...effort...you even did the door jambs..good on ya

Uh, naaahhh I kinda didnt. I was really scared of this wet sanding bizz so I first tried to do my door jambs to see what would happen.

oh ok LOL...looks good thou

ROSSSSS

WET SAND ME BONNET PLZ

it looks like some1 has spilt some stuff on it an wont come off

ill love u long time