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  1. #16
    Fishing's Avatar
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    WOW guys some great insight here. After reading all of this I don`t think I will be doing any wet sanding on cars. But If I come across an old hood or door Im gonna give it a try. Thank you all SO much for all the help/knowledge. As a newbie it is VERY much appreciated. I believe you guys have saved me from getting into some bad situations
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  2. #17
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    an old hood or fender is a good way to learn.,,we were all newbies once too
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  3. #18

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    Quote Originally Posted by Farmall-luvr View Post
    You could sand down and reclear the entire vehicle but that gets very expensive,,you have to de trim the entire vehicle and remove all the body mounted glass to do it right...
    That.

    And many vehicles aren`t built so that they can be taken apart for a proper painting. My Audis have lots of "bonded" bits that aren`t meant to be disassembled; there`s no practical way to remove those (let alone get replacement pieces on right) and masking stuff off won`t yield oe-quality results.

    This is leaving aside those of us who highly value originality...I`ve had a scad of cars repainted over the years, including 5-figure jobs that were done right, and not *one* of those repaints was as good as the oe finish in all respects. Maybe the repaint had less orangepeel, or a more even metallic element, or "looked a mile deeper" or something else really swell, but even then there would always be some trade-off like being more fragile or something not going back together quite right. If nothing else, post-production paintwork just isn`t baked at the same temps, can`t be done once the wiring/upholstery/etc. is in the vehicle and how many remove all of that on a 21st century car? Most don`t even pull all the glass.

    Some of the trim that *must* be replaced for repainting comes through in less-than-OK condition too; I simply cannot get flawless pieces for my Audis and yep, Audi freely admits it... "sorry about your luck". We went through a lot of reorders on the A8/S8 before finally accepting that some peces pieces would never be perfect. Even *glass* No matter how much $ anybody throws at the job, some of it simply cannot be done right...and my Audis aren`t all that exotic.

    I have had... a GMC Sonoma that was a GMC on one side and a Chevy s 10 on the other just to name a few.
    Heh heh, yeah...back in `79 I prepped a Dodge Aspen that had some Plymouth Volare emblems on it. My Jag had *LOTS* of stuff that was different from one side to the other, and even some lenses installed upside-down...all oe.
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  4. #19

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    The whole "fading" and UV resistance topic can be weird...the totally trashed paint on my `93 Audi oughta fail with an hour`s exposure to UV. Lots of exposed pearlcoat layer, some exposed basecoat, even a hint of primer in places (all thanks to the original owner`s "detailer")...but I drive it all the time and it sees lots of sun, and I haven`t repolished it for many years, and....it`s not getting discernibly worse even though guys like me say it should! Meanwhile I`ve seen *numerous* cars with failed clear and/or visible fading (esp. some reds) from the clear being overly thinned. YMMV, again. But despite my good luck with that car, I`m still pretty fanatical about *NOT* thinning my clear or the ss on the Jag.

  5. #20

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    Speaking of good luck...I`ve *NEVER* done a "practice wetsand" on a scrap panel or one I`d planned to have reshot. I`ve just erred on the side of caution and/or decided not to go there if I had any qualms. Better safe than sorry IMO, but then I`m not working in a bodyshop either.

  6. #21
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    Quote Originally Posted by Accumulator View Post
    Speaking of good luck...I`ve *NEVER* done a "practice wetsand" on a scrap panel or one I`d planned to have reshot. I`ve just erred on the side of caution and/or decided not to go there if I had any qualms. Better safe than sorry IMO, but then I`m not working in a bodyshop either.
    I suggested the scrap panel idea so he could get a feel for wet sanding,I still do stuff like this on occasion for fun just to see how for I can push it or even with a buffer to see how much it takes to burn through,,,on fresh paint or plastic bumpers it`s "not much"

    I buffed a scrap hood one time betting the painter that I could get it so hot he couldn`t touch it without burning through,,I won,,he squirted it with a mist water of and it even steamed off,,,,lol,,,,but you can`t do that kinds stuff with someone elses car...or fresh paint or a bumper cover,,

  7. #22

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    Farmall-lovr- Heh heh, yeah I`m uhm, ..different...when it comes to this stuff. I never did scrap panels to learn polishing/etc. either No, I sure don`t say that others oughta go about it the way I have in this regard!

  8. #23
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    I never did to learn polishing either,,always cars,back row car lot bombers to start and moved up to the Caddys later ,, ,,in high school I took auto body vocational and we were forced to learn on panels for some reason instead of a car section,,welded a cube and painted a street sign and striped it like a dollar sign

    My first job on the floor I cut the roof off of a rollover VW Rabbit and welded a new one on.

  9. #24
    wannafbody
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    I agree with Accumulator, don`t risk wetsanding a new car. The paint is thin. And if you are doing this as a paid job, once you sand and should something go wrong, you are on the hook.

    Wetsanding is for aftermarket paint jobs. I recently had my car repainted. After 3 coats of primer on the hood it was wet sanded with a block. After basecoat and 4 coats of clear were sprayed, the paint is thick enough to wetsand. In my case, 1500, 2000 and 2500 by hand(wet) and 3000, 5000 and 8000 by random orbit(wet).

    Here`s the deal. On the front bumper cover, my painter had a small run probably a half inch long. He wetsanded it by hand and went through the clear. He pulled the front bumper cover off and repainted the whole thing.

  10. #25

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    wannafbody- Oh gee, that must`ve been frustrating for everybody...here he used lots of clear on the panels that *did NOT* require any fixing! I`d wondered about how much clear he used (on the other thread where you posted about the run), glad to see it was otherwise nice and thick.

  11. #26
    wannafbody
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    He did 4 coats of clear. He was pretty aggravated at himself for breaking through the clear and he has over 4 decades of experience. Sometimes when chasing perfection things can go sideways.

    If someone wants extra gloss on factory paint , the 3M foam sanding discs in 5000 or 8000 should work since they remove very little clear. Other than that and I think the risks outweigh the benefits.

    I watched a video of a Jaguar that was a former show car. It had been stored for decades in a climate controlled building. Shockingly, the paint was cracked and some had even flaked off. That`s paint that wasn`t subjected to UV light. Once you start thinning UV protection, at some point it`s gonna fail.

  12. #27

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    wannafbody- Any idea how old that Jag was? The older ones that were ss lacquer always cracked to some extent...eventually. I`ve been pretty lucky with mine so far, funny given all it`s paint issues.

    If it`s newer (b/c) I`d wonder whether they did some "special paintjob" on it given that it was a showcar.

  13. #28
    wannafbody
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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    It was a mid 70`s E type so it most likely was single stage paint.

  14. #29

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    Re: Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

    Quote Originally Posted by wannafbody View Post
    It was a mid 70`s E type so it most likely was single stage paint.
    If it was still in the oe paint, then yeah, it was ss lacquer and their paints from that era did indeed fail no matter what. The ss they were using by the time mine was built (`85) were better in that regard, but still problematic (my gorgeous Rhodium Metallic was so problematic..mine had numerous redos performed during construction even!..that they quit offering it the next year). Jag held out for a *long* time, didn`t go b/c even for their metallics for quite a while even after everybody else did (at least for metallic colors).

 

 
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