sanding clear coat

[19mustang65]

im in the proccess of sanding my clear coat, right now the cc has an orange peel texture and i want to get rid of it and im not really sure on how do sand clear coat. ill take any and all suggestions please. thanks

 

[tinman]

wet sanding oem clear coat is not really recommended. it will only lead to premature cc failure. If its a repaint and the cc is thicker then that is another issue. there is an article here re wet-sanding. you will learn a lot from it.

 

[Eliot Ness]

Here's a couple of links link that may give you some ideas, but as mentioned, proceed with caution because if you get your clear too thin it will eventually lead to clear coat failure.



http://autopia.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46148&highlight=wet+sand



http://www.autobodystore.com/rsw.htm



And welcome to Autopia 19mustang65, is this a '65 Mustang you're working on?

 

[imported_pugoman]

wet sanding oem clear coat is not really recommended. it will only lead to premature cc failure. If its a repaint and the cc is thicker then that is another issue.

Yep, OEM clear is pretty thin as it is... proceed with great caution if you decide to go ahead.

 

[19mustang65]

yeah, this is a 65 mustang im working on...my sprayed the clear on about a month ago and then i moved so i never had time to finish wet sanding. it has 3 coats of clear.

 

[19mustang65]

ive started wet sanding with 1500 grit, so far so good. any suggestions on what to do from here? should i have more clear sprayed(originaly had 3 coats before sanding) on or should i just put a compound on this to buff out the dullness?

 

[forrest@mothers]

You're a braver man than I am. It sounds like you have no experience with wetsanding, but you're doing it. I'm chicken.



I think I'd find someone to teach me before I made an expensive mistake

 

[BoxsterCharlie]

I did some with this weekend. Started with 1500, which IMHO was too aggressive, then went right to compound on the PC. Took a long time to fix just this one section I was doing.



I'd recommend switching to something finer than 1500 before compounding...I just didn't have anything available.



If I do wetsanding again, I'm going to attack with 2000 or finer and not touch 1,500...it just marrs too deep.

 

[stiege]

It's not rocket science, you just have to be careful. If you've done a good job with the 1500, keeping the panels wet, squeegying as you go along, and making sure that you don't have any debris on the paper to scratch the paint, so far, so good. The idea is to squeegy the paint to see if you still have (shiny) low spots in the orange peel. When the paint is dull with no low spots, move on.



I recommend using 2500 or 3000 as a step before compounding. You can do it wet or dry. The 3M trizact system works great, and you can use the pc or a 5 inch da sander. You can also use Meg's 3000 grit wet/dry paper.



You can use a wool pad and compound with your pc, but you'll get faster results with a rotary. After the compound step, treat the paint like you would to remove swirls.



Jason

 

[19mustang65]

so i should just put compound on it when its all smooth? not another cpl coats of clear?

 

[stiege]

Three coats of clear should be enough. You can spray more if you really like the look.



Are you spraying this car yourself??



Jason

 

[19mustang65]

Three coats of clear should be enough. You can spray more if you really like the look.



Are you spraying this car yourself??



Jason

we sprayed it ourselves originaly but i lived in cali then so we did it at my parents house, now i moved to arizona for school and and dont have anywere to do it so i gotta find sombody to do it.