Wet Sanding steps for a newbie.

Accumulator said:
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.
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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,,:)
 
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 :o No, I sure don`t say that others oughta go about it the way I have in this regard!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
wannafbody said:
It was a mid 70`s E type so it most likely was single stage paint.
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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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