Well, we finally got my car painted. I picked a dark silver out of a 2004 GM book and it looks great. Most of the car came out pretty nice, but the hood has a ton of orangepeel.

What grit sandpaper do I start sanding the clear with, and what do I graduate to? Also, what sort of rubbing compound do you guys recommend using?

Thanks for the help! I'll post pictures as soon as I'm done, along with a summary of the work I've done on the car in the past few years.

Jerry

 

you can start with wetsanding with 1500 or 2000

 

start with 1000 grit.. thats THOUSAND grit.. not hundred.

work your way up to 1500-2000

but be CAREFUL

 

use a rubber squeegee like what they give you at the auto paint store to smear nitrostan on and squeegee as you wet sand. about 30% of the orangepeel should still be visible as shiny spots. its a waste of time and top coat to totally level out the paint before compounding .

-jim

 

Start with 1000, then to 1500 and 2000. Use plenty of water and keep away from the edges. Worked good for me.

 

 

A small amout of dish soap in a bucket of water helps. I also used a paint stir stcik, choped to about 6 inches with rounded corners as a sanding block, works great ! Keep a hose near by to rinse the area frequently.
I'd go up to 2500 grit and you won't need a compound just a good polish ! 3M perfect II will do you right

 

I agree with using as fine a paper you can, but if you have as you say "a ton of orage peel" you may want to save yourself some time and effort by starting with 800 or even 600 hundred to knock most of it down, then work your way up..

 

I agree, if the OP is REAL bad. The coarser stuff will flatten rather than glide over the bumps resulting in a flatter surface when complete.

Larry

 

I didnt even use sandpaper much on my touchups.

I used. maguires medium cut clean, then fine cut clean then show glaze all using a buffer.

if your not careful the medium cut will remove too much of the paint.

 

If the car wasn't sanded between clear coats, I would start very lightly with 1600 grit. Especially if you have never done this before. If you sand through the clear coat, kiss your new paint job goodbye . Stay away from the sharp corners and peaks. After that polish with a good polish made for hand polishing or for machine. Then finish off with a good glaze polish (Liquid Ebony is pretty good). Again go slow.

Good Luck

 

Use 1200 wet and dry with plenty of water, like a running hose. Don't use a block, just use your hand but keep it FLAT, don't use your fingertips. Don't go forward and back inline with your fingers as you'll leave grooves in it. Rub the whole time in a circular motion.

Once you've cut the whole thing to your satisfaction, you'll need to use a quality buffing compound. Maybe call a decent panel shop near you and ask what they use. When you've buffed the car to your satisfaction, give it a coat of wax - something containing Carnuba wax.

Sounds easy, but it is a ton of work and will take a while to do properly. The only easy bit is going through the clear on corners!!

Have fun...

 

I just did a cut and buff on my hood. It was repainted in laquer about 8 years ago but never buffed out. It looked pretty good but not as nice as the rest of the car if you know what I mean. It had a lot of tiny bubbles in the clear and some of the sanding scratches were starting to shrink and show through.

I started with 2000 grit paper. 2 pieces - one on a rubber block, one loose for hand work. Soak the paper in a bucket of water with a little soap in it for about 15 minutes. Get some of that blue easy release painters masking tape and put it on the edges and the sharp body peaks. This prevents sanding these areas too thin. Work the block on the flatter areas and use the loose paper on the curvy parts. Rinse frequently and use a squegee to wipe the water off and check your work. After most of the "shiny" is gone, I took off the tape and hit the hood with Meguires medium cut. Then switched pads and went to fine cut. Switched pads again and went to Meguires swirl remover. It should look sweet and "wet" by now. Used some No.7 show car glaze and followed it with a coat of wax. GRRREAT! Only problem is now the rest of the car needs a rub too.

STAY AWAY FROM USING THE EDGE OF THE BUFFER or you WILL burn the paint

-Mark.

 

 

 

Hello, not a expert but heres how my painter (Mark) and I did the color sanding on my car. Used a water hose with a piece of tygon tubing clamped to a garden hose. The tubing is soft and very flexible which allowed it to be positioned up on the car to put the water where you need it while sanding. We used the 3M Imperial Wetordry 1200 grit with some flexible sanding pads called 3M Stikit Soft Hand Pad 05530 made for color sanding. Used plenty of water, stayed away from the edges and NO back and forth inline finger sanding. Started with the hood and worked our way down the front fenders, doors, decklid, rear fenders and tail panel. Rinsed and dryed the car off. Then Mark took over the electric cut and buff duties. He would not let me near the electric buffer. He used 3M Perfect-It III extra cut rubbing compound 05936. He skillfully worked his way around the car being careful not to stay in a spot too long for fear of burning the finish. He then followed up with 3M Foam Polishing Pad Glaze 05996 and used the 3M Perfect Foam Polishing pad 05725 on the buffer. The reason I know all these product numbers is because I have all the left over materials we used. One thing I don't have is the pad used to apply the rubbing compound and I can't remember the part number but I know it was a different style than what he used in the polishing step. Its amazing how the car goes from a almost too much shine (imho) after the car is freshly painted bc/cc to a dull
oh my god will it ever be the same shine during the wet sanding to a rich deep shine after the rubbing and polishing steps.