Adventures in Auto Detailing:

[Scuba Steve]

This color sanding... can you elaborate on it? Honestly I've never heard of what that is. I'm curious what it might be able to do on my wife's car. It's 19 years old, but was hiding out in the low sunlight of the PNW the whole time so I think the paint could be cleaned up some. It's a Volvo if that matters any. If it's something difficult I could always have a first go at it on a spare 924 fender I have lying around.

[Dottore]

Subscribed

[Jim Richards]

I have a Porter Cable DA sander. I wonder if I can simply buy buffing pads to use with it. My wife's Jetta could stand a little detailing love.

[Seahawk]

I'm sub'ing as well.

My son's Tacoma was our farm truck for many years, never neglected mechanically, but it did stay out in the elements.

Using traditional methods, I was able to get the paint somewhat ok.

I did a lot of research on wet sanding, etc., but frankly have been too nervous to do it myself...the website all warn against wrecking the clearcoat if you are too aggressive.

Very interested.

[enzo1]

"youtube" ....wet sand car

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

This color sanding... can you elaborate on it? Honestly I've never heard of what that is. I'm curious what it might be able to do on my wife's car. It's 19 years old, but was hiding out in the low sunlight of the PNW the whole time so I think the paint could be cleaned up some. It's a Volvo if that matters any. If it's something difficult I could always have a first go at it on a spare 924 fender I have lying around.

Initially, "color" sanding was done on single stage paint that had cured. The idea is to sand out the orange peel texture left by a spray gun so the paint looked like a sheet of glass. Using a soft pad with very fine paper wrapped around it, you sanded carefully checking often to see how much paint you are removing. I do this with a squeegee as it lets me see the surface w/o the soapy water on it. Obviously, the waste water was the color of the car until clear coat 2 stage painting came about.

We didn't have any paper finer than 600 grit for a long time. Today, you can get fine grit to 2000. As in woodworking, you start with a coarser paper to speed up the process and then wipe out the sand scratches of the previous grit with a finer one. It's a tedious process that leaves a dead flat and dull paint to then be polished with compounds suspended in a cream like base.

A rotary buffer will make short work of the first compound process and will leave swirl marks. There are successive compounds just like the papers. In the old school the last compound had to be hand done to take out the swirls. Some old timers used dry corn starch before the waxing using long straight strokes.

Materials and machines have made the sanding/polishing much easier to master but you better be damn careful any time you start sanding paint. For instance, one piece of dirt in your water will ruin your day. I like water coming out of a hose, but I always tie a tee shirt around the end for 2 reasons: one to protect the work from the hose end (you can and should use a hose with the end cut off) and to filter the water supply. You never know when that little piece of rust from the pipes comes out, gets under your paper and scratches the hell out of a perfect finish.

The moral is, you can go backwards really easily in this business.

[DonDavis]

Sub'd. My daughter parked her Volvo under a tree and a bunch of sap dripped on it. Within 24 hours, I used Goo B Gone, Turtle sap remover and clay barred it without success. I mean, the bulk came off easily but there's an area about 10 inches in diameter that remains visible. There's a few other spots as well. I figured wet sanding would be the fix. I had a different Volvo that needed attention ( and I wanted the pin striping removed ) and had it done by a local shop a few years ago for about $200. Turned out awesome. I think I'll invest in some equipment and do it myself.

[Rick Lee]

Question. I want to debadge my car, sort of don't like the "911" I put on the rear decklid about six yrs. ago. Though the car does not spend much time parked outside, I fear there will be a difference in paint shade under the "911" badge. Any way to remove that?

[Zeke]

If it's a 2 stage paint and the discoloration is in the first layer, I don't see how. I had a black car with that problem.

[VINMAN]

Beautiful work Den! You wanna come and do my Jeep?? ( i hate black!!)

[speeder]

Basically, you never want to remove any finish from a vehicle that you do not absolutely have to. Once it's gone, it's gone. That said, some finishes are so thick and difficult to sand that there is little danger in sanding them if common sense is used.

I know, that's a big *if*.

I would never take sand paper to a vehicle if clay-barring and buffing it would do the trick. And I would never take a buffer to a vehicle if a simple hand cleaner/wax would make it shine. You want to start small and experiment with different products before attacking large areas on the rig. Washing and clay-barring is a no-brainer on any vehicle because it does not remove any finish. I consider the widespread use of CB to be one of the biggest advances in car care because it simply cleans the paint. Sometimes that is all it needs. Even if you're looking at a heavy compounding job, CB can prevent the necessity of compounding just to remove dirt/debris/pollution from the paint. CB does that.

I have enough experience buffing cars that I can take one look at something like my trunk lid in the *before* picture and know that buffing alone will not remove those scratches, at least not w/o a dangerous level of aggressiveness in compound and technique. I can actually do a much more gentle and controlled job w/ wet-sanding. I do not disagree w/ anything Milt said above but they now make up to 3000 grit WS paper with special super-smooth grit specifically for auto detailing. That stuff is not even really sand paper, IMO. The smoothest I use is 1500 and there is technique involved including preparation of the finish before sanding, soaking the paper for 24 hrs. or more before using, (my paper stays in my wash bucket wet all the time), proper lube/soap stuff to use w/ sanding, etc., etc...

I don't mean this to sound like, "Kids, don't try this at home...", but if you just jump into this w/o knowing what you're doing, please don't blame me. That's my worry, that someone thinks this is child's play and ruins their car because of something I posted. I started on absolute junk paint with nothing, and I mean nothing to lose. The cars needed a paint job to anyone who looked at them. Factory Mercedes paint, especially older one-stage paint, is a different animal from the paint on an American or Asian car. It is better by an order of magnitude and can be brought back from the dead by a skilled detailer. Here are a couple of pics of cars that I bought for nothing last year and cleaned-up, both were scum buckets when I bought them. (For peanuts). I wish I had *before* pictures, you'll just have to use your imagination:

[Zeke]

I didn't know about 3000, but it's hard to get 2000 to take a "bite." It likes to skip over the surface and not take any material off. I have found it's a matter of speed, pressure and how much sanding water/mixture is on the paint. For instance, the horizontal areas hold quite a bit of water whereas the sides don't. Run low on water and the paper stops moving altogether.

Like Denis says, maybe start with the riding mower. That's a joke, of course, because the paint on a mower is not the same as auto paint. Oh, and single stage metallics do not like to be sanded. That would be your older original finishes like silver.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Question. I want to debadge my car, sort of don't like the "911" I put on the rear decklid about six yrs. ago. Though the car does not spend much time parked outside, I fear there will be a difference in paint shade under the "911" badge. Any way to remove that?

Paint is probably ok if it's always been garaged, or at least since you put on the badge. If it's been parked out in the Phoenix sun, all bets are off. You remove badges with fishing line and a blow dryer, then deal w/ residual adhesive w/ goof-off or polish, whatever works and does not harm paint.

[Kroggers]

Good work. Looking forward to the next pictures and details...

[willtel]

Wet sanding and buffing was about the only part of painting my Bronco that I enjoyed. It came out pretty good despite being my first time but I still have some work to do in the harder to reach areas. I will say that I like my Makita rotary buffer better than the Porter Cable random orbitals. The random orbitals are safer but the rotary is faster if you are careful.


IMG_9535 by willtel, on Flickr


IMG_9546 by willtel, on Flickr


IMG_9548 by willtel, on Flickr

[Pazuzu]

I picked up the DA polisher and a pile of pads to go with the 105/205 combo earlier this year.

It literally is so easy to do with the new chemistry that a 5 year old could make significant strides on any car.

I would have little to no fear putting my machine on someone else's car.

[304065]

Denis, I have a Flex, the German cousin to the PC. I use Menzerna IP (intensive polish) followed by Menzerna Final Polish, works great with an Orange Lake Country pad to cut and a Cyan pad to finish.

This does not cut like 105/205 but it follows your rule of start gradually. For some jobs there are certainly "rocks in a bottle" out there but I agree with your progressive approach.

I use P21S total auto wash for just about everything and am recently converted to Sonax Full Effect (the yellow-to-red effect is kind of fun, but it really does a great job with caked on brake dust).

I have enjoyed your thread.

[McLovin]

Nice work.

I've found with colorsanding and polishing, the real danger is not in the colorsand, but in the polish.

2000 grit sandpaper (or even 1500) is surprisingly benign. 2000 grit, to the touch, basically feels like notebook paper. Combined with water, it is easy to control.

Bringing the shine back up after the sanding, to me, is the tricky part. The initial polish needs to be a fairly aggresive polish, with a relatively high speed buffer. That's the dangerous part, can be easy to burn through.

It sounds like you or others have used a random orbital, rather than a direct drive, polisher? I've never had luck with that, the RO has never generated enough speed or heat to get the sanding polished (I've tried, b/c RO is much safer than high speed direct drive). The initial heavy cut polishes (the ones that are used first after the sand) that I've used have always specifically stated they need to be used with a direct drive, high speed polisher.

[azasadny]

Fantastic!!

[Scott Douglas]

I had my son restore the paint on my old 912 sunroof coupe a couple years ago as a summer project since he didn't have a job (playing too much baseball) and needed to earn his keep.
I started him off with the tools (a Vector direct drive knock-off of a Makita) and polishes and told him to talk to people about how to do it.
I also told him to do one small area with all the steps involved to get a feel for what was going to happen. He started with the area just behind the driver's door. Also told him he really couldn't screw the paint up much more than it already was. He took his time.
I was more than pleased with the results.
As you can see, the car was pretty sad when he started.



Yes, he used a Schlegel pad, not foam.


When he was done I told him he'd earned his room and board for the summer.