why is it called "color sanding"

[dondarnell]

What is sanding the surface of clear called color sanding when you are really just sanding clear?

[GradyM]

Back in the day when clearcoats were not used yet you were actually sanding the color coat itself i.e. laquer , enamel etc. Basically the term color sanding implies that you are sanding to compound and polish NOT sanding to respray (big difference in sand paper grit).

[962porsche]

its called other things too like final sanding , sanding for texture .but calling it color sanding comes from the days before there was clear coats . like when i started to do this crap for a living . its the same thing as people calling plastic body filler( bondo ) . when we started to change from lead to plastic body fillers the bondo brand was the big push at first . so that name stuck for all body fillers now years later bondo is one of the worse on the market . its just like saying i have to take a crap . that came from the ww1 vets reading the names
on the toilets over in Europe . that was even before enamels . this when allmost all we had was nitrocellulose laquers .by the time enamels hit the market we started to get clears as well .