why is it called "color sanding"
 

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

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).

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 .