picking up where I left off after priming and spraying guide coat it's time for sanding .
from this point on you should always be wearing clean rubber gloves .
you could wet sand or dry sand for this I dry sand it using 320 grit paper .
you can see the reason for the guide coating as you sand you can see imperfections .
i went as far with the sanding as i felt comfortable not to break thru the primer .
after i finish my 320 grit sanding i go over the areas like where they have spot welds and sand with red pad .
as this is not a car so the finishes don't need to be the same i did not go to nuts with sanding using the red pad .
after i was finished sanding i blew it off real good and hung it in the prep booth .
I'm not using the down draft booth to paint this the cost to run it is way more then this job is worth .
for a pre paint wipe down I'm using a 50/50 mix of distilled water and 91% isopropyl alcohol .
this makes for a very low cost and yet very good quality wipe down .
it will eat into solvent sensitive products like lacquer .
you wipe down a small area at a time . using clean rags you wet one with the wipe down and with a hand full of dry clean ones .
you then wipe the pre paint cleaner on nice and wet not running it and before it dries on the panel you wipe it off and dry with the clean dry rags .
you should never spray a pre paint cleaner on as it will not do as good of a job cleaning .
after your finished wiping the area off your painting using a new clean tack rag .
you will go over the hole panel with it . some times it's a good idea to go over every thing 2 or 3 times .
now it's time for spraying .
some people do not like sealers personally i like them .
if your told they will give you more peal to the finish this is not true !
it's simply the user has no idea how to use sealers .
i used limco's primer mixed as a tintable sealer for this .
the reason i used a sealer is from sanding i had little sand thru areas so to get better adhesion on bare areas and to get a uniform finish and better coverage with my top coat i sealed the hole thing.
i used the same gun for my sealer and top coats . i let the sealer flash off for 20 minutes .
i picked a gun that is a lower cost one to show you can get a good finish out of one .
setting the air pressure at the gun to 35 lbs with just air coming out of the gun and no product/paint I'm ready for top coating .
some sealers you can tack off before top coat some you can't . this is one you can't .
after my sealer flashed off i then sprayed my 1st coat of single stage .
this is what it looks like after the 1st coat of single stage .
you would spray it as you want it to look .
I'm doing a 60% over lap .
but gun speed and over lay is always up to the painter and how the he likes to spray .
between all my coats and having no place to test the coats to see if they have flashed off properly i did a spray out card .
you want to be able to touch the finish and have nothing come off on your finger but leave a finger print on the finish .
time will give you a idea but the old finger test will never o you wrong .
if i was doing a base coat the finger test for base is different in it has to be dry before the next coat . this is with most base coats and solvent bases .
this is after the 2nd and last coat .
if you wanted to give it a good color sanding and buffing you could wait for it to flash off again and do a 3rd coat .