questions about wet sanding

[greasybenz]

As some of you know i had my car painted at earl schiebs. They applied 2 clear coats, the first clear coat finish was perfect. orange peel was un-noticable and gloss/shine looked good even at 10 inches from the car. But when they applied the second clear coat there was some noticable orange peel spots.

My dad is suggesting wet sanding with 2000 grit sand paper and buffing it with a 3M compound after.

I did a little searching and came up with this thread:
New paintjob woes

donbryce suggests wet sanding the day after the clear coat is applied. Its been a week after the second clear coat.

My dad is saying that we wait for 2 weeks (at the end of this week) to do the sanding as he thinks there would be a big difference in the paints due to the fact that donbryce's painted hot rod was probably with a seperate primer, paint, and clear coat. While schiebs has an all in one deal so they dont primer before paint. Only thing that is seperate is the clear coat but the paint is an all in one.

What do you guys suggest?

[Bob G]

from the mnufactor you get 2 mills of clear coat on top of the paint. the clear coat has a UV sun screen that helps the UV suns rays from oxidizing the base coat color. So in theroy and practice what you are polishing and waxing is the clear coat not the base coat color.

with that said you are stating that the second coat of clear is showing orange peel and you want to wet sand orthe term color sand these areas to match the rest of the paint job.

Ok we have determined that earl Shibe put two coats of clear on top of prehaps 2 coats of color. hope fully they used a sealer primer to block out any dye back of the paint under the new paint.

The first thing to remember is to to not sand too deep or too aggressive and too flat or you will change the way the panels look compaired to the rest of the painted panels around the car. You also are risking taking too much clear-coat off which offers protectionto your base coat color.

Paint expands and contracts with hot and cold just like your skin. Ifyou skin gets to tight its going to come apart you do not want to leave no clear coat on the surface because of this. You also wantto beable to polish out scratches and scuffs when they happen.

I really recommend that you take the car back to earl shibe and show them the orange peel if it really bothers you have them sand it down and add another flash coat wait for it to cure than proceed to color sandthe entire car using 2000 grit and working up to 3000 grit and then polishing the paint and waxing it.

When you color sand paint it is important to irigate the areas with los of water to avoid putting any scratches from dirt in to the top coat. Alsway sand in the same direction lines of the car only cross sand when you get to the next step and begin to use 300o grit paper which is a fine compound and will let you machine polish with a product like fineese anda cleaner polish from Meguires to get a rich deep looking results.

Split sections ilike hood trunk roof and hood and even fenders in to parts manageable and not to over wellming for you to handle. I suggest you sand if you decide to try with the two coats of clear just enought so that the panels are not too flat and some shine remains in thepaint after sanding. This
will prevent you from flatting panels and over indullence ofthe clear coat.
Use soft and medium backing pads and let the sandpaper sit in a bucket of luke warm water and with some dish washing soap to add lubrisity to the sanding. Using a spray bottom also helps to add water to ther panels when sanding.

Polish out at between 1000 to 1500 RPM a 3M cottom fiber wool finishing pad pad , follow with a 3m waffle finishing pad the white is a little more aggressive the black is a far softer pad strickly for swirl mark and fine polishing. Using either will serviice your needs you can also use the Merguire yellow foam pad works great. Use both foam pads with a swirl mark remover polish. to bring out a deep wet look in paint. I use micro fiber towels and a final inspection to wipe down & inspect the paint and body befor waxing.
Enough said, I will shut up now!!!

Hope this helps you.
Bob Geco