wet sand and correction with Flex3401?

[11RaceRedGT]

Haven't posted much but i look to this forum for advice and opinions. I am building a '29 Model A Roadster into a hot rod. This was a ground up build and finally after 4 years, I painted all the sheet metal and am getting ready to assemble. Prior to assembly, i am wet sanding and buffing all the parts and body separately. The car is painted PPG Race Red base with 3 coats of PPG Concept high solids clear topcoat. I have polished and buffed many cars, but this is my first attempt at wet sanding to remove orange peel. I wanted to try the least aggressive approach, so my procedure is:
1) wet sand with Meguiars 1000 Unigrit until almost smooth.
2) wet sand diagonal pattern across 1000 grit pattern with 2000 Unigrit
3) wet sand opposite diagonal pattern from above with 3000.
4) Meguiars 105 and orange pad on Flex3401, speed at 6
5) Meguiars 205 and white pad also speed 6
This seems to be giving good results, but there is little sunlight this time of year for a good outdoor inspection. It does look good under flourescent shop lights. Am I going to be disappointed when i get this car out in the sunlight? Are there better products that i should use? I am not opposed to using a rotary, but if the DA works i would rather not risk burning through. Thanks

[cardaddy]

Would love to do that to my father in laws 29 Tudor.


I'll address the buffing part.

First... don't mess with 105, just too hard to deal with. It'll dry up on you in less than a minute if there is any heat involved. Then once it does... it's like cement and you have to put water, baby oil,/mineral oil, or more 105 on the surface to get it off.

If you're committed to Meguiar's, go with 101, you'll LOVE it! Cuts like crazy, but has a working time that doesn't drive you nuts.

Then as for speed on the Flex. IMO speed 6 is waaaaaaaay too fast. Heat build up in the pad, and at the back of the pad/Velcro/backing plate interface will come on FAST and you'll have to swap out to a new, cool, clean, primed pad before you can get a panel completed.

I'd start with medium arm pressure, slow arm speed, and try speed 4 to 4.5 to start with. Remember, with the 3401 you are getting 100% pad rotation at all times, zero loss there as opposed to what you'd be getting with a 'free spindle' machine. (Which *would* need a faster speed setting.)

You might run a bit faster when polishing with 205, that'd be ok. Still don't need 6 on the Flex though. Just lighten up the arm pressure a bit, and you can move your arm speed just a tick faster, although don't get in a hurry. One way to get that extra nth of finish is moving to a lighter pad half way through the polishing step. And of course another is just to move to a lighter polish (like Megs Ultimate Polish) with a white pad and really work it down.

Both the Meguiar's products will do what you want, just need to finesse the system as you go. Do remember though that you're dealing with SMAT compounds. The abrasives don't break down, and they cut on the 4th pass like they did on the first pass. Actually, a heavy cutting compound could even cut more as the micro particles can actually get larger with built up abraded paint and used up spent product getting all mixed together the longer it works. You're safer with SMAT products to prime the pad, work the surface 4~5 passes and wipe it off. Make sure you are always buffing a wet surface, in that you're leaving a wet film trail, and you're wiping a wet film off of the surface. If it dries, you've worked it too long. Easy enough to work it 4~5 passes, wipe, and put fresh product on for another 4~5 passes to finish the cut you need.

Now if you went to Menzerna that's a whole new situation. Takes a lot of passes to get it to do what it's meant to do. Work FG400 only 4~5 passes and you're wasting product as well as your time. Mike@DedicatedPerfection has a thread he did on Menzerna that describes the process for those products really well. He is talking about specifically the hybrid pad system, but most of us have been using a very similar system with all the Lake Country pads. Here... found it!

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...brid-pads.html

Basically, you start and keep working it. You can stop about half way through (with some products) hit your pad with a spritz of distilled water (a spritz.... DO NOT make it wet) then continue to work the product down till it's all but gone (but still a visible wet film).

I've worked FG400, 1000, 1500, 2500 with an orange LC pad all with great results using a similar method. Don't spritz with 4000 because I've never needed to, it's just that good.

Just PLEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE slow that Flex down. That and use a LOT of pads! Love my 3401, and also love not having to buy new pads when the old ones get melted.

Do make sure and read that entire thread though, as later in it Mike actually says something about working the product too fast. Mike has been using the Flex for a long time now (since he was still stationed in Colorado, now in Germany) so if you have literally anything you want/need to know about that puppy... I'd shoot him a PM.

Here's another thread on the Flex 3401.
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...brid-pads.html

[GSKR]

Invest in a swirl finder light,and some Ipa so when your done with enhancing the paint you won't have a heart attack when you pull it out in the sun.

[dlc95]

I agree that M105 might drive you nuts with the short work time. I personally really like M100!

I actually get much more pad spin from my PC than my 3401. I also pick up more paint with an open cell pink LC / green B&S pad than I can with yellow or orange cutting pads.

If you're finishing with 3000 grit though, the orange should make short work of it. Heck, even Ultimate Compound will clean that up.

[11RaceRedGT]

Cardaddy, gskr and dlc, thanks much for responding and the advice. I will have to order up some Menzerna and hybrid pads and give that combo a try. And I will slow the speed for sure!

GSKR - what is "ipa"? Or are you referring to beer?

[cardaddy]

Cardaddy, gskr and dlc, thanks much for responding and the advice. I will have to order up some Menzerna and hybrid pads and give that combo a try. And I will slow the speed for sure!

GSKR - what is "ipa"? Or are you referring to beer?

isopropyl alcohol

You need to mix a solution of about 25%~30% with distilled water to remove all traces of buffing compound and check your work. Once you've got the process down it should be OK that you're not wiping every square inch, but you DO want to do your test spots and follow your correction procedure through from start to finish on each test spot.

You could pick up a few bottles of Eraser here and use it. Or... you can mix something like Meguiar's D114 at 192:1 (strongest) or 256:1 (weakest) and make a 30% alcohol solution with it. Remember that you'll use distilled water to make your mix.

Here's a link I use that'll allow you to figure the dilution of alcohol. Say you're taking 91% off the shelf alcohol, and mixing that to fill a 32oz bottle with your D114 solution it'll tell you how many ounce of solution you use to alcohol to get a given dilution. (You can plug in any percentage you want so you can make a 20% or even a 60% end solution.)

Just move down to the second box on the page and change it to read ounces.
Home Distillation of Alcohol (Homemade Alcohol to Drink)

For instance:

32oz bottle of 30% alcohol using 91% alcohol you use:
10.549 oz of alcohol
21.451 oz of water (or D114 solution)


To expound on the initial compounding procedure a bit more...

May be that you do orange pad, M101 (or M100), 4 passes and a wipe, then 4 more passes and a wipe, slow arm speed, medium (15~18 pounds) arm pressure, machine speed 3 on one test spot.

Then the next spot you do everything the same, BUT take the machine speed to speed 4.

Next test spot you might change the compound, but same pad.

OR... you might change the pad and use the same compound.

Remember... you only want to use the aggressiveness that gets the job done.
Sounds like you're laying on a decent amount of paint, but... that doesn't mean you want to pull a ton off just because it's there. If a given compound pulls out the 3000 grit marks with a white pad... then no need to move to the orange on.

The trick is figuring out which pad/compound/speed/amount of passes gets the job done with the least amount of effort.

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

I would like to weigh in on the sanding part. Cardaddy (Tony) really took care of the buffing part. Well done good sir. Thanks for including my smack technique article

First and foremost IF you have any runs, sags, dirt nibs, etc that need addressed I would not use a sanding block and sandpaper or a machine set up for sanding to remove these imperfections. Doing this way remove surrounding clear as well when you just want to focus on the topical defects on the paint rather than in it such as swirls etc.

The proper way to remove these defects is with a rigid sanding blocks such the ones made by Meguiar's.
Meguiars Unigrit Sanding Blocks

The rigid sanding blocks will only work on the raised areas of the affected paint and will level them down without going over into the level paint to much. Attached is a review I completed on them.
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...-k-1000-a.html

If you do not have any of these issues to deal with and only want to remove orange peel, areas shot dry, etc I would equip a DA with an interface pad and 1500 paper and begin cutting out the defects in the paint.
Meguiars Unigrit™ 6 Inch Foam Interface Pad, sanding disc interface pad, backup pad, foam backing pad

You can also set up another machine with a 3" plate, 3" interface pad, and sanding discs to allow work in confined areas.
Meguiars Unigrit 3 Inch Professional Backing Plate and Adaptor Kit, backing plate with adapters, meguiars backup pad, DBP3
Meguiars Unigrit 3 Inch Foam Interface Pad, foam backup pad, sanding disc interface

After the entire vehicle has been damp sanded free of defects, you can move on to 3000 grit sandpaper again on the machines. This allows better, even, uniform coverage over hand sanding.

Once you have finished up the sanding operations you can move forward with your polishing sessions. This is where I would equip my Flex PE14, Hybrid wool pad, and FG400 to start removing the sanding marks. Once this step has been completed my next step would be the Flex 3401 equipped with the white Hybrid pads and SF4000. Being that the vehicle is a show car, I would take it a step further and bring out the PE14 again and use SF4500 and a finer pad such as the gold Hybrid Jeweling pad and begin jeweling the paint to an incredibly high luster before applying a wax, sealant or coating.

I saw the discussion of IPA above. Just an option. If you would rather use a dedicated panel wipe down product rather than using an homemade alcohol mixture, Menzerna Top Inspection was formulated for this task.

Don't hesitate to ask further questions.

Best Regards,
Mike

[cardaddy]

You know, I didn't even mention sanding with the little Rupes Duetto. Which btw is a breeze!

(Good luck finding their sanding discs however!!!)

Mike, now that you've brought them up....cool thing about the Meguiar's blocks... is they last FOR - FREAKIN - EVER!

I have a 3000 grit block I bought in 85 that I still use! I chit u not.

Corners are a bit rounded from standing it on a corner to work nibs or along a deep scratch, but it still gets the jod done.

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Tony, these blocks last forever!!!

I originally bought the 1K block as it was my first go with them and wanted to see what they offered. After I used it in that review I swear by them for removing nibs from the paint.

I should grab the 2K and 3K as well just so I have a better selection of them on hand.

I also just saw that Menzerna released a 2K and 3K package set...
https://www.menzerna.com/company/new...ing-block-set/

[11RaceRedGT]

Cardaddy - thanks for the definition of "IPA". My mind went directly to Indian Pale Ale...go figure

Mike - thank you for taking time to reply. I really appreciate everyone's help and advice.

So, yes, I did have a couple of areas with small runs. I did use a 1000 Unigrit block keeping it flat to the run and frequently checking to be sure i was only removing the run. These do work awesome and I can see where they will probably last forever.

I have read about using a DA with discs to wet sand. I am really apprehensive to try that. I have a better comfort level hand sanding with a DuraBlock. Model A's have very little areas that are flat. Mostly all compound curved panels and raised features at body lines. Also, the clear layed out really nice, so the orange peel is not excessive. It is smoother that the factory finish on my 2011 Mustang!

I ordered some Hybrid Pads and Menzerna products lat night before the sale ended. I will hold off with any further paint work until those arrive.

Wow, such a wealth of knowledge here and helpful people. Its nice to be on a forum where one isn't criticized for posting questions.