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  1. #11
    Super Member Finick's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    This is something I’ve considered doing to my car, but I just er on the side of caution.

    If I had a garage queen I’d be more inclined to do this on a car like that. But for a daily driven car there’s just too much out of my control for me to want to remove so much paint for the sake of less orange peel.

    There’s an amazing series obsessed garage just recently put up on his YouTube channel about wetsanding. It’s pretty interesting how little paint those guys appeared to be removing with a light hand and good technique. Matt was even able to pretty significantly reduce orange peel on a junkyard panel with 2k and 3k grit paper if I’m not mistaken.


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  2. #12
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calendyr View Post
    Hum...

    I remember a video explaining that 3000 grit will not remove orange peel. I think it was either from Larry Kozilla and Kevin Brown or with Mike Philipps and Jason Rose... I just can't remember who made it...

    anyway. To remove the orange peel they went to 1500, then up to 3000 and compound and polish. I also had a client who removed Orange peel with a denim pad and it took him an ungodly amount of time to do it... something like 30 hours if I recall correctly.

    So my advice would be to take a paint depth reading to see if you have enough paint to do the work safelly, then block with 1500 (or 2000, or even 2500). If you manage to do it with 2500 or even 2000, you probably can go directly to compound, but at 1500 I suggest you follow with 3000 to save time, unless you machine+pad+compound is agresssive enough to take out 1500 grit scratches quickly.
    I don't have a gauge though unfortunately

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    What if its only very minor though? Is 3000 even capable of going through the clearcoat?

    Quote Originally Posted by Finick View Post
    This is something I’ve considered doing to my car, but I just er on the side of caution.

    If I had a garage queen I’d be more inclined to do this on a car like that. But for a daily driven car there’s just too much out of my control for me to want to remove so much paint for the sake of less orange peel.

    There’s an amazing series obsessed garage just recently put up on his YouTube channel about wetsanding. It’s pretty interesting how little paint those guys appeared to be removing with a light hand and good technique. Matt was even able to pretty significantly reduce orange peel on a junkyard panel with 2k and 3k grit paper if I’m not mistaken.


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    Yeah I'll probably just wait until I can get a car with a better factory paint job on the existing stuff. I might do it on the resprayed bumper though. If I tried it on the factory clear it would be with 3000 and a very light touch. It would only be 1 panel obviously so its not like I can ruin the whole car

  3. #13
    Super Member TTQ B4U's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    IMO it's not worth it. There are lots of BMW discussions around this as they tend to suffer from Orange Peel on various vehicles. For me, no way. Clear isn't as thick as I'd like it to begin with. For the occasional tough scratch I'd just fill it in with clear and level it down as best I can.

    Body shop wise, they aren't detailers so I would expect you to have to compound and polish out the newly done panel. I had a small area of work done on my Audi and it came out better than the factory paint. I used Meg's U.Compound and finished and sealed it with 505 as it's safe on new paint.
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  4. #14
    Super Member Calendyr's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Without a paint thickness reading, I would advise against doing any wet sanding. If you are really interested in removing the orange peel you have 2 options:

    1. Find a detailer who can mesure the paint for you. This takes about 5 minutes to do the whole car so it should not be an expensive service to do.
    2. Buy a paint thickness gauge. Ebay has some at decent prices.

    Once you have the readings you can decide if you want to go through with it or not. BMWs usually have paint in the 100-150 micro range. So if yours is in that range, you can proceed, by doing 1 pannel and once the fully correction is done (sanding/compounding/polishing) take an other reading and see what you removed. This will depend greatly on how bad the orange peel is. If it's bellow 100 microns (that's roughly 4 mils) before correction or bellow 80 after correction... I would not go through with it.

    Also remember that the thinner your clear is, the more vulnerable your paint is. So you will want to keep the car protected at all time afterwards. I would strongly suggest you coat it and use a SiO2 sealant every 3 months afterwards to keep the protection maxed out.

  5. #15
    Super Member Calendyr's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Almost forgot to answer your question. Anything can go through clear coat. It's a matter of how long it takes. 3000 is very light when it comes to sand papers... but you could go through clear using a compound, and a compound has a lot less cut than 3000 grit...

  6. #16
    Super Member Todd@RUPES's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Would you say that this is just to dangerous to do on factory clear coat?
    Depends who is doing it. A scalpel in the hand's of a surgeon is a life saving tool... in the hands of a toddler...

    But, as far as a general answer, in many cases sanding with P3000 or finer is actually less invasive to the paint than heavy compounding.

    My car has always had orange peel in the factory paint. I swear I greatly improved it with just compound on part of 2 panels where it bothered me the most. I'm contemplating trying it on the doors with 3000 and or 5000?
    There are two measurements that orange peel is generally categorized into: short-wave and long-wave texture. Short wave is a the very fine, almost sandy people-like appearance, where as long wave is the larger flowing "waves in a sea"... that might not affect the clarity of the paint but still presents a texture that most find unattractive. I have never seen the official "statistics" of what is considered short and long wave, but I have seen very expensive machines that measure both.

    Lightly sanding with P3000 or P5000 foam-backed abrasive discs will generally smooth over the short-wave orange peel and increase clarity, but will likely have little reduction on long-wave texture.

    If you really want to flatten the paint you will want to use a film or paper-backed abrasive. Usually these are only found in P2000 and coarser.

    Most guys that want to really flatten panels will use a film or paper-backed abrasive by hand on a firm block to flatten the high points, then follow with a finer grit with a D.A. to refine the scratch and make it easier to polish out.

    I wouldn't recommend trying to "flatten" factory paint though as it is usually too thin. However, if you have skill with a foam-backed P3000 and a D.A. sander you can usually make a nice improvement in the appearance of the paint without removing any more clear coat than you would by doing a heavy correction.

    If you have zero experience sanding, I would recommend attending a class or practicing first.

    Two points:

    Sanding is easy, removing the sand marks can be difficult.

    You can always take paint/clear coat off, you can't put it back on (without respraying)


    Also I'm picking up my car from the bodyshop monday. After 30 days do you think I will definitely have to wet sand it or can compound sometimes be enough? What grit should I use if I do
    If they do a good job sanding it and/or buffing it, you shouldn't have to do anything. However, if the paint is more than a few days old you can do whatever you want to it within reason.

    Depending on the clear-coat, the underlying base, and the drying process, some paint systems are sanded and buffed as soon as they cool off from the oven. An example is PPG's 530, which is recommended to be cut and buffed 45 minutes after cooling down. Some clear coats dry much much slower. I have never seen anything that is not considered safe after a few days, but I would check with your shop.


    I'm not afraid I wetsanded out a huge scratch in my hood when I first got the car and on on the shelf of the back bumper. I did it with a piece of 2000 that came in a scratch repair kit. That was 2 years ago right when I started detailing. It definitely worked. It took compound too but there is no trace of the hood scratch anymore.
    Sanding a small scratch is world's apart from sanding an entire vehicle. I would recommend a starting point where you are afraid as it will be caution that prevents you from making too many mistakes.

    Best of luck

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  8. #17
    Super Member Audios S6's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calendyr View Post
    Hum...

    I remember a video explaining that 3000 grit will not remove orange peel. I think it was either from Larry Kozilla and Kevin Brown or with Mike Philipps and Jason Rose... I just can't remember who made it...

    anyway. To remove the orange peel they went to 1500, then up to 3000 and compound and polish. I also had a client who removed Orange peel with a denim pad and it took him an ungodly amount of time to do it... something like 30 hours if I recall correctly.

    So my advice would be to take a paint depth reading to see if you have enough paint to do the work safelly, then block with 1500 (or 2000, or even 2500). If you manage to do it with 2500 or even 2000, you probably can go directly to compound, but at 1500 I suggest you follow with 3000 to save time, unless you machine+pad+compound is agresssive enough to take out 1500 grit scratches quickly.
    As Todd eluded to, that was specific to the foam backed 3000 grit. The foam
    Backing allows it to contour to the paint more, thus less reduction in OP. This is useful if you are trying to correct an isolated scratch without impacting the finish.

    There are non-foam backed 3000 discs that could be used to reduce OP.
    Static & Mobile detailing in Minneapolis & St. Paul. http://www.detailedcreationsmpls.com/

  9. #18
    Super Member Calendyr's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Audios S6 View Post
    As Todd eluded to, that was specific to the foam backed 3000 grit. The foam
    Backing allows it to contour to the paint more, thus less reduction in OP. This is useful if you are trying to correct an isolated scratch without impacting the finish.

    There are non-foam backed 3000 discs that could be used to reduce OP.
    Ok. I have never seen any 3000 grit that is not foam backed. Here locally the only 3K paper avaialble is 3M Trizact and when I ordered some from Autogeek last year I was Meguiar's Unigrit and both the 3" and 6" disks are foam backed. Mike told me that Unigrit has been discontinued (probably because 3M purchsed Meguiar's and did not see the need to have 2 competing sand paper lines... maybe they could learn something from Coke and Pepsi here LOL).

    But yes, if you could find 3000 grit paper without the foam backing and you use it on a bloc, what would work for leveling.

  10. #19
    Super Member Audios S6's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calendyr View Post
    Ok. I have never seen any 3000 grit that is not foam backed. Here locally the only 3K paper avaialble is 3M Trizact and when I ordered some from Autogeek last year I was Meguiar's Unigrit and both the 3" and 6" disks are foam backed. Mike told me that Unigrit has been discontinued (probably because 3M purchsed Meguiar's and did not see the need to have 2 competing sand paper lines... maybe they could learn something from Coke and Pepsi here LOL).

    But yes, if you could find 3000 grit paper without the foam backing and you use it on a bloc, what would work for leveling.
    I think the mirka discs go up to 2500 without foam. Pretty sure all the abralon discs are foam. I would bet that a body shop supply in your area would carry a brand that has 3k without foam.
    Static & Mobile detailing in Minneapolis & St. Paul. http://www.detailedcreationsmpls.com/

  11. #20
    Super Member Calendyr's Avatar
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    Re: Wet sanding with 3000 grit?

    Quote Originally Posted by Audios S6 View Post
    I think the mirka discs go up to 2500 without foam. Pretty sure all the abralon discs are foam. I would bet that a body shop supply in your area would carry a brand that has 3k without foam.
    I went to 3 bodyshop supply stores and none of them had any sand paper finer than 800 grit. They looked at me funny when I asked for 2000.... Bodyshop don't seems to color sand around here, also when I asked for 3" and 5" disks they all told me that 6" was the only size avaialble and it came in boxes of 100 So... ya... not exactly what i needed

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