When to wetsand?

[Jacob Perry]

At what paint thickness would you wetsand? Which thickness is too thin to wetsand?

[Shawnw]

I'd like to know this as well. Never really understood the paint thickness thing and would like to know more. You read a value, but how do you know what is BC and what is CC?

[BobbyG]

Hi Jacob,

Wet sanding is designed to level the paint or remove the high spots making it one uniform surface. In general, most factory coats come standard with a good deal of orange peal. What wet sanding does is to remove the peaks and more or less level the finish making it glass smooth once compounded and polished.

Wet sanding factory coats should be approached with caution as they are paper thin...Let me correct myself, it's thinner than paper.

Factory clear coats are about 0.001 to 0.0015 (inches) compared to the thinner paper which is approximately 0.003 (inches). That said, wet sanding needs to be undertaken cautiously and with patients....

[BobbyG]

I'd like to know this as well. Never really understood the paint thickness thing and would like to know more. You read a value, but how do you know what is BC and what is CC?

Most thickness meters read only total thickness and not individual layers and this is the main reason I don't own one. The also don't work with plastic or composite sub-straights.

There are expensive units available that reportedly can gauge specific layer thickness however can cost several thousands of dollars. If I were in a full time business I might want to anti up for one because one oops can cost you some $$$...

I could be wrong but this is how I understand it....

[Jacob Perry]

Any other inputs?

[rakkvet]

I feel the same way as BobbyG. I have wetsanded a tiny little bit on factory paint. Only to remove tiny little scratches. When I did I used 2000 or 3000 grit paper and only did 2 or 3 swipes at a time.

[SATMAN40]

Bobby G, Fiberglass vets take a different paint gage reader also....

Wet sand with care, other wise nothing like a shine will not be there.

Nice vet , with you no paint gage but a vet.

[Rsurfer]

Mid Nineties plus microns.
At what paint thickness would you wetsand? Which thickness is too thin to wetsand?

[doubleJ]

A lot depends on whether the paint is factory or repaint. With factory, the "average" film build, (total) is aprox. 4.5 to 7.0 mils with the UV protector from the factory in the top half of the top mil of the clearcoat. It is my understanding that one shouldn't remove over .3 mil so as not to remove all the UV protection from the clear.
With repaint, nobody knows for certain how much clear is in the total film build.