How many people are interested in learning how to wet sand?

[JHL88]

currently 1 vote NO and 149 YES. I'd say the jury has spoken

[Mike Phillips]

currently 1 vote NO and 149 YES.

I'd say the jury has spoken

Yep...

Been teaching detailing as long as some and longer than others and here's my observation....


People want to learn the craft and skill of wet sanding.... but once they've been involved in a REAL-WORLD project and see exactly how much work it is and how much RISK is involved, then after that they are all pretty hesitant about every taking on a whole-car project.

Spot repair yes. Whole car? No.


But that's why it's good to have the opportunity to work on a whole-car project as to learn this experience by doing... not reading.

And this Saturday... our forum members and our Detailing 101 Facebook Group members have been invited to join me for a whole car project.


Wetsanding Project - 1929 Ford Model A Sedan Delivery Streetrod

[RSW]

That's a really good car to teach on, lots of ways to go south...

As far as I'm concerned colorsanding is one of the cornerstones to becoming a really good detailer. If you can take a paint job that looks like stucco and turn it into a mirror there's nothing you should do, you can't do. It makes you stay focused on each step because shorting a step will come back to bite you every time. If your first cut - the one that will define the fundamental quality of the outcome because it's the one where almost all the real flattening happens - isn't consistent, the final finish won't be consistent. If the following cuts don't get to the bottom of the first scratch, your polisher will take out the finer scratches and reveal the scratches you didn't get to the bottom of. It forces you to pay attention the whole time, because if you daydream on one section and don't get it right, that section will show up like it's illuminated, and not in a good way, when you look at the whole car. I find that last one impossible. I've never, not even once, no matter how hard I tried been able to polish out a colorsand and wait a day or two and not find something. That's why I always schedule a follow up. Which brings me to my final point - it teaches you to accept your limitations and work out ways to overcome them.

I don't know what you're charging but if I was just starting out, that's probably the one class I'd be really interested in taking.

Good luck,
RSW

[Mike Phillips]

That's a really good car to teach on, lots of ways to go south...

Ha ha... I agree. The paint job had some major issues, mostly with areas being re-sprayed after the initial spray and this caused some "appearance" issues.

A good detailer is able to adjust-on-the-fly, that is, when a problem arises, they have the experience and the wherewithal to make changes and adjustments to successfully push through and finish the project.

As far as I'm concerned colorsanding is one of the cornerstones to becoming a really good detailer.

I'd say the two extremes when it comes to detailing are,

1: Correctly and properly restoring antique and original single stage paint.

2: Wet sanding modern paint.


Those are the extremes. One would be at the beginning of the "history" of the car and the other would be the current present as the future is always a day away, so until Sheldon invents a time machine we can't wetsand paint in the future, just what was sprayed in the last week or so... i.e. the present.