Key Repair-Step by Step Procedure

[Mike Phillips]

You can find normal automotive wet/dry sandpaper about anywhere. For doing this type of work I'd recommend using a finishing paper instead of a sanding paper.

Remember paint is thin, there's no room for mistakes.


There are a number of things that make a good sand paper here are just two,

1. Uniform grit particle size
2. Uniform grit particle distribution over the face of the sheet of paper

If you have both of the above then assuming you use hood hand sanding backing pads and expert technique you will have minimal to zero tracers in the paint.

The less control there is over particle size and distribution of the particles over the face of the paper, the better the chances there are for tracers.

When hand sanding, you don't want any tracers as these are scratches in the paint. The way you would remove tracers is to either spend more time compounding and thus removing more precious paint plus heating the paint up. or re-sand. If you re-sand with the same paper you're in a Catch-22 situation.

Anytime you're sanding paint you want to remove as little paint as possible to reach your goal and have all the sanding marks buff out at the same time.

Of course if you use an aggressive enough compound you can simply grind off a lot of paint really fast and you would never know if you had tracers or not but that's kind of the caveman approach and I'll leave that to others.


A little story...
When I worked as a Trainer for Meguiar's in Oregon, Washington and Idaho I would demonstrate Nikken papers by doing the above test and in one body shop I sanded down the door on a freshly painted Porsche then I let the Painter use the rotary buffer to compound the paint and then inspect the results.

There were so many tracers left on the section where I used his sandpaper of choice that he took the sleeve of sandpaper that he had been using and walked over to the garbage can and through them away.

If you do a lot of sanding, and your goals and expectations are for show car quality work, the you understand the importance of finding a sanding paper or a "finishing"paper that will do the job fast while leaving the most uniform sanding mark pattern possible.

This will,

• Make buffing out the sanding marks faster
• Make buffing out the sanding marks easier
• Leave more paint on the car
• Be safer for the paint

Nikken Brand Finishing Papers

[Mike Phillips]

Autogeek makes a 6-pack of different grit sanding papers available too...

Click this link for more info,

Meguiars Unigrit Sand Papers Sheets, wet-sanding papers, remove orange peel, finishing papers

[Mike Phillips]

And I share some tips on sanding in this article...


Basic Hand Sanding Techniques



Here's an important one...

Wet-sanding - Fresh Paint vs Factory Paint

[BrianJM]

You can find normal automotive wet/dry sandpaper about anywhere. For doing this type of work I'd recommend using a finishing paper instead of a sanding paper.

Remember paint is thin, there's no room for mistakes.


There are a number of things that make a good sand paper here are just two,

1. Uniform grit particle size
2. Uniform grit particle distribution over the face of the sheet of paper

If you have both of the above then assuming you use hood hand sanding backing pads and expert technique you will have minimal to zero tracers in the paint.

The less control there is over particle size and distribution of the particles over the face of the paper, the better the chances there are for tracers.

When hand sanding, you don't want any tracers as these are scratches in the paint. The way you would remove tracers is to either spend more time compounding and thus removing more precious paint plus heating the paint up. or re-sand. If you re-sand with the same paper you're in a Catch-22 situation.

Anytime you're sanding paint you want to remove as little paint as possible to reach your goal and have all the sanding marks buff out at the same time.

Of course if you use an aggressive enough compound you can simply grind off a lot of paint really fast and you would never know if you had tracers or not but that's kind of the caveman approach and I'll leave that to others.


A little story...
When I worked as a Trainer for Meguiar's in Oregon, Washington and Idaho I would demonstrate Nikken papers by doing the above test and in one body shop I sanded down the door on a freshly painted Porsche then I let the Painter use the rotary buffer to compound the paint and then inspect the results.

There were so many tracers left on the section where I used his sandpaper of choice that he took the sleeve of sandpaper that he had been using and walked over to the garbage can and through them away.

If you do a lot of sanding, and your goals and expectations are for show car quality work, the you understand the importance of finding a sanding paper or a "finishing"paper that will do the job fast while leaving the most uniform sanding mark pattern possible.

This will,

• Make buffing out the sanding marks faster
• Make buffing out the sanding marks easier
• Leave more paint on the car
• Be safer for the paint

Nikken Brand Finishing Papers

Great info thanks Mike! Will it say on the packaging if it is uniform grit? Or will it just simply say finishing paper? I know the autozone has 1500 and 2000 grit 3M paper. I'll have to go check it out again and see if it is in fact what I need.

[Mike Phillips]

Great info thanks Mike! Will it say on the packaging if it is uniform grit? Or will it just simply say finishing paper?

I know the autozone has 1500 and 2000 grit 3M paper. I'll have to go check it out again and see if it is in fact what I need.

To my knowledge Nikken is the only finishing paper on the market that offers unigrit technology. It's actually an electronics grade paper not an automotive grade paper.

Bill Stewart, the man that owns the Absorber synthetic drying chamois company discovered these papers made in Japan in the 1970's and secured the distribution rights for this brand for North America. He sold the distribution rights to Meguiar's and that's the story behind how and why Meguiar's is the only company you can purchase these Unigrit Finishing Papers from in the U.S.

I've done side by side demonstrations showing Nikken against automotive grades and after compounding what you see are tracers left by the automotive grade.

If you use automotive grade then just be sure to work clean and use the best technique you can muster for applying even pressure when sanding.

[BrianJM]

Well that's some cool information right there! I wondered that.
I worked on the car today and I'll just say that there is def a learning curve when it come to wet sanding by hand. The customer was happy but I know I've got to get better. The touch up paint I used was chipping as I was sanding it down also after it was all said and done it looks like I could have blended a little better on the spots I sanded. Other than that the car turned out great.

[aquarian]

The photos on the first page are no longer available.....

[Mike Phillips]

The photos on the first page are no longer available.....

That's a common problem with pictures hosted to Photobucket. Richy chimed in on another thread and stated it was not the fault of Photobucket. I asked him if he still had the picture but don't remember him answering, (haven't checked either).

If he does, I would be willing to put them into the free gallery here on Autogeek and then re-insert them so they match the step-by-step how-to information.


Not sure what to say about Photobucket. What I've seen over the years is a lot of missing pictures though...

[aquarian]

Thanks Mike for your reply. I have been a big fan of yours since the beginning of time.

That's a common problem with pictures hosted to Photobucket. Richy chimed in on another thread and stated it was not the fault of Photobucket. I asked him if he still had the picture but don't remember him answering, (haven't checked either).

If he does, I would be willing to put them into the free gallery here on Autogeek and then re-insert them so they match the step-by-step how-to information.


Not sure what to say about Photobucket. What I've seen over the years is a lot of missing pictures though...

[richy]

That's a common problem with pictures hosted to Photobucket. Richy chimed in on another thread and stated it was not the fault of Photobucket. I asked him if he still had the picture but don't remember him answering, (haven't checked either).

If he does, I would be willing to put them into the free gallery here on Autogeek and then re-insert them so they match the step-by-step how-to information.


Not sure what to say about Photobucket. What I've seen over the years is a lot of missing pictures though...

Mike,

I missed your request. Yes, they are still on PB, it's just the links all got terminated by something I had done incorrectly. I will see if I can locate them and arrange to send you the links to the pics. Thanks for your extra effort in reviving the thread!!

Rich