No short cuts worth taking when wet sanding

[Crispy]

Recently had my driver's front fender painted.

My body shop guy is great and doesn't buff out his work, instead he challanges me to make it better if I chose.

He always sprays extra Clear so I can play if I wish.

So the fender had some minor orange peel only visible to me.

Wet sanded 1500 grit followed by 2000 grit.

Since was small area used my Girot's 3" and ThinPro Orange pad to remove the sanding marks.

Looked OK after 5 section passes.

Couple days later noticed some dull areas from different angles.

Pulled out the Nano and yellow polishing pad and Yellow Polish to spot correct.

Looked OK.

Week later washed ONR and still see some dull areas.

Ok so far about 1 hour correction time and stiil not fixed.

Time to break out the Porter Cable and 5" Pads.

4 passes Orange LC Cutting pad and Optimum II Compound.

5 passes Blue LC Pad and Optimum Hyper Polish.

Total time 30 minutes and perfect correction.

Lesson learned, stick with proven methods and don't try to take short cuts (some call it experience).

[fly07sti]

This is very true. Especially when it comes to sanding. No pics though?

[mwoywod]

Recently had my driver's front fender painted.

My body shop guy is great and doesn't buff out his work, instead he challanges me to make it better if I chose.

He always sprays extra Clear so I can play if I wish.

So the fender had some minor orange peel only visible to me.

Wet sanded 1500 grit followed by 2000 grit.

Since was small area used my Girot's 3" and ThinPro Orange pad to remove the sanding marks.

Looked OK after 5 section passes.

Couple days later noticed some dull areas from different angles.

Pulled out the Nano and yellow polishing pad and Yellow Polish to spot correct.

Looked OK.

Week later washed ONR and still see some dull areas.

Ok so far about 1 hour correction time and stiil not fixed.

Time to break out the Porter Cable and 5" Pads.

4 passes Orange LC Cutting pad and Optimum II Compound.

5 passes Blue LC Pad and Optimum Hyper Polish.

Total time 30 minutes and perfect correction.

Lesson learned, stick with proven methods and don't try to take short cuts (some call it experience).

What sanding discs do you use? 3m trizact or mirka abralon? Or did you block sand by hand?

That's pretty amazing you were able to take 2000 grit sanding scratches out with just a porter cable and foam.

-Step 1- 3m 1500 trizact wet/dry sanding discs
-Step 2- mirka abralon 2000 grit wet/dry sanding discs
-Step 3- 3m trizact 3000 grit sanding discs

Sometimes when I feel like I'm flying through too many trizact 3000 grit discs and I convince myself I'll save money stopping at 2000, when I go to remove 2000 grit sanding marks......even with a Rotary, Lambswool, and M101, I'll have to compound the area 4-5 times to permanently remove 100% of my sanding marks.

When finishing with trizact 3000 grit, I generally can remove my sanding marks is 2-3 passes on the rotary with lambswool and m100 (harder paints I'll still use m101 or even menzerna SHC 300)

After this step I will generally go to DA and microfiber to remove any I may have missed.

Last polishing step I'll use foam but I don't switch to foam until I have verifying 98%-100% of the sanding marks were fully removed.

I certainly commend you for having the patience and fortitude to polish out 2000 grit marks with a PC7424xp and a foam cutting pad!!!! You're a beast!!

How many polishing sets did it take you? I should look into getting some Optimum Compound II

[Crispy]

Just did another bunch of stone chips in hood.

Painted day before to get above the surface blobs nice and dry.

Hand sanded with 1500 grit to level areas (about 8 spots).

Used the trizact pads on my 1 inch rotary Nano to remove the previous sanding marks.

4.5" orange pad with Optimum Hyper Compound and speed 6 on PC.

I did 4 hard passes and 1 light just the sanded areas.

At this point looked OK but from previoudly stated reason did polishing step.

Blue pad with Optimum Hyper Polish on PC speed 6 (tried speed 5 but not getting enough pad rotation).

I did 4 hard passes and 1 light per section.

Used CarPro Eraser to clean and coated with Optimum Gloss Coat (easiest coating I have tried with superior shine).

I should mention there were some areas on single stage black stripes and they came out using same routine).