Compound for 2500 grit sand marks

[Vachterm]

Hi all! New poster here.
I'm not into ar detailing but rather into fine woodworking and guitar making.
The traditional finish on electric guitars has long been nitrocelluose lacquer and i still use it when asked to but recently, i have switched over to catalyzed finishes - mostly automotive 2k acrylic urethane.
To make a long story short- sprayed, wet-sanded 2 day later with 2500( was enough to quickly get rid of all orange peel) and getting ready to buff.
I've had good experience withmenzerna products along the years and i am planning on using them this time.
Given that the paint is a week old and sanded with 2500, would the menzerna 400 be an overkill? Am i better off going with the menz 2500?
In a perfect world, i'd try the 2500 first but i can not get this stuff locally so i am going to have it from the US so package weight is an issue.

Thanks,
Udi.

[dlc95]

What kind of tool/pad are you using?

[Vachterm]

Using a makita rotary.
Still undecided with regards to pads - will gladly take advice on that subject too. Was thinking about the lake country ccs - orange for compounding and black/blue for finishing.

[Setec Astronomy]

If you've got plenty of clear on there I don't think the FG400 will be overkill. What are you going to finish with after that?

[dlc95]

Any chance you'd want to finish with 3000 grit?

As far as removing the 2500, I'm pretty sure the 2500 would do the trick. I used to pull 2000 grit with Meguiar's M02 on W4000 wool pad on the rotary with no problem.

I finished with M09 on either a yellow foam polish pad, or the tan ultra soft, which they no longer make from what I understand.

[Vachterm]

Yeah sure, no problem going over it with a 3000.
Its much smaller than a car so wetsanding it all with 3000 shouldnt more than a couple of minutes.

[BillE]

Just thinkin' out loud...but maybe even some 5000.

Bill

[dlc95]

Yeah sure, no problem going over it with a 3000.
Its much smaller than a car so wetsanding it all with 3000 shouldnt more than a couple of minutes.

Anytime you go as fine a grade as possible, you are doing yourself a favor.

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

What kind of tool/pad are you using?

You would be the first to reply on a polishing guitar thread

[Mike Phillips]

Hi all! New poster here.

I'm not into ar detailing but rather into fine woodworking and guitar making.

The traditional finish on electric guitars has long been nitrocelluose lacquer and i still use it when asked to but recently, i have switched over to catalyzed finishes - mostly automotive 2k acrylic urethane.

I've buffed out a few guitars on my life and the guitars with old school lacquer paints suffer from staining from the sweat from a person's hands. Modern paints should hold up lot better.

Given that the paint is a week old and sanded with 2500, would the menzerna 400 be an overkill? Am i better off going with the menz 2500?

In a perfect world, i'd try the 2500 first but i can not get this stuff locally so i am going to have it from the US so package weight is an issue.

Thanks,
Udi.

If it were me I would start with the FG400 with a wool pad on a rotary. Remember, you really only need to buff long enough to remove the sanding marks then you can stop and move onto a less aggressive product and pad.


If you go with a less aggressive product and a foam pad you can do it but it will simply take longer.

I'm assuming you're hand sanding? (not machine sanding). If so, buffing with foam will remove all the shallow scratches and then reveal the tracers. If you do have tracers it will be faster to simply move on to wool and rebuff or start with wool.

Most important and I'm sure you already know this, anytime you're buffing on small areas or localized areas, be very careful for surface temperatures. When compounding a hood, while you're buffing one extreme side the other extreme side is cooling down so it's harder to heat up a large panel.

When buffing a small area or in this case a guitar body, you'll generate a lot of heat faster than when buffing a large panel because there's never any break in the buffing for the current area being buffed to cool down. So everything just gets hotter and hotter and then BAM you twist the paint or melt it or burn through it.

When buffing something like a guitar, take your time. Buff for a few seconds and the place you hand where you were buffing and check the surface temp. If it's low buff some more. If it's noticeably hot then STOP and let the guitar body cool down... then buff some more.

I have an article about this here,


Fight or Flight Method for Gaging Surface Temperature