wet sanded 68 camaro

**Sparkle007** · 09-16-2009, 08:57 PM

I got a call today from a restoration shop and they want me to come look at a camaro they are working on. I haven't seen it yet but they said it has just been painted red and they have fully wet sanded the entire car. Their issue is the guy they had doing the polishing has quit. Anyway I have never polished a car that has been entirely wet sanded before so I have a few questions. First off any rough estimates as far as a time frame to get the thing completely polished? At my shop I use a dewalt 849 and a flex 3401. I have orange, white, and black pads, Menzerna PO83 and Menzerna 106FA have been my polishes of choice for a long while. I'm just wondering if what I have is going to be good enough to do the job or am I going to have to pick up a more aggressive menzerna polish and/or more aggressive pads? They say the car has been sanded with 2000 grit. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

**Mirror Detailing** · 09-16-2009, 09:04 PM

I have dont plenty of wet sand buffing with M105 and a Orange Pad via my Dewalt 849. Only use the Menzerna SIP, but if your compounds works just as good as M105 then you will be fine. As for time frame...good luck!

**SpotlessDetail** · 09-16-2009, 09:08 PM

What grit paper they used will determine how long it will take. Most likely and hopfully for you they finished out with 2000. That is a big car with hard edges so be careful. As far as time plan on putting at least 9 hours in it if your using a high speed buffer. Good luck

**nrengle** · 09-16-2009, 10:09 PM

Also there's a lot of metal on a 68. I had a 69 for a while, and polished it out twice. Lots of work. The louvers suck to do. Be patient, and since it's a restore, ask if they've used any body filler and where. I'd suspect that that stuff doesn't play too well with a rotary. My 69 didn't have a drop (it was actually completed old school way with lead on the seams from the new rear quarters), so I can't comment, but something I'd watch out for. Also if they did it with the SS strip is it a decal or actually painted on (seen both).

As for what polish, you may need a compound but you won't know till you hit a test spot and see what it does. I'd assume probably yes, and probably need some PFW pads to go along with it.

**Rsurfer** · 09-16-2009, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by Sparkle007

I got a call today from a restoration shop and they want me to come look at a camaro they are working on. I haven't seen it yet but they said it has just been painted red and they have fully wet sanded the entire car. Their issue is the guy they had doing the polishing has quit. Anyway I have never polished a car that has been entirely wet sanded before so I have a few questions. First off any rough estimates as far as a time frame to get the thing completely polished? At my shop I use a dewalt 849 and a flex 3401. I have orange, white, and black pads, Menzerna PO83 and Menzerna 106FA have been my polishes of choice for a long while. I'm just wondering if what I have is going to be good enough to do the job or am I going to have to pick up a more aggressive menzerna polish and/or more aggressive pads? They say the car has been sanded with 2000 grit. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

First thing is to inspect the paint first. Don't bite off more than you can chew. This job could take you 10 hrs. or several day's so thread lightly. Just my $.02,

**ASPHALT ROCKET** · 09-16-2009, 10:26 PM

Use a wool pad with your compound, it is going to be alot easier than using an orange pad. Plus it will cut slightly faster and leave a better finish to work off of. Then move up to a middle type polish like sip or 205 with a white pad and then use a finishing polish with a finishing polish. I wouldn't put a time limit on it, take your time and pay attention to your work and you should be fine. I have wet sanded hundreds of show cars with custom paint and I always take my time, this works much better than trying to put a time limit on a project like this.

**SpotlessDetail** · 09-17-2009, 06:48 AM

I know what your getting at with the time. How do I quote it? As for that I would shoot for the high side. Chances are they will pay it because they know what it takes. Good luck. That will be a fun job and one good for references.

**Sparkle007** · 09-17-2009, 09:06 AM

Thank you very much everyone for the advice! I was thinking I better see if they can leave the camaro with me for a week or so just in case. Guess the best thing is to go see it first before I try to plan anything. I will take lots of pictures of the job!

Mike Phillips · 09-17-2009, 06:23 PM

I agree with ASPHALT ROCKET, definitely get a good quality wool cutting pad and use this for your initial cut.

I would ask them how many coats of clear they sprayed, 3 is usually minimum if they know it's going to be wet-sanded, cut and buff but they may have sprayed more. (cross your fingers).

Some painters will only spray 2 coats but they'll be real heavy coats. The idea being is you want some film-build to work with. It's almost kind of relative at this point as there's no way of knowing how much clear was taken off via wet-sanding.

First thing you want to do is make sure the car is absolutely clean, you don't want any dust or dirt or sand paper grit particles on the car anywhere as the air-current created by your rotating pad can draw particles into your buffing process and cause random circular scratches in the paint.

Next I would do a Test Spot, test out your compound and wool pad combination to a section about a foot squared or so and see how easy or difficult your sanding marks come out. You want 100% of your sanding marks to come out easy, that rarely happens, so you're looking for what percentage of sanding marks come out after say 6-8 section passes with the rotary around 1500 RPM

See what you can do with a just a few passes, if you buff till they are all gone you won't know what percentage are coming out quickly and what percentage are coming out only after lots of buffing.

After you buff your test section inspect the finish carefully for Tracers. I'm assuming this car was hand-sanded using some kind of straight, back and forth wet-sanding technique. What you want is minimal tracers, if you're seeing a majority of sanding marks come out but you're left with a lot of deeper scratches in the paint this is a bad sign. Usually it's safer to re-sand the car with better paper or by machine and then buff out your sanding marks instead of heavy and hard compounding. Wet-sanding is cool as compared to heavy cutting with a rotary buffer.

If you're seeing a lot of tracers you might want to think about re-sanding the major panels using either the 3M or Mirka systems. The body shop will have air-powered DA sanders you can use and make them buy you the sanding discs. (They're expensive)

One thing I know for sure and that is I would rather compound after machine sanding with #4000 grit Mirka Abralon versus compound after #2000 grit hand sanding. #4000 grit Abralon buffs out like a breeze...

Generally speaking, the sooner you can get to buffing the easier the sanding marks will come out so get moving on this project as soon as you can.

Lay down some painters tape on top of any hard body line and then buff up to the taped line, not on top of it.

Also, try to have the car moved to a location where you don't have people sanding bondo or paint next to you as well as grinding, you don't want to fight dirt and dust in the air landing the car. Remember to take some ear plugs, you're going to be running that buffer for 10 to 12 hours a day for a couple of days. (At least I would be but I don't claim to be fast)

Take lots of water and food with you, I never take lunch breaks for stuff like this as it's very time intensive. Eat, drink, get back to work. Safety glasses aren't a bad idea either, over the summer I got a piece of metal in my eye and had to go to the emergency room and have it plucked out. I was wearing safety glasses with eye shields and being careful and it still happened and it really drove home how important my eyesight is to me. (Ouch that hurt!)

Good luck!

**nrengle** · 09-17-2009, 07:37 PM

Mike great info! You would probably know the answer to what I mentioned earlier. How well does body filler (IE Bondo) play with our rotaries and to a lesser extent, DA's? Can it be pretty flaky to work with, as sensitive as plastic with a flex agent in it, or is it pretty rock solid like working on actual body panel (never mind soft/hard paint)?