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The weather finally broke so we didn't have to deal with triple digit temps for this class. That meant we could comfortably wet sand, damp sand and rotary buff all day long with a comfortable breeze entering the training garage. Nice!!!
Following the classroom portion of the day it was time for the hands on demo. Here we start off hand sanding with 1500 grit.
We followed that by cross cutting with 3000 grit to refine the surface.
We then moved on to damp sanding with a pneumatic DA. Here we're showing how the foam interface pad and finishing disc give a large margin of safety when encountering tight body contours.
Again, we sanded with both 1500 and 3000 grit.
Rotary buffing with a wool cutting pad and M105 to remove the sanding marks. Fingertip control of the rotary is possible (though not the way you'd work it in actual use), so obviously there is no need to fight the tool.
Lunch break!!
This is not a demo on how NOT to use the rotary, but rather on how to use it when attacking a tight concave radius of a body panel. You don't want to angle the pad this heavily when working on a flat surface, but sometimes you need to just to reach a tight spot.
At this point the students cut loose and started sanding and buffing. Below is what the very early stages of sanding look like. The darker, shiny areas are the low points that have not been reached by the sand paper. In this case, it was 1500 grit hand sanding that would normally level the surface - it just hasn't been worked quite long enough to finish leveling.
This is after completing the 1500 grit hand sanding: a beautifully uniform and flat looking surface, devoid of any real reflectivity.
This is after refining the area with 3000 grit and you can clearly see that we're bringing back the gloss. This surface is nicely refined with a very fine and uniform sanding scratch, so this will be very easy to buff out.
The pneumatic DA sander, nice and flat against the paint.
Before: clear reflections but lots of texture in the paint.
After: nice clear reflections with virtually no texture, thanks to 1500 and 3000 grit sanding and M105/wool and M205 foam on the rotary.
Kyle working the DA sander right up to the edge. He is not using a lot of pressure here, he's just carefully controlling the tool as he works up to the edge of the panel.
Fun times learning new processes and techniques in our training garage!
Following the classroom portion of the day it was time for the hands on demo. Here we start off hand sanding with 1500 grit.
We followed that by cross cutting with 3000 grit to refine the surface.
We then moved on to damp sanding with a pneumatic DA. Here we're showing how the foam interface pad and finishing disc give a large margin of safety when encountering tight body contours.
Again, we sanded with both 1500 and 3000 grit.
Rotary buffing with a wool cutting pad and M105 to remove the sanding marks. Fingertip control of the rotary is possible (though not the way you'd work it in actual use), so obviously there is no need to fight the tool.
Lunch break!!
This is not a demo on how NOT to use the rotary, but rather on how to use it when attacking a tight concave radius of a body panel. You don't want to angle the pad this heavily when working on a flat surface, but sometimes you need to just to reach a tight spot.
At this point the students cut loose and started sanding and buffing. Below is what the very early stages of sanding look like. The darker, shiny areas are the low points that have not been reached by the sand paper. In this case, it was 1500 grit hand sanding that would normally level the surface - it just hasn't been worked quite long enough to finish leveling.
This is after completing the 1500 grit hand sanding: a beautifully uniform and flat looking surface, devoid of any real reflectivity.
This is after refining the area with 3000 grit and you can clearly see that we're bringing back the gloss. This surface is nicely refined with a very fine and uniform sanding scratch, so this will be very easy to buff out.
The pneumatic DA sander, nice and flat against the paint.
Before: clear reflections but lots of texture in the paint.
After: nice clear reflections with virtually no texture, thanks to 1500 and 3000 grit sanding and M105/wool and M205 foam on the rotary.
Kyle working the DA sander right up to the edge. He is not using a lot of pressure here, he's just carefully controlling the tool as he works up to the edge of the panel.
Fun times learning new processes and techniques in our training garage!