Wet sanding gone wrong!!

[monz87]

Hi guys,

Someone keyed my car so I've been watching a lot of youtube videos on how to repair it and was convinced that wet sanding and polishing would do the job. I baught the meguiars polishing compound, showroom glaze and yellow tech wax to seal it off. I also baught the micro fibres, wool pads etc and 2000 grit sandpapers. All the videos online look so easy and do-able.
So the other day I attempted to wet sand and, before I even did a lot, well look at the pictures. I did polish it to take the matte effect away but boy did I mess up on the wet sanding. I didn't even wet sand it a lot!!. What have I actually done? And is there anything I can do besides the obvious??

[Mark58]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

I looks like it penetrated clear coat and paint. Not much you can do to correct that except try this. From what I read many people had great results.

http://www.drcolorchip.com/

[monz87]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

I'm not sure that product will work for this...

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

You're either going to have to repaint the panel or have someone fill it with an airbrush.

[detailchick]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Yes (like mentioned)unfortunetely you have sanded through the clearcoat and it will need to be painted.

Sorry that happened to you!

But its a good reminder for people that this can happen quite easily and wet sanding factory paint can be very risky.

[monz87]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

How comes on the videos they sand it so much and it doesn't go that deep and it easily went for me? Also is there a cheap way for me to paint it somehow my self??

[detailchick]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

How comes on the videos they sand it so much and it doesn't go that deep and it easily went for me? Also is there a cheap way for me to paint it somehow my self??

Could be many different reasons . you may have been unlucky and have had a thinner clear coat to start with . You may have used more pressure when sanding than is needed . You could have buffed it too much with compound.You also need a flexible sanding block as it on a curved panel.

Painting is better left for the professionals. Unfortunetely you could end up with a bigger mess if try painting it yourself .It takes some knowledge and expertise to know how not just to paint,to do a blend on the color base coat and have it look unnoticable .

[Garage Troll]

You may have also gone with too aggressive of a grit. I know that may sound stupid but I don't go any more aggressive than 3000 grit because I don't have a paint gauge. I did screw up my hood once with 2000 grit. Partly because I went too fast and didn't check it every 8 passes or so. Live and learn. If you can, pick up a hood or trunk lid at a junk yard and practice

[scapegoat]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Let me help eveyone out in the future regaurding scratches . Take the edge of your finger nail and run it over the scratch. If you can feel it , you need to take it to a paint shop of your choice . If you can't feel it then you can wet sand n buff . I have veen panting cars for 30 years .You tube is alot like TV , you can't believe everything you see .

[detailchick]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

I wonder what videos you watched on Youtube?

I looked and I saw some that made me cringe!!!

You should not "finger/hand sand "for one. You need some kind of flexible sanding block to get an even pressure .

I see you used wool pads and thats pretty aggressive also.

I would have done the compounding /polishing (a small area like that by hand )to be safe. You really dont need a rotary or wool to get 2000 scratches out, with enough effort.

What kind of vehicles is it? Some cars paint notoriously thin paint to start with....especially the newer ones .

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Let me help eveyone out in the future regaurding scratches . Take the edge of your finger nail and run it over the scratch. If you can feel it , you need to take it to a paint shop of your choice . If you can't feel it then you can wet sand n buff . I have veen panting cars for 30 years .You tube is alot like TV , you can't believe everything you see .

The above noted "rule of thumb" is a good one, and it should be followed.

Judging by this image there is no way you or anyone else was going to fix this with any amount of wet sanding or compounding. That white line means the scratch is down to the primer and the only real fix is to repaint the panel. Sure, you could try a bit of touch up paint but on a scratch that long and that deep a little touch up paint generally means you have a dark line instead of a light line. It still doesn't look right.



But the bottom line, unfortunately, is that you've gone right through the clear and into the color. This is extremely easy to do when sanding, especially if you're not using some sort of a backing pad when using the abrasive media, or you use too much pressure. The problem with watching YouTube videos to learn how to do anything is that a pro can make anything look easy (assuming you were watching videos done by people who actually knew what they were doing - and really, why would you not?). It sort of like watching the Olympics on TV - there is not a single sport contested during the Olympics that's actually easy to do, certainly not at a true world class level, and yet everything looks so effortless. But years of training and practice will do that for almost anything you choose to tackle.

So, the bad news here is that you sanded and buffed right through the clear coat and now you're going to need the panel professionally repaired. The good news is, it was going to need professional repair anyway, so it's not like you've really taken a major step backward here. Better to learn this lesson when serious damage was already done rather than doing so just because you wanted to eliminate a bit of orange peel.

Now if you could only locate the little jerk who thought keying your car was a bright thing to do in the first place.

[monz87]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

First of all, my car is a Jaguar X-Type.

It now seems that you cant wet sand deep scratches that you can feel with a finger nail. I thought you can. I thought if you can't feel it with a finger nail then you can t-cut it anyway. All different videos online make scratches look deep and it seems to work. It also didn't look like you need to be a professional.

For example, look at this video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKjop_su1k&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL34C4B790559FBD8F

Thats quite a deep scratch, looks worse than mine but came out so easy. He also has other videos showing you how easy it can be done.

To be honest I wouldve gone slow, constantly checked on progress and then carried on accordingly, and taken my time and stopped at the first sign of damage but I was confident it should work and just went at it without much thought. Guess I learned my lesson eh!

If I found the piece of jelous trash that did the scratch, well thats for another forum LOL.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Looking at the video you linked to, the scratch does indeed look really bad. But the instant he starts going over it with the 2000 grit sandpaper the white is gone. Just gone. That tells us that a lot of what he's actually removing is some sort of surface material like paint transfer that can happen when you lightly bump into something and the paint on that something comes off that thing and is transferred to your paint. It's just sitting on the surface so removal is super easy. Yes, that same contact that caused the paint transfer will often leave fine scratches below it, but not all the way down to the primer.

We're also not big fans of using M85 Diamond Cut, like he did in the video, by hand. It's a rotary only compound and when used by hand it can often scour the paint. And even just a very vigorous hand application of this product can take you through the clear coat, especially if you're leaning on it with your thumb with concentrates all your energy into a small spot. That's without sanding first! We've seen people do this with even much less aggressive products than M85.

Looking at your pictures it seems that your biggest issue may have been the overall size of the area you worked. If you sanded bare handed and got your fingertips into it, and you didn't cover a very wide area to spread out that energy, and you put some pressure down on the paper, it's no wonder you went through the clear so quickly. The crazy thing is, hand sanding, even when done properly with a backing pad, is actually more aggressive than sanding with a DA sander. Probably the biggest negative about this video is they way he presents the process without discussing the pitfalls and what not to do. You can't see how much pressure he's putting down, and that alone is huge. When all you do is say "look at how easy this is, I just rub some of this on and then rub some of this and voila, done!" you just set people up for failure. This is as aggressive a process as you'll ever do to your paint, by a long shot.

What's important to remember is that a scratch is missing paint, and the only way to remove a scratch is to remove some of the surrounding material until you've leveled it down to the bottom of the scratch. If you can feel the scratch with your fingernail that means in order to remove it you have to remove quite a bit of surrounding paint; specifically the clear coat which is, after all, just clear paint. But a key will cut down through the clear, through the color coat and potentially even through the primer to bare metal. In your case it doesn't look like they got quite far, but down into the primer is really just as bad. The only way to eliminate the scratch you have by leveling it is to level to to the bottom. Which means leveling down into the primer. And that, obviously, isn't going to give you the result you want. Filling the scratch with a touchup paint can work, but when the scratch is that long, that deep and that wide, you're actually talking about a lot of touch up paint. And that then needs to built up bit by bit, and then sanded back down smooth to match the level of the factory paint. But even that doesn't account for the clear coat on the factory paint, which is what you really need on top to match the rest of the finish. So quite often, even if someone does manage to sand the touch up flat and then buff out those sanding marks, they then end up with a weird line that sort of matches the color of the car but not quite. It still doesn't look right. It probably looks better from 10 feet, but standing next to the car it sticks out like a sore thumb. And you're still not happy.

Scratch repair is one of those things where if you're really skilled at it you can actually make a very good show of it. But if not, it's incredibly easy to completely muck it up and make things worse than before. As, unfortunately, you now know first hand.

[monz87]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Wow, I guess i've learned my lesson then. I do really appreciate all your efforts and commenting on my thread. It has really helped. Thank you all.

Don't know what to do with these now, I wasted

[monz87]

Re: Wet sanding gone wrong!!

Why is it cutting off my post?