Anybody here have experience in color-sanding a factory finish?

[OCBen]

Looking for some advice in removing slight orange peel from a cured factory finish. Will polishing with a rotary polisher alone help, or is it better to do some slight sanding with Unigrit 3000 or 2500, as recommended for factory finishes in Meguiar's how-to videos?

[Mike Phillips]

You'll need to wet sand to make the finish flat and then remove your sanding marks. Removing the sanding marks is the hard part.

Have you ever used a rotary buffer before?

[OCBen]

Yes of course. I used a DeWalt rotary that I borrowed the last time I color-sanded a car. Just bought a Makita 9227C rotary polisher. And yeah I know, buffing out the marks is the hardest part, that's why I want to stay around 2500 to 3000 grit.

Mike, does Meguiar's have a retail outlet store that carries all their products here in Orange County? Seems like some of these paint stores don't carry everything I need. Sure would be nice to find a one-stop shop that carries all of Meguiar's products.

[OCBen]

Anybody here at all have experience color-sanding orange peel off a factory finish? Anybody?

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by OCBen
Mike, does Meguiar's have a retail outlet store that carries all their products here in Orange County? Seems like some of these paint stores don't carry everything I need. Sure would be nice to find a one-stop shop that carries all of Meguiar's products.

How close are you to Lake Forrest?

Try this location.

Meguiar's Signature Detailing
22512 Aspan Street
Lake Forest, CA 92630
949-770-4929

Call first to make sure they have everything you're looking for.

[Mike Pennington]

OC Ben,

What part of OC are you looking for a store ?

As far as helping you with factory paint, what are your specific questions...

Keep in mind, when you wqork on factory paint, there is not much clear at all to play with (about 1.5 - 2.0 mils) thats it...The more clear you remove, the more UV protection you take off which means, the life of the paint is reduced...Usually when you color / wet sand, you lay additional coats down, knowing that you are going to remove them.

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by OCBen
Anybody here at all have experience color-sanding orange peel off a factory finish? Anybody?

I do and I wouldn't do it again. That said, I've heard of detailers that have not had any problems wet sanding and buffing out factory clear coats, so it's part skill level, and part personal decision.

I ran into problems in tight areas, around next to edges, etc.

Here are the issues as "I" see them when contemplating sanding down a factory finish...

First: Removing the sanding marks. Some factory clear coats are as hard as glass. Most/all newer Corvettes and Vipers I've worked had paint like this and while it's easy to sand the paint, it's difficult to remove the sanding marks.

Second: There's a huge difference between working on the flat, easy to buff areas than it is to work up close to body lines, things like grills by the windshield wipers, curved insets, anyplace where theirs a high point and there's a chance the paint may have flowed out and left that area thinner.


I'm fairly confident that I know what you're thinking, that is...

"If I stay with the higher grit finishing papers, like #2500 and #3000 grit, then I should be okay"

And this is true, as long as it's not too difficult to remove all the sanding marks. Often times when you wet sand a finish, it's easy to buff the paint and remove 99% of the sand marks, but when you're completely finished, and you get down you're eyes down to within a few inches of the paint and start to really inspect the result closely with the most discerning eyes, often times you'll be able to see a the sanding mark pattern, or tracers in the finish that didn't remove completely in the compounding step. If you don't remove them in the compounding step, they will be there all the way through till the end because if the compounding step didn't remove them, all the rest of the steps will be less aggressive and will likely not remove them either.

So part of you decision is your own expectations. Do you expect 100% flawlessness? Or is 99% close enough. I would say for people doing it for themselves, 99% is usually close enough. I would say when a customer pays to have it done, they often expect 100% flawless finish yet they don't understand the process and in the case of a hard, factory finish, the difficulty in reaching 100% Their mindset is one of, "I paid this amount of money, I expect perfection". Easier said than done.

The best thing you can do if you are really interested in wet sanding your new car's factory finish is to do a Test Spot. If you can successfully make one small area look good with your choice of products, and process, then you can duplicate this, or cookie-cutter this process over the entire car. If you find it too difficult, too time consuming, or too risky to sand and remove the sanding marks to one small area, then chances are you will not be able to successfully sand and buff out the entire car.

Test Spots, we cannot over emphasis the importance of conduction a proper test of a small area before attempting to tackle the entire car when considering a project like this.

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by OCBen
Yes of course. I used a DeWalt rotary that I borrowed the last time I color-sanded a car. Just bought a Makita 9227C rotary polisher. And yeah I know, buffing out the marks is the hardest part, that's why I want to stay around 2500 to 3000 grit.

Just out of curiosity... what are you thinking about sanding down?

[the other pc]

Originally posted by OCBen
... Seems like some of these paint stores don't carry everything I need...

Paint stores do tend to carry what their regular customers use most but they can order any of the pro products. In my corner of OC they get whatever I want very quickly.


PC.

[OCBen]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
...Often times when you wet sand a finish, it's easy to buff the paint and remove 99% of the sand marks, but when you're completely finished, and you get down you're eyes down to within a few inches of the paint and start to really inspect the result closely with the most discerning eyes, often times you'll be able to see a the sanding mark pattern, or tracers in the finish that didn't remove completely in the compounding step. If you don't remove them in the compounding step, they will be there all the way through till the end because if the compounding step didn't remove them, all the rest of the steps will be less aggressive and will likely not remove them either...

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Same thing happened when I color-sanded my Boxster. I was able to see afterwards the tracers in the finish that weren't completely removed.

Originally posted by Mike Pennington
... Keep in mind, when you wqork on factory paint, there is not much clear at all to play with (about 1.5 - 2.0 mils) thats it...The more clear you remove, the more UV protection you take off which means, the life of the paint is reduced...Usually when you color / wet sand, you lay additional coats down, knowing that you are going to remove them.

Mike

Very good point, and for these two main reasons you two have pointed out I probably won't go through with color-sanding my brand new Carrera that is due in this week.

The car is a light grey metallic and shouldn't show orange peel as bad as the black Boxster I had. I think I'll just polish the paint with the Makita 9227 rotary and call it a day (or two).

So what product do you guys recommend for this purpose? I was thinking of using the Meguiar's yellow foam polishing pad (sorry I can't recall the exact name or number) with a machine polish and then doing the final finishing by hand with a finer polish.

I live in Santa Ana and wouldn't mind driving to Lake Forest if that's the outlet store that carries most of the product lines. Do you guys have one in Irvine next to headquarters? That would be even closer.

Thanks in advance guys. And keep up the good work!

[Mike Pennington]

Here are a few locations that come to mind in South Orange County that are close to you...

1) Senik Paint - 949-642-8141 - Placentia Ave in Costa Mesa

2) Meguiar's Detail Center - 949-770-4929 Aspan St. in Lake Forest

Senik Paint has a huge supply on hand, and our Detail Center has just about everything you can imagine !!!

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by OCBen
So what product do you guys recommend for this purpose? I was thinking of using the Meguiar's yellow foam polishing pad (sorry I can't recall the exact name or number) with a machine polish and then doing the final finishing by hand with a finer polish.

Meguiar's always teaches the practice of first evaluating the condition of the surface and then choosing the correct products. For this reason, cross your fingers and hope for the best until you take delivery of the Porsche, maybe you'll get lucky and it will be perfect! If not, then perhaps a careful washing and drying, and then drive her into a place with full-on sun and inspect the finish for swirls, if possible, park in a garage with florescent lights and inspect for orange peel. Then move forward from there in deciding on a course of action.

I live in Santa Ana and wouldn't mind driving to Lake Forest if that's the outlet store that carries most of the product lines. Do you guys have one in Irvine next to headquarters? That would be even closer.

We don't at this time have a Meguiar's retail store in or close to our Corporate office. If like, you could visit a local PBE store that I think would be closer to you and they carry a good supply of Meguiar's.

Senik Paint Supply

Again, you can always call a head and insure they have what you're wanting to purchase and if they don't, I'm sure they can order it for you.

[OCBen]

I've been to Senik's before, that's where I bought my supplies when I did my first color-sanding job. I think I'll stop by that detail center store in Lake Forest , but I'll probably call ahead just to make sure they have what I'm looking for. Specifically, I'll need some fine detailing clay, plenty of micro-fiber towels, and the polishes I plan to get once I select them from Meguiar's professional line.

[Jimmy Buffit]

Just thought I'd jump in to reinforce most of the points already made.

I've wetsanded four complete cars. Like Mike Phillips, I'll be reluctant to do it again. Just way too tough to get the smaller spots. Really quite frustrating!

Most recently, I did a 02 BLACK Lincoln Continental. Car had severe epoxy paint overspray - black overspray, noless! - Our efforts to clay the car were successful, to the touch, but one could still detect the 'base' of the overspray. The insurance company asked us to "put some sandpaper on it" since a complete repaint was the only remaining option.

That removed alot of our hesitation, so we went at it, with some abandon... The result was pretty nice. But it was very tedious work.

The positive result did cement our relationship wiith the large Insurance company, as we saved them $2-3 thousand ...

And I have seen Mike Pennington's Black Suburban...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Anybody here have experience in color-sanding a factory finish?

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