Polish / Wet Sand Pitts in Paint

Well I have wet sanded a couple of my cars. This does work to get rid of "orange peal" paint, and I'm sure it will work the same for little pits. But you need to be careful. When you are wet sanding you are removing paint. What is happening is that you are lowering the level of the paint to the level of the low point in the pit. You can wet sand too much, to the point that you actually get to the primer. Here is what I suggest you do. Go and get some touch up paint matched to your buddies car. Then apply the paint with a small brush to the little pits. Let it dried for a day, and then go back and wet sand the applied area. This way you are sanding the paint in the pit down to the level of the good paint, and not the other way around.

 

I don't know about Lambo paint but 80's era Ferrari paint is kind of heavy on the orange peal. This maybe what you are seeing. Are they pits or low areas in the paint around 3/32"-1/16" in diameter?

Be careful.

P.S. Thanks for the waxing notes. Any more information about your technigues would be appreciated.

-F

 

Hi John.

Have you tried to touch up and then take the hump down with Langka? Works wonders.

FYI, my black '97 355 6 speed is at FoA for a major, then is on consignment there for sale. You know how sharp that looks, and the only way to keep it that way is touch up paint and Langka. Now have an '04 red 360 6 speed coupe.

I have done a fair amount of body work, and tried 2000 wet and dry on a couple spots, but even soaking the paper, using a lot of water, and being very gentle, still made a mess that took me 30 minutes to polish out with a random orbital and a mid-range grit. I would stay away from the sandpaper, but apparently there are people that use it successfullly. I would touch up, Langka, then buff over that.

Hope there's another get-together in the future, so I can see how the Lambo comes out.

Phil

 

If they are really small like pinhead size, they are probably "solvent pops" and if you can't live with them you'll probably have to repaint the whole car (sorry). Is this a base coat/clear coat finish?

 

Before retoreing several cars I worked for a buddy in his body shop off and on for a few years. I would experiment in a spot that is flat and not easily visible if a booboo occurs. If you are unsure starting with 1500 or 2000 is hard to get into too much trouble with. There are a couple of things that will keep you out of trouble. 1)put a small amount of car wash soap in a bucket of water. 2)From a local body supply shop get a few sponges made specifcally for this purpose.3)sand using very light pressure and dip your sand paper wrapped sponge constantly. The body supply shop should also have little squeegies so that every 5-10 strokes you should squeegie the spot and if you see little shiney spots thoses are your orange peel craters. Sand until the dots are gone then begin the buffing process. It is very important on edges you barely touch them. Also keep even pressure on your fingers. pushing hard with one finger can cause sand throughs also.

Change sandpaper about every panel. Once you get the feel for how much sanding it takes you don't need to squeegie constantly. Bus always Dip that sandpaper constantly, like every 15 to 30 seconds. It keeps the paper clean and thereby prevents bigger scrathes from debris build up. When I painted cars I knew would get the wet sand treatment I would make sure they had 3-5 coats of clear. I would start with 600 if it was real grainy. Factory paint on most cars is one coat of clear a few mils thick.

 

Before retoreing several cars I worked for a buddy in his body shop off and on for a few years. I would experiment in a spot that is flat and not easily visible if a booboo occurs. If you are unsure starting with 1500 or 2000 is hard to get into too much trouble with. There are a couple of things that will keep you out of trouble. 1)put a small amount of car wash soap in a bucket of water. 2)From a local body supply shop get a few sponges made specifcally for this purpose.3)sand using very light pressure and dip your sand paper wrapped sponge constantly. The body supply shop should also have little squeegies so that every 5-10 strokes you should squeegie the spot and if you see little shiney spots thoses are your orange peel craters. Sand until the dots are gone then begin the buffing process. It is very important on edges you barely touch them. Also keep even pressure on your fingers. pushing hard with one finger can cause sand throughs also.

Change sandpaper about every panel. Once you get the feel for how much sanding it takes you don't need to squeegie constantly. Bus always Dip that sandpaper constantly, like every 15 to 30 seconds. It keeps the paper clean and thereby prevents bigger scrathes from debris build up. When I painted cars I knew would get the wet sand treatment I would make sure they had 3-5 coats of clear. I would start with 600 if it was real grainy. Factory paint on most cars is one coat of clear a few mils thick.

 

Before retoreing several cars I worked for a buddy in his body shop off and on for a few years. I would experiment in a spot that is flat and not easily visible if a booboo occurs. If you are unsure starting with 1500 or 2000 is hard to get into too much trouble with. There are a couple of things that will keep you out of trouble. 1)put a small amount of car wash soap in a bucket of water. 2)From a local body supply shop get a few sponges made specifcally for this purpose.3)sand using very light pressure and dip your sand paper wrapped sponge constantly. The body supply shop should also have little squeegies so that every 5-10 strokes you should squeegie the spot and if you see little shiney spots thoses are your orange peel craters. Sand until the dots are gone then begin the buffing process. It is very important on edges you barely touch them. Also keep even pressure on your fingers. pushing hard with one finger can cause sand throughs also.

Change sandpaper about every panel. Once you get the feel for how much sanding it takes you don't need to squeegie constantly. Bus always Dip that sandpaper constantly, like every 15 to 30 seconds. It keeps the paper clean and thereby prevents bigger scrathes from debris build up. When I painted cars I knew would get the wet sand treatment I would make sure they had 3-5 coats of clear. I would start with 600 if it was real grainy. Factory paint on most cars is one coat of clear a few mils thick.

 

You would be surprised at what sanding will do. It's hard to distiguish scale from a picture but It's better to have a million small pits than a hundred big ones. Either way you sand the entire car. It will take a weekend of off and on work. Hopefully if it is a repaint it will have a little more clear than a factory job.

 

John,

Wow, from that pic I gotta change direction and say break out the sandpaper.

 

I found the website about that stuff. I have previously tried to do some paint chip touch-ups on a BMW 540 but with only so-so results, but I didn't have any help from these sorts of accessories. Have many people used this kit and found it to be helpful? I have a few chips on my M5 that I'd like to try to improve... For whatever reason I feel motivated to figure out how to do this stuff...

 

Langka is great for small rock chips. It is also great for big spots, but not in the normal way. Here is how it is great for the big spots:
Let's say you have paint missing the size of your fingernail. You build up the touch up paint in layers, then you carefully Langka the blob down until it is just a hair above the surface of the original paint. By this time it will be quite level (due to the nature of the Langka system). Well, all you have to do now is to break out the 1500# and 2000# sandpaper, bring the rest of the way down, then polish. Voila!

 

Please give some hints on how to properly "polish". A friend told me to use Meguiar's Mirror Glaze #3. He said to put it on the car with a damp sponge and then use an osillating buffer. Do you put polish on the buffer pad also? I've never use one before just used a polishing rag.

 

Yes.

You can find the paper at an auto parts store, or where they sell car paint.