what is color sanding and what does it do?

 

colorsanding (or wetsanding) is when, after a car is painted, you take a 1500 grit or 2000 grit sandpaper AND LOTS OF CONTINUOUS WATER, and go over the whole car to get out the orange peel. you also need to use a squegee (sp?) to be able to keep checking to see if you got all the oragepeel out. orange peel is caused by the uneven settling of the clearcoat. by colorsanding you remove all the highspots and the car will look totally dull when you are finished. this should not be attempted by someone without any experience because you can cause a lot of damage in a short time

it is real easy to sand right though the clear on sharp corners if you aren't careful, another reason this shouldn't be tried by amateurs is that, if you don't know how much clear has been applied to the car, you don't really knwo how much wiggle room you have before you might end up sanding through

once you have dulled out the whole car, the car needs to be buffed to bring the shine back

hope this helped and cleared things up a little

 

ahh, i understand. I knew it made it all look better, but i didnt know how. thanks.

 

why do you need a constant flowing water though? to wash away what you sanded off i assume.. but whats the point? will that scratch the paint worse than the sandpaper would?

 

it works as a lubricant for the paper. the sandpaper you use to do this is so fine, that the scratches are so minute that the buffing wheel gets rid of them afterwards

when you wetsand a car and if you ever drop the paper on the ground, you always throw it away and you NEVER re-use it on the car. even if you wash it and see no contaminants by eye, they are always there and they will ruin the whole paintjob in a hurry

 

ah, so is this something that could be done by myself? im not shy with sand paper, ive been doing various woodworking projects for years and consider myself good with it. Not that is takes a mental heavyweight.. lol

 

If you're gonna do it yourself I would advise you to use a sanding block. Also you need to take into consideration that you're gonna need to buff the car afterwards with a high speed buffer.. not the simonize kind.. the kind that constantly spins like a grinder. You will also need a really good polish. Then you'll need to wax the car when you're all done. Keep in mind that you can cause damage to your paint with that buffer though. Don't ever stop the buffer.. it needs to be constantly moving, otherwise you can burn your paint completely off if you leave it in one spot too long. Its alot of work man, I used to do it for a living. Good luck and if you have any questions feel free to ask, I'll help you out as much as I possibly can.

 

wetsanding is a lot different than working with wood. as someone with no experience, it is best if you know when the car was painted and how think the clear was laid on. the problem come from people sanding right though the clear (which is pretty easy to do), and this happens a lot on the corners and highpoints of the body

if this is something you wanted to try, I would suggest buying a book to find out about it because it is really one of those things that you really can't get all the knowledge that you would need, by reading a forum

after you read about it, then the forum would come in handy for any finetuning questions you might come across as you get to them