I'd like to get some pictures up of the difference between a normal coat of paint, and one that someone has taken the time to wetsand. I want this thread to be a good guide to those who want to take the plunge into making their third gens shine! Before/after pictures would be awesome, but after will still show the difference.

I'd post pictures of mine, but I haven't done it yet. I did wetsand my truck's hood when I painted that years ago, and it made a tremendous difference in my opinion. For my car, I painted it in my driveway in the hot sun, and it had bad orange peel. I tried wetsanding, but it didn't come out too well so I eventually re-cleared it. Again, I don't have a booth so this was outside, but it came out pretty nice given the situation.

However, there is still some orange peel (and unfortunately some scratches where I used too rough of sandpaper between coats of clear) and I'm thinking of spending the time to do a real wetsanding job.


For those that have wetsanded, some questions to help myself and others:

-What grit sandpaper did you start with, and what did you end with?

-Did you use an orbital sander, rotary sander, or hand sand?

-What pads did you use to buff (meguires red/yellow etc?) and what compounds did you use (meguires 105 and 205 etc)?

-Did you take time between sections or do it all in one go?

And here's the big one, How much time did the wetsanding process take you?

That's it for now, I may start piece by piece on mine real soon, and take some before/after pictures to show the difference! I may practice on my truck first though because I'll be repainting that a different color in the coming year.

 

I don't have any pictures but I can give details on my last paint job.
First, whoever sprays paint (mine base coat and then clear coat) I would recommend extra coats of clear to allow for orange peel that can be sanded off and still have enough clear coat to protect paint.
Once paint and clear has cured according to manufacturer, I started with 6" DA sander from Harbor Freight with 1" foam pad between sand paper and sander base to follow any slight contours of car using 600 grit wet sandpaper and then moving to 1000 grit. I then used 1500 and 2000 grit wet sandpaper on flexible sanding block.
Not sure if pics would even show up, but as soon as you begin to sand the clear will become dull and using light at angle the pits of the orange peel will still be shiny. The goal of wet sanding clear is to have absolutely flat surface to use progressively finer sandpaper to remove all scratches from sandpaper usually from the most coarse sandpaper you began the process. I only went down to 2000 grit wet sandpaper using 5 gallon bucket of water all the way around car which took me 2 to 3 weeks with couple hours in evenings during week with more time on weekends. Some have even went to extreme with 3000 grit sandpaper.
I then used Meguiar's M105 Ultra Cut Compound with foam pad on DA sander and then followed with Meguiar's Ultimate Polish or could use Meguiar's M205 finishing polish. I didn't use Meguiar's NXT Generation Tech Wax 2.0 until at least 30 days after painting car to allow curing of paint.
Hope this helps!

 

Well I starting trying to tackle the rear hatch portion because there was a spot that was pretty bad.

I bought some new sandpaper (1500, 2000, and 3000) and foam backing pads and got the section "done" today. The special sandpaper (1500 up) gets pretty expensive for just one pad... but apparently they are supposed to last an entire car so if that's the case, I'm actually okay with that. They are around 10 bucks each.

Unfortunately, there are still some pretty bad swirls in the paint... so I must have done something wrong. You can only see them in the reflection of the sun or a strong flashlight is directly on it. Otherwise, it actually looks much better.

I am quite hesitant to do other parts of my car if I can't figure out how to get the swirls out. I don't know if I'm not sanding enough with the 3000 grit, or one of my pads (red or yellow maguires) is too dirty. Either that, or maybe I need to bust out the rotary polisher instead of the orbital.


I'll post the before/after pictures once photobucket's website is back up. I didn't get a picture of the "swirls" because its on a portion that doesn't often get direct sunlight (plus it looks like a did a better job when you don't see the swirls.)

Edit: I suppose I can upload the pictures directly on this post. I usually don't do that because it's more annoying to view and I have satellite internet so it takes me a while to load them on other peoples post. However, I don't feel like waiting around for Photobucket to be back up right now. The first picture is the before obviously, and the next is the after.

 

Some of the things that also needs to be done for a show car reflection is block sanding and wet sanding the primer. Without those two you'll still be able to see a waviness in the reflection.
There are so many ways to wetsand/buff clear coat. If you are a good sprayer you can get away with a denim polishing pad and then just jump to your finishing compound. But those guys aren't as common as you might think...
I would say if you have little to no experience with finishing work you should start with 1000 grit and work your way to 2000. The first paint job I did I started with too much grit and by the time I made it to 2000 I had gone through the clear in a few spots and that was after 3 coats of clear. Lessons learned. Don't try to get rid of all the orange peel until at least 1500, you only want to remove the bare minimum as you still need to polish it. If all of the orange peel is gone switch to a DA with M105 or 3M super duty rubbing compound. Than move to M205 or 3m finishing compound. Then switch to a pink glaze as it will essentially act as a light swirl remover. Sure you can use a regular polisher with a variable speed capability and save time but it's easier to burn through the clear coat or leave swirls if you're inexperienced.

 

Careful when wet-sanding clear !! There usually isn't very much clear on a car and wet-sanding removes more then you might think. I'm NO PRO, but I've put done some 'detailing' work before. I'd advise you to try polishing FIRST, Then Buffing if your still not happy with the results,... only then would I try to wet sand (a little) ,.....then buff, then polish.


Start with super-fine paper and change to a more aggressive grade only if your not getting good results.

I hand-sand with a semi-flexible pad/block

Used Wool pad for buffing, Foam for polishing.

Any compound will work, I like Meguiars.

When working 'start-to-finish', I'd prefer working on 1 area at a time,... wet-sand the whole car (section by section) then buff the whole car (section by section). If I have to walk away from the project for days at a time I would buff any areas already sanded before taking a break from the project,......


This hood was painted with single stage urethane, then most of the orange peel was wet-sanded out and then buffed:





Sail panel before & after wet-sand & buff:





Took a couple weeks to do that whole car after fresh paint that was sprayed on REAL thick & had HEAVY orange peel !! ( Your first pass will use much finer sand-paper than I used here ! ) You can't be that aggressive when dealing with clear-coat,....... clear-coat is usually a VERY THIN layer and if you are to aggressive you will "burn" right thru that layer !!


Here's a pic of a Factory 85 Z28 paint while in the process of buffing it out ( no wet-sanding ) IIRC early Thirdgens used a single stage until sometime around 86-88 when they began to use clear (???)




BE CAREFULL WET-SANDING CLEAR !!

 

I should clarify I was speaking as if you had just painted the car.

 

here is a pic of my old car, every inch was wetsanded and buffed post paint. I think 1500 or 2000 grit was the final paper grit... lots of time went into it, my old boss did most of it and I did a bunch myself. Paint was 15 years old in this picture and still looked incredible. It's worth it, just take your time and be patient.