Ok, i am completly new to painting and i am teaching myself...
i found this site after i started painted a few things...

ok here the deal...

i painted my friends bike Escalade blue....
i was using Duponts Chromasystem ( is this g0od?)
I sprayed enough layers of base to obtain the coverage i was happy with..
then i sprayed 3 layers of clear coat...(chromaclear 7600) they were some thick coats of clear...all in all it came out g0od..( cept for newbie orange peel)

so i then wetsand with 2000, and i used 2 products my jobber gave me...
i believe it was chroma2000, used to remove the scratches from the 2000, and a hand glaze ( these came in black bottles) i forgot the name brand, will check later..

well ok, i tryed apply this by hand, but realized it was way to much work to gain a nice shine and get rid of all the scrached from the abrasive...

so i bought a cheapo little polisher from homedepot...
it did the job, after applying the 1st product, it looked great, had a nice rich shine, but i could still see some sctrachess...

which after reading i realized that i needed to "buff" ( is that what you call it) alittle while longer...

all in all everything came out g0od, but i still dont know what i am doing...

What should i be sanding with?
and what should i be applying after i color sand?
color sanding was a paint doing by hand, any other methods?
what are g0od maching to apply the material after color sanding?

thank you
Sspider

I color sand entire cars by hand, I never do it anyother way. After 1500 or 2000 I use 3-M's Micro finishing compound. Then I use Race Glaze Polish. The micro I use a buffer on but the polish I do by hand. Yes The Chroma System is a very good system.

hmmm, interestin
finishing compound, thats what you call it, interesting...
and that removes all the marks left by the 1500, or 2000 paper?
the product i used, i didn't even use the hand glaze...
the 1st product worked great...
least i think...


ohh thank you by the way....

Haven't you guys ever heard of wet sanding up to 12,000 grit?

My brother and I built models (cars, planes, tanks, etc, you get the idea) before we got into restoring real cars for ourself. We won hobbytowns national model contest many times.

I was the one that always did all the paint work, especially on the cars.
I painted the cars just like you would if they were real.
I used a bc/cc system of laquer. Well the finish usually came out very well in the first place, but I always took it farther with wetsanding the paint out.
Hobby Town sells a kit that comes with sanding cloths from 1500 to 12000.
Yea it takes a while, but the finish is like glass!
There are a couple of my models on my camaros web page. The pictures of the blue one are before wet sanding, and you can't really tell how glossy the white one is after wet sanding.
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/205528/2

12,000 grit? I think once I got past 2,000 I'd reach for the buffer. I paint bigger things though.

Aberrant wrote:12,000 grit? I think once I got past 2,000 I'd reach for the buffer. I paint bigger things though.

LOL Yea. I doubt I'd go all the way to 12,000 on a real car either.
I'd probably stop at 3,500.
But that option is always out there for those sharp edges that you'd burn through with a buffer.

Yeah, I've done furniture finishes both ways in the past (Micro Mesh up to that mystical 12000 grit and compound/buff) and the fine grit papers just take too long on larger projects. I do still however use them to get "safely" to places I can't reach with a buffer or are concerned about burning through.

12000 sounds like it would be smoother than Charmin!

Yeah, you just wouldn't think it would cut at all but it does. Another thing about Micro Mesh is that it is a rubber backed paper as well. Because we work in lacquers on furniture we use a parriffin/mineral oil lube with it instead of water. It does work great but again I couldn't imagine doing a very large project with it. From what I understand Micro Mesh was originally designed to resurface the plastic windshields on Lear Jets. I'm assuming that the idea was to restore the clarity without introducing any chemicals or physical heating from a buffing process.

is it much more effective to sand with 1500, then followed by 2000 ( for example)..

i have just been using 2000 till i got rid of most of the orange peel...
i have learned the hard way to now add atleast 3 layers of clear..