I just painted my car last week and I am going to sand it and polish it now.
I bought meguiars ultimate compound and ultimate polish.
I am just going to wet sand the whole thing by hand with2k grit and hit it with the polisher.
My question is how far and how much do I sand of the paint?
I sanded a 1/4 of the hod for about 5 min and it is smoother than before. No butter smooth but I am not looking for a show room finish.
I put some compound on the buffer and went over the sanded area side to side and up and down. Then used the polish and did the same and it looks the same as before the compound. Just flat and sanded.

Should I just keep sanding with the 2k grit till I get a super smooth finish then use the buffer?
Or am I using to little compound/polish?
I went over the sanded area only once with the compound and polish.
If I don't sand it smoother. Will it require more compound/polish?
I bought a bottle of and would like to polish the car completely using only 1 bottle of each. And I have plenty of the sand paper.

What should I do to make it really shine or what did I do wrong?
Thanks in advance.

***I was told to just sand with 1200 and go straight to polish and compound from another auto painter not on the forum, but i also read, more aggressive sanding leads to more buffing. should i do 1200-2k? or 1500-2k?

by the way, this is a single stange paint job, so maybe the 2k grit is too fine for it?

what buffer and pads are you using?
a 32 oz bottle of the twins usually gets me through 4 vehicles ish.

tomsteve wrote:what buffer and pads are you using?
a 32 oz bottle of the twins usually gets me through 4 vehicles ish.

I was using a simple random orbit buffer and meguiars ultimate polish and compound.
It came out decent. Gave it more gloss than when it was dull and wet sanded
I used a wool pad for the compound and blue foam pad for the polish.

I think it was my buffer and the polish i used. On this next car i am going to try to buy a betterbuffer and some meguiars 105 and 205 for the polish and hope the shine is much better

using a orbie sander with a light cutting compound will take forever after youve sanded a panel, a couple of options, sand with some 4000 wet foam discs, and then try with wat you have, or i would go and buy a cheap rotary buffer, a double sided white and black waffle pad, and some heaveir cutting compound, the white side is for cutting, black for machine glaze, you wont have any probs, just make sure its a variable speed buffer
krem

thanks for the reply Krem!
Yea i am ditching the RO buffer and took back that really weak compound and

I may sand these next 2 cars lightly depending on the way the orange peel looks.
From what i have read. If i sand lightly with 2k grit, it will be easier to buff out the flAt look with a color?

So i should finish with 2k grit then use a wet only 4k foam pad?
As mentioned in another thread what compound do you use?
And yes. When i am ready to buff, i will buy a variable speed buffer.
All the pads i know of near me at a low price are the HF ones.
Orange, compound cut
Blue, polish pad
Black, finishing pad.

Should i be using the black one after the 2k sand?
Or in what order?

If i lightly sand the car, say 2k grit., what compound should i be using? A finer compound or more aggressive?

what color is the car??
i just like to use the 4000 foam because it makes buffing so much easier, you dont need to use a real heavy compound
after 2000 i would use a reasonably heavy compound to get a quick effect and remove the 2000 scratches nicely, then a finer compound would be good and then a machine glaze, if its a dark color, you can get glazes for dark colors,
you can get compounds like ppg 1 step that does all stages, you just change your pad to acheive what cut your after. 3m also have some good products however it is a bit pricey, the small bottle of compound in the pic below was around $25 and i nearly used it all on the pug, and it has a glass roof!!
here is a pic of the products i just used on my mrs black peugot

the buffing pad i use

some of the millions of scratches in her car

2000 grit sanding

4000 grit sanding

around 30 secs with heavy cutting compound

and all finished

stick with it, thats the 1st black car id done, and it literally was covered in scratches like that, all up i spent around 35 hrs, but it looks bloody great now
get on you tube and watch some clips, i like the gunman as he explains really well!!
krem

Wow that came out great.
How do you know what a foam pad is as in your 4k?
And i do watch the gunman, i have seen a ton of his videos and they are great.
Good call on the glaze for dark colors, i havent even researched that so ill head over to youtube now and see what i can find.
And 35 hours wow!
I am into speed and production, so most of my cars need to be in and out.
I have an old van i am selling, so i am just going to experiment on it.
I am going to try hand sanding it with 2k and use some turtle wax brand compound and polish on a wool pad and foam pad.
Ill also try the meguiars compound and polish.
Will also be doing the machine 2k sanding and using each compound.
Just gonna try different compounds and methods to see what is fastest/cost effective.
My prices are already cheap as they are, so the more money/time i save while still getting a clean look, the better!
Just been so busy lately to experiment on the van.

Yea here in CA the compound is about $30for meguiars m105/205
The only 3m available in town is marked up $15! From the original online price of $30.
I thought the 3m compound was an all in one mix and when the paint guy told me i needed the polish too which was $40 i think, I was a little disappointed haha.

i used a 4000 grit foam sanding pad, or disc

it just goes on the orbie, use it damp and keep the panel lightly misted with clean water with a bit of car wash in it, works a bloody treat
car only took so long as the mrs needed to drive it everyday, if i had been able to get it all done it would have taken half the time, i could only do a panel at a time, so had to mask adjoining panels, sand deep scratches out of 1 panel, then go thur the grades, then buff it out, if i had of been able to do the whole car, i could have sanded it all, then buffed it all, but the mrs didnt wanna drive a car that was half sanded, would have looked bogan!!
i totally understand the time restrictions, but thats the final product, the bit every1 sees, it has your name on it and spending a little more time goes a long way, i guess im a bit of a fussy duddy with wat i do, same as my plastering business, im the dearest around cause i take my time and make sure its done properly, i dont take shortcuts, i use the proper stuff and basically makes sure i will never have to return to the job as you cant make money on redo's.
I sometimes sub contract myself out to other companies when i have no work (which isnt very often), and they always ask how i get ANY work as im around $4 a sq/m more than every1 else, well i tell them, some builders want the quality, not the speed, they want the client to pass on good remarks about the builder and his contractors to others, i do a great job and wont do it for nothing, some of the jobs i have turned up on for other compainies ive walked in the house and walked back out as i dont want to be associated with the quality of some ppls work, if they ask why i tell them as it is, "sorry champ, thats an absolute disaster in there and i want nothing to do with it, send me to another job that i can do start to finish and be proud of, not just a "run in the front door, out the back door and get paid" job. they might get offended, but they always send me to another job, cause they know they get quality, and they pay me alot more than their normal workers, sometimes $15hr more for hrly rate work, dont wanna sound like im floating my own boat, but the moral of the story is, if your having to cut corners or rush to get jobs out fast to be able to make money, then your cutting your own throat, ppl will spread bad word of mouth very quickly, and you will end up with no work, charge a little more to allow for more time on the job to get it done a little better, you will lose money if you have to redo something!
if youn need to speed things up, invest in some equipment that will save time do the job properly and keep quality up, there are plenty of hacks out there, pls dont be 1 of them, if your still learning, thats fine, im still learning, but still do the very best of my ability when panel beating, painting and detailing so i can be proud of wat ive done
enough of the rambling, post up some pics of your work, there are plenty of pppl here that can give advice and help make things easier and faster for you to get the job done
sorry if i have offended you or any1 in this post, and no, im not saying i do perfect plastering work, or any other work for that matter, no1 can!!
krem

I completely agree with you Krem. The more time out into a piece the better it will look.
I'm just doing some side jobs now and most people want the best deal for the best look. Depending on what they want and The price, I will take more time to work on it. Some people want their car done and painted in like 4-5 days! While possible and working around the clock on it, the car will not look as good as the cars that customers bring in and say "take your time I want it to look perfect"(while I still try to finish in a good amount of time)mostly show cars or a second car. I have a car now for about 3 weeks. It's a low rider and customer doesn't mind he hasn't had it and won't have it for another few weeks. He actually didn't like the color(told me before I began to cut and polish, close one) so now we are repainting BRAND NEW paint. Other customers contact me daily asking when it will be done! For the prices I charge, pretty **** cheap too! I try to get the best look I can, for these prices there is little room to complain I feel like. I still try to resolve any complaints. Have only had one so far.
I have started to invest in some tools to speed things up and materials.
To cut and polish I order some 2k sanding discs to speed up color sanding and have also bought an actual buffer ditching the car waxer I tried to use lol.
I am just looking for a permanent body shop position so they can deal with the prices and I deal with the work haha.
Big paint job coming up! And the color black too. I'll be looking up best way to cut and polish it to leave no marks and may post some questions about it. I may message you Krem so see the steps you took go get that reflection finish!
I am also going to start sub contracting myself out to some places around here that need panels painted.