I HAVE NEVER COLOR SANDED BEFORE. I PAINTED MY BOAT WITH SOLID
COLOR...ACRYLIC ENAMEL WITH HARDENER. I AM WANTING TO ELIMINATE THE ORANGE PEEL AND MAKE THE PAINT JOB LOOK SMOOTH.
CAN YOU GIVE ME A STEP BY STEP EXPLANATION OF THE PROCESS INCLUDING A "LIST" OF EVERYTHING I WILL NEED TO ACCOMPLISH THIS.
JOHN

Hi again John. As usual I'm not any kind of an expert at this but hope this will help.

You will need:
1500 and 2500 grit wet/dry paper
Meguiar's Diamond Cut Compound 2.0
Meguiar's Dual Action Cleaner/Polish
Spray bottle with water
Spray bottle with water and rubbing alcohol mixed 50/50
Small squeege (about 8 or 10")
Variable speed buffer
Wool buffing pad
Foam buffing pad
Terry towels or T shirt

John, you gotta have faith , cause you gotta start wet sanding your brand new paint job after 24 hours, with the 1500 and then the 2000 paper. Let's back up and do this step by step, OK?

1. Clean with water/alcohol mixture.
2. Dry with clean terry cloth.
3. If orange peel is light you might get away with sanding with 2000 grit, but normally I just start with 1500 wet. Sand back and forth and squeege off the water so you can check the flatness. After you squeege, if you still have orange peel it will show up as little dull and shiny spots. If the spots are almost gone, drop down to 2000 grit wet, sand, squeege, check for flatness. When you have it flat, all of the spots will be gone but the panel will now be completely dull from the sanding. At this point you should be done with the sanding.
4. Clean with water/alcohol mixture.
5. Apply small amount of Diamond Cut to sanded area and spread evenly with wool buffing pad with buffer still off. Now start buffing at about 1500 rpm and bring up to about 2500 rpm as soon as compound quits slinging off. (this is just to keep the mess down) You should get a shine rather quickly. At this point clean excess compound off with clean terry cloth.
6. Clean area with water/alcohol mixture.
7. Change to foam pad on buffer.
8. Now apply small amount of the Dual Action Cleaner/Polish and spread evenly again with buffer turned off. Now start buffing at about 1500 rpm and increase just a little to about 1800 or 2000 rpm, don't press much pressure on pad just lightly buff until most of the polish has dried. Use another clean terry cloth to remove excess polish and hand buff to nice luster.
Hint: Don't contaminate your buffing pads with different compounds and polish. Use one for the cutting and another for the polishing. If you contaminate, or just use one pad, you will never get the final finish, you will just keep cutting even though you are using polish, see what I mean?
Also I just mentioned meguiar's because that's what I like, there are lots of good products out there. Good luck. Petie
P.S. Maybe Aberrant will give you some help on this, he's the expert.

another great thread worth of sticky!

I can't believe you guys think I'm an expert... I painted my first car barely over a year ago and man what a **** mess.

Anyway, what petie explained is pretty much what I do, I also like meguirs. I tend to use air rather than a squeegee just because theres a chance you'll drag something across the surface and scratch it. Make sure the environment is clean for the same reason. Toothbrushes make good pad cleaners. "pulling" light over the peice is also necessary for color sanding, also works great for scratching plastic to be coated. Set up a light where you can see the reflection off the surface you're working on, move your head around and check out the reflection on each part. I always sand plastic with the light on the spot I'm sanding, it's the only way to see what you're doing, with wet sanding you have to dry it off to see though. Lot's of space, lots of time setting stuff up and keeping the space clean and organized goes a looooong way. That's all I got...