Jmai22

what if i want to wet sand my entire car. my car had been repainted by the previous owner and it deon'st look too great. and i was told wet sanding would really help.

Guitarman

Wetsanding takes a bit of experience to pull off, especially for an entire car. If you're so unsatisfied with the paint as it is, and you can't afford to take it to a pro, well...here's a thread I wrote on it a while back, from a T-Bird forum (I own a "semi-classic" T-Bird Supercoupe too ). Just remember, it's risky!

http://pub29.ezboard.com/fthunderbir...icID=129.topic


I'm a pro detailer, and I have painted and wetsanded show vehicles, as well as my Supercoupe, so hopefully this info will help you. Good luck, Dan H

Email me if you need to ask anything further.

onequiksc@cfl.rr.com

meZoom!

Jmai, you are NOT going to wetsand your car. I hate to dis-encourage you on this, but it is quite easy to go wrong somewhere, especially if you are doing the whole car. what color is your car/what kind of paint condition?

edit******
Guitarman: GREAT write up.

LS4fun

That is an excellent writeup Guitarman...
I think it is best kept up to the pros.

Guitarman

I sure hate to discourage anyone but it's a given; don't risk learning on your "baby". Because you WILL make mistakes and end up worse off than you are now.

Better to learn the "ropes" on a clunker or some junkyard parts, lawnmower etc. Take it to a pro and let them do a little at a time (fender one month, hood the next etc. ) as you can afford it. You'll have saved yourself money in the long run. Happy New Year.

Jmai22

hey guys. i have a black lexus gs300 93. i heard black is the hardest color to wet sand so i have been really scared to start. i'm just a college student so i don't really have couple thousand to spend on a new black paint. i found a small autobody shop that wanted to charge me 160 for the entire car. i think thats a little low. he said it would take 6 hours or so. so i asked him to do a small part of my car just to show me the results. well he said the previous owner used cheap paint or soemthing because the clear coat was very thin and he was cutting through the paint. so now there is a small area that is not really noticable with the paint gone. its about 1 inch long. the results were nice besides the little imperfection. its just too risky for me to have him do the whole car if this little spot did this. btw he used 1500 grit sand paper. i was going to try to do another spot myself using 2000.

btw. you know how the clear coat gets removed right?? do i have to take it somewhere to get my car clear coated again?

meZoom!

yes, you'd have to take it into a body shop to get it clear coated again if you want it...clear coat doesnt just spontaneously regenerate itself (i wish). Jmai, do you want to wet sand your car because the paint is either not shiny enough or dull looking? if so, i dont think you have to wet sand it. Try something cheaper and easier first and see how well that goes. You might need a really good polish to replenish and moisturize the paint, and a wax to seal it in.

Jmai22

actually the previous owner lived in woodland hills, and if your familar with the area it gets pretty hot during the summer. so before he sold the car to me he repainted the car. because he said the paint on the car was getting messed up due to heat. so now i have a car FULL or orange peel. you can't even read a stop sign from the reflection in the car if i parked more than 20 feet away from it. its pretty bad. but you can't tell unless you know something aobut paint. so its been bothering me for the last year since i got my car.

meZoom!

Yes i know woodland hills, yes i know the valley heat. my car has suffered so much heat fatigue from it: my mirrors fell off due to the glue melting, my plastic water bottle melted and became molten liquid, then cooled off at night and got hard IN MY CUPHOLDER so it wont come off, and my paint and leather has taken a beating. on top of that my a/c doesnt work.
but i dont get why repainting the car gives you orange peel. Orange peel happens from imperfections in the paint itself, which can be cleaned off with an abrasive, something i'd assume a body shop painting the car would do. even if you do have orange peel, you can still get the paint to shine, so i guess your paint is suffering from multiple problems. good news is, you MOST LIKELY dont have to spend your time and money for the wet sanding. Hard to say exactly what is wrong w/ the car w/o seeing it or touching it.

Jmai22

i can try to describe it. its kinda dull looking. and it "looks" bumpy. you can get orange peel from repainting if you don't let it dry correctly i think. i wish i could get some opinions from people who know there stuff, like youself. maybe when you check out my lights you can give me some info on it. i tried a few shops, but the reason why i hate going there is because they always try to make money, and seeing that i'm young they will throw all kind off bull.... at me. i want someone that know's this stuff and doesn't own a shop and isn't trying to make a dollar off me.

Guitarman

You're wise to be cautious. If that one guy went through the clear just doing a small area there are 3 possibilities;


1) He dosen't know what he's doing-RUN AWAY.

2). Whomever painted the car didn't apply enough clear.

3) Both #1 and #2.

You are right, $160 is low, it's VERY time consuming to do correctly. But, a qualified paint shop/ detailer will MEASURE your car's paint thickness with an electronic gauge and tell you what can be done to remove most of the orange peel. They may not wet sand it, but rather compound it with a rotary buffer or use a D/A sander with special sanding discs to knock it down, then buff it out. The reason they have to be careful of how much paint is removed is because the rule in paint removal is to never take more than .3 of a MIL (1 MIL is a thousanth of an inch) off or the resins in the clear can fail and turn white. This DOES happen , because the UV in paint resides in the UPPER .5 of a MIL, and when you wet sand you remove a lot of paint, and most of the paints UV protection with it. It sounds technical and it is, but trust me- it's a real "cause and effect" thing. You have to be careful. It's not something that happens right away, but over months and perhaps a year or 2, it will start flaking and turning white if someone removes too much paint.

Please shop around, ask your insurance agent whom they recommend (they deal with detailing and body shops on a regular basis). Get 3 prices and opinions. Please don't try it yourself, you are bound to go through the clear too, in the learning process. Good luck to you.

Jmai22

thanks. i never knew you could measure paint. now i'm gonna go shop and look for someone who can tell me more on my paint. thanks again

meZoom!

paint analysis is good, just find some place that is as honest as possible. What type of paint care do you do now on your car (how often/what brands of polish, wax, etc)? you could probably benefit a lot from a good "detail" job specific to your paint condition, not saying it will fix your car or anything, but it will probably be nicer.
when you say your paint is bumpy, are you sure its not bubbled paint? i have that. if it is, wet sanding wont help, sorry to say. otherwise, if it looks like there are uneven layers in the paint or something, that is something else. If the shop that painted the car isnt a clean bodyshop environment (good bodyshops are meticulously clean: airtight-like storage rooms, temp. controlled, etc), there could easily have been crap floating around and getting stuck in your paint.

Jmai22

no not air bubbles. more like skin on an orange

squarehat

Jmai, I know your GS is a repaint, but I was always under the impression that the Black Onyx color (color code 202) was a non-clearcoat paint. Not sure if that changes things for people who want to wet sand a black Lexus with a factory finish.