Buffing your car is an integral part of the finishing process, helps eliminate imperfections, and enhances the clarity and shine of the paint. However, before grabbing that buffing pad, it’s crucial to prepare the surface properly (but what sandpaper grit to use) sandpaper. In this post, I’ll discuss what correct sandpaper grit to use in prepping your car. We will also address common questions and challenges faced when working with silver paint, along with practical solutions and professional tips. If you want to learn the basics of autobody repair and paint, check out our comprehensive course at Learn Auto Body and Paint. Please also LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to my YT channel for new videos coming out soon. And if you want to learn how to make money with E-Commerce subscribe now to this link: https://ecomdomination.tonybrichie.com/
QUESTION: Painted three coats on the roof and have some specks of dirt. What sandpaper grit should I use before buffing?
What sandpaper grit to use is 1500 grit – so you can go 1500 grit, wet sand it out on a block. You can use a soft block and just get those little dust marks out.
Then I would go down to 2000 grit a little bit. Just scuff it with 2000 and then buff it. You don’t have to do buffing the whole thing, the whole panel, or the whole roof.
Maybe you got a speck of dust – you can just buff out an area not much. Just block it out because you’re gonna end up with a scuff mark that big -give or take and then just buff it out.
You can use a regular compound like McGuire’s and then you can use a wool pad with some glaze and finish it off.
QUESTION: I bought a gallon of GM silver does it have to be? Does it have to be sprayed differently like a metallic?
Is it like is silver considered metallic? Yeah, it depends on how coarse your metallics are but a silver is a metallic. You can have a fine metallic or medium or coarse metallic – but silver is metallic.
If you have any type of sparkles or glitter in it, it’s metallic. So when you spray it, not only do you want to spray going down the hood this way (vertically), but I also recommend that you can kind of go over the hood this way (horizontally) on your third coat if you’re given three coats.
But I mean your tiger striping really doesn’t happen if you got proper overlapping – 50% overlap and your gun is at wide open fan pattern. You got a good gun spraying evenly.
If you have a gun that’s dirty or clogged up or whatever, and you’re spraying it and you got heavy on top/bottom and light spray in the middle, then you’re going to get tiger striping.
So tiger striping is basically your spray gun set-up or pressure. Sometimes if you got too much pressure coming out, you’re going to end up with less material coming out in the middle of your fan.
You’re gonna have more coming out at the edges. So it’s your spray gun setup, it’s your overlap as long as that’s good that’s why it’s good to set up your gun and I show you how to do all of that in the R.A.D.S. Paint Formula FREE training there.
And so as long as that lays on evenly, then you shouldn’t have a problem. You shouldn’t have to crisscross but sometimes why not just do it, It looks good it’s silver is silver metallic.
If it’s super fine silver, then it’s easier to spray. The thicker the coarser your metallics are the more chances you being able to see clouding or tiger striping in your paint job.
And sometimes, if you have bad bodywork where maybe you’re using a cheap 1k primer and your body filler absorbed it, then you’re spraying your silver base coat, you’re going to get clouding. Because of that, that certain area is going to be absorbing more of your metallic paint, and it’s going to look a little different.
So you got to make sure your bodywork is sealed when painting and when I say sealed, it’s like making sure you’re using a 2k filler primer to fill all of your bodywork and making sure it’s really blocked out and looking good before you paint.
For as long as your 2k filler primers lay down nice – filled everything in, you wet sanded it, or you dry sanded it looks good. You shouldn’t have a problem if you want to lace a sealer on top of that you can but you don’t have to.
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