Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

[RaskyR1]

Admittedly I can be a little old school at times, and wet sanding is probably one of those areas. With all the recent threads on wet sanding a fellow detailer, one I respect, David Fermani, mentioned to me how he felt the sanding scratch removal was more efficient by DA as it reduced the number of buffing steps needed (3000+ girt sanding). I've been removing sanding scratches via rotary polisher for over 20 years now and being a little old school like I am I found this hard to believe, but I am always willing to learn new things and figured I'd give it a try.


Since some jerk (aka. bad word) decided it would be fun to slam his door into the side of my car last weekend (even though I was parked out back next to a curb) I had a good test car for Davids method. Luckily it didn't dent my door but car was pretty dirty at the time and as you can see it left some nice deep scuff marks, which measured 3-4 inches vertically. I'm confident I could have removed them using only M105, but this gave me a good reason to wet sand the area and then try removing the sanding marks by DA.



Here is are some pics of the scuff




PTG readings on the door averaged around 115 microns. Since this is car still has the original factory paint, and having know my paint was pretty thin from the factory, I wanted to be sure I didn't remove too much clear.


I first sanded with Mirka Abralon 2000 grit disks on the PCXP using a speed of 3.5


I then followed that up with some Abralon 4000 grit disks....you can see a noticeable difference in the two in how much more dull the 2000 grit looked.


I then primed an orange LC pad with M105 and made 1 section pass (3 vertical, 3 horizontal over lapping passes) using the KBM on the PCXP, speed 6.

Here is how the paint looked after that pass!






Pigment transfer from my tinted clear...



After a quick pass with M205 on a black LC pad here were the results.






I must say I was very impressed at how quickly this method was able to remove the sanding scratches. Keep in mind that the paint on my car is very soft and the results may very on different paints. I'd definitely like to try this method out on a few more paint types, but as of now it seems very promising.

Total material removal was 8-10 microns

Thanks David!


Next up will be this bad boy which has some crazy hard paint! May be a while before I get to it though.



Rasky

[yalerd]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

SWEET!!
Thanks for sharing this

Great job by the way

[gto_don]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Great stuff Chad...thanks for sharing. So you are finally down to painting the "toy" eh? Can't wait to see that finished.

[RaskyR1]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Great stuff Chad...thanks for sharing. So you are finally down to painting the "toy" eh? Can't wait to see that finished.

LOL! Yeah, this whole project car has definitely lost some steam. The body is all painted but now the owner wants to pull the motor and sand blast the engine compartment (which it really needed). I just don't have the drive to work on it like I did in the beginning. Cherry picker will be here next weekend along with the sand blaster.....my poor shop is such a mess!

We chose to go single stage (PPG Concept acrylic urethane)


Rasky

[ClearlyCoated]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Fantastic work, Rasky. You and Kevin Brown are really closing the functionality gap between DA's and rotarys. Thanks for the write up!

[RaskyR1]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Fantastic work, Rasky. You and Kevin Brown are really closing the functionality gap between DA's and rotarys. Thanks for the write up!

Well I wouldn't say I had anything to do with it as I was just following the process David had given me.


Thanks though. I really want to mess around with this some more....maybe see how it handles some hand sanding marks too.

[Mary S]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Hi Rasky,

Your beautiful results are part of the reason behind this madness I have to do something similar.

Can you clarify, when you sanded with the Abralon 2000 on the PCXP, were you using a wet sanding technique or a damp sanding technique? Being as this was a motorized DA I thought you really couldn't safely wet sand so you had to just damp sand.

The difference, as Michael Stoops pointed out earlier, when you wet sand you soak the sandpaper in water overnight and profusely lubricate the surface with water. The damp sanding you only mist the sanding disc and the surface to be sanded.

Thanks, and again, beautiful work.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Chad, great write up. This would really be a time saver. Thanks for documenting this for us.

[RaskyR1]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Hi Rasky,

Your beautiful results are part of the reason behind this madness I have to do something similar.

Can you clarify, when you sanded with the Abralon 2000 on the PCXP, were you using a wet sanding technique or a damp sanding technique? Being as this was a motorized DA I thought you really couldn't safely wet sand so you had to just damp sand.

The difference, as Michael Stoops pointed out earlier, when you wet sand you soak the sandpaper in water overnight and profusely lubricate the surface with water. The damp sanding you only mist the sanding disc and the surface to be sanded.

Thanks, and again, beautiful work.

I'd say it was more like damp sanding then wet sanding. I give the panel a spritz or two of water and one on the pad. After doing a section I also spritz the pad again to wash away any debris that may be on the pad.

I'm fairly new to the Abralon system so maybe Mike or Kevin Brown can chime in if I'm using too much or too little water. They do seem to cut very well so I feel I'm using the correct amount. The foam backing on the Abralon seems to retain a lot of water too.

I believe it's only the hand sanding papers need to be soaked for 24hrs, not the DA disks.


Rasky

[Mary S]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

I'd say it was more like damp sanding then wet sanding. I give the panel a spritz or two of water and one on the pad. After doing a section I also spritz the pad again to wash away any debris that may be on the pad.

I'm fairly new to the Abralon system so maybe Mike or Kevin Brown can chime in if I'm using too much or too little water. They do seem to cut very well so I feel I'm using the correct amount. The foam backing on the Abralon seems to retain a lot of water too.

I believe it's only the hand sanding papers need to be soaked for 24hrs, not the DA disks.


Rasky

Thanks, Rasky! I'm pretty sure you're right, these foam backed discs aren't supposed to be soaked in water.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Rasky, for a damp sanding process it sounds like you're using the correct amount of water. For routine cleaning of the abrasive discs try giving them a very quick spin against an Ultimate Wipe microfiber towel. In just an instant it will clean that disc right up and have it ready to keep on cutting.

[RaskyR1]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Rasky, for a damp sanding process it sounds like you're using the correct amount of water. For routine cleaning of the abrasive discs try giving them a very quick spin against an Ultimate Wipe microfiber towel. In just an instant it will clean that disc right up and have it ready to keep on cutting.

Will do! Thanks Mike!

Any comment on the pad saturation with the Abralon? I've been tempted to ring them out as they seemed to lose cut quickly after a few panels and I've been wondering if it was a result of saturation in the foam backing. They almost seem to create a suction to the paint when they get loaded up with water. I guess I could just try and pressing them against the UW towel too.

Thanks,
Rasky

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

You may be building up a bit too much moisture there. A loss of cut could be due to a hydroplaning situation if too much water is present. If you're really used to wet sanding and are just getting into damp sanding, it will seem almost like you're doing it wrong since you're using so much less water than what you're used to.

[Tim Lingor]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Will do! Thanks Mike!

Any comment on the pad saturation with the Abralon? I've been tempted to ring them out as they seemed to lose cut quickly after a few panels and I've been wondering if it was a result of saturation in the foam backing. They almost seem to create a suction to the paint when they get loaded up with water. I guess I could just try and pressing them against the UW towel too.

Thanks,
Rasky

Hey Rasky, it has been a while!

With the Abralon, I tend not to over soak it as soaking the papers too much tends to cause the backing material to stretch (at least from my experience). [I still wet the papers in a bucket of water and use a sprayer with water...added June 4th for clarity] When that happens, the material tends to bunch up. This may or may not cause pig tails. I had this conversation about the papers bunching up with Kevin a while back and no conclusions could be drawn, so just keep that in mind just in case.

As for soap etc which is often used for lubrication during wet sanding, Mirka does not recommend using soap with their papers, just plain water. Now with that said, I do use a drop or two of M00 in my sprayer as I tend to use that far more than soaked papers. So if you are using soap and the paper is not cutting very well, that is probably why...

I hope that helps!

Tim

[MrCLRider]

Re: Wet sanding, cutting and buffing using only a DA

Thanks for sharing, that spot of the door looks great now! How is the orange peel on the rest of the car though?