Is this wet sanding technique OK?

[atikovi]

I bought a car that has had some paintwork on a few panels and which have some orange peel in the clearcoat. Some other panels feel like they have paint dust. I started on the hood which just feels rough from the dust. Used 1500 grit paper followed by a quick finish with 2000. Buffed it with the DA and #83, a quarter of the panel at a time. The results look great. Will top off with Ultimate. Any other paper or polish that I should consider? What's the point of a rotary? Just faster work?

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Is this wet sanding technique OK?

If you're happy with the results you're getting then it's kind of hard for anyone to say that your technique is incorrect. We will say, however, that we're more than a bit surprised to hear that you're actually able to fully remove sanding marks, even 2000 grit, with just a DA and M83. Neither of those is very aggressive, so we're thinking the paint you're working on is very, very soft. More often than not, a DA and M83 won't come close to removing this sort of sanding mark, but even if this combo did work, it would generally be a very slow and tedious process. We've seen cases where even 3000 grit sanding marks required a wool pad with M105 on a rotary to fully remove, and that combo is much, much more aggressive than what you've used.