Hey all you experts out there. I was watching a show on TV a while back about paint care. They were going over all of the kinds of products you can use, and what they do etc... One thing they brought up was wet sanding the finish to get the maximum shine. I am wondering if it is recommended for a somewhat noob to do. I dont want to ruin my paint finish, and that is why it scares me a bit to sand it down. I am wondering if there might be a website that can go over this better, or if anyone knows how to do this without ruining the paint. I was looking at some of the meguiars products http://www.meguiars.com/product_showroom/s...ine=PT&SrcCat=2 and they seem to have most of the things I would need to sand the paint down, I am just wondering what is best. Thanks for any help!

 

I would leave wet sanding AKA color sanding to the pros. In the right hands it can make your car look incredible/custom but if you don't know what your doing

 

That's kinda what I figured, I am getting a carbon fiber hood here in a week or so, so I was thinking I could practice on the stock one. When you "color sand" does it take a lot of the paint off, or does it just smooth out what's there?

 

Wet sanding is not something a "noob" should attempt. In order to bring the color back, your clear coat has to have been gone for a while for the environment to fade the colored paint. You only have about 2 layers of clear on your car. Wet sanding that will only take the clear off or make it so thin as to no longer serve its function. Why do you feel you need to wet sand? This is done more on old cars without clear coats where the paint has faded over time. It is also used when repainting some or all of the panels.
Once you've wet sanded, do you know what's next? It's far from being over and done with. After a wet sanding, your car will look like it's got fur all over it.

 

I wanted to do the wet sanding to restore the paint, I just have so many swirls on the surface, and quite a few small nicks out of the front bumper as well. I was reading on proper auto care how to completely remove the swirl marks though, so I am propably going to buy one of the nice buffers they sell, and buy everything I will need to get the job done... I just remember seeing the finish on the car on TV after it had been wet sanded, polished, etc. and it looked amazing, so much shine.

 

Rand,

Call your local MB, Jag, Ferrari dealer and ask them to recommend a good detail shop. Drop a couple of bones and have them buff the car out. Money well spent, it'll look new or better than new.

 

That's not a bad idea, propably be less than doing it myself as well (the buffer they recommend costs $200) and having a professional working on the paint would put me more at ease...

 

They do charge a lot $200.00 ................ for mail order this is good place to buy a Porter-Cable 7424 for $119.00.

http://www.coastaltool.com/cgi-bin/SoftCar...f7af+1047046920

or go to Lowe's and buy a Porter-Cable 7336 foe $109.95 !

A variable speed 6 inch random orbit polisher is the way to go!