Re: Color sanding

[Steven Ayres <comwest@well.com>]

PhilD, RJL=> I don't quite understand "color sanding".  

Paint sprayers pretty much uniformly produce a texture in the finish 
known as orange peel, a term that describes it pretty well. The object 
of sanding the final paint -- the color -- is to smooth out this texture 
and create the mirrorlike shine that we'll spend a large part of the 
rest of our lives trying to maintain.

The fundamentals of the process are pretty simple: use very fine 
abrasives, ordinarily wet/dry papers, to carefully remove the bumps in 
the paint, and stop when it's all smooth and glassy. Nothing to it.

What complicates the situation is the curves, folds, peaks, grooves, 
holes and ridges that make up the majority of every car body. Color 
sanding is only straightforward on large, flat surfaces. If it ain't 
flat, you have to shape the abrasive to fit the surface and flatten the 
paint while you avoid flattening the bits you want to keep. Uniformly.

Before you decide to take on this work, go to the car and take a good 
hard look at areas like the cooling grilles, the windshield cowl and the 
headlights. Imagine yourself working on these areas for hours with tiny 
bits of sandpaper, grinding the fingerprints off fingers gone pruney 
from the water. Imagine the consequences of sanding just a little too 
much paint off one of those body ridges.

I'm not saying a normal human can't handle color sanding, I'm just 
saying there's more to it than may appear at first, and it should not be 
undertaken lightly.

One convenient factor is that anyone who might consider doing his own 
color sanding will also probably want to do his own prep work, which is 
just as hard but you can do repairs as you go. Having gone through that, 
you'll know whether you really want to deal with the finish. 

Steven Ayres, Prescott AZ