Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
Griots Garage BOSS Finishing Papers- Reduce Orange Peel - Review by Mike Phillips
You know a car wax company is serious when they add a wet sanding paper to their line of products.
Why?
Because wet sanding is serious stuff.
This also means this company not only has a COMPLETE line from A to Z but they can go head to head with traditional companies that cater to the body shop world. Most car wax companies cater to the consumer ore enthusiast world, their products are traditionally made for and targeted at the retail market. Nothing wrong this this but it is a specific demographic group of people that is extremely opposite of the needs of the body shop or fresh custom paint world.
Griot's has crossed the line with the introduction of the Nikken Finishing Papers to their already robust line. Griot's could now call on body shops and offer a system approach that includes body shop safe compounds and polishes. And more important, the abrasive technology used for the finishing papers and also in their BOSS compounds and polishes is top shelf. While not all body shops are focused on using the best compounds and polishes on the market as evident by the swirled out messes we see in the blogosphere all the time, there are some body shops that do want quality abrasive technology and they can get that with Griot's and their now complete system that includes,
* Wet sanding papers --> Technically these are finishing papers not sanding papers, the difference is in the extreme high quality of the abrasive size and placement over the paper
* Compounds
* Polishes
Because of my friendship with Bill Stuart (The Absorber), I know just enough about the Nikken Finishing Papers to be dangerous. Suffice to say, these are an electronics grade finishing paper, NOT an automotive grade wet/dry sandpaper. The primary benefits are,
The above is just off the top of my head, I'm probably forgetting a few...
The introduction of a line of sanding finishing papers to the Griot's line is not surprising since in the last few years Richard Griot, in his wisdom has added three hardcore car guys that area also former employees at Meguiar's.
Each one of these guys has forgotten more about car detailing than I can remember. They are as the saying goes... the real deal....
It makes sense that Griot's would add a super high quality finishing paper to their line of top notch product BECAUSE Griot's goes after not just Joe Consumer, (nothing wrong with Joe Consumer), they go after the hard core serious car owners that do things like buy and restore their own cars, in other words, hard core do-it-yourselfers.
What does this mean and how does this tie into wet sanding?
Great question, and here's the tie-in. Hardcore car guys do things like purchase neglected Mustangs and Chevelle out of garages and then fix them up, restore them or hot rod them and at some point in the process these types of cars get RE-PAINTED and as most of you probably know, most re-paints come with ORANGE PEEL and most hardcore car guys are not going to be satisfied with an orange peel finish. So what does a hardcore DO-IT-YOURSEVER car guy do?
He learns how to wetsand, cut and buff.
He learns by reading a forum like AutogeekOnline.net that if you want it done right you have to do it yourself and the reason for this is because most body shops don't and are not going to use high quality, more costly sandpapers like the Griot's Nikken Finishing Papers but instead they're going to use low cost, wet/dry sand papers that "yes" - will remove the orange peel but in the process will remove too much paint, (that they were just paid to spray onto the car), and if the buffing isn't done perfect they're going to leave behind tracers.
Most body shops are not sanding and buffing shops their collision shops, they specialize in fixing damaged body panels and spraying paint. Sanding and buffing is an art form. It's also something that takes TIME and quality products to do it right and that's not what your average body shop is about.
So hardcore car guys search for the right products and the right information to use the products and then do-it-themselves.
Uniform particle size i.e. uniform abrasive grains
100% fill = Uniform particle placement over the entire sheet of paper
The above is the back story... now lets take a look at the Griot's Garage BOSS Finishing Papers.
You know a car wax company is serious when they add a wet sanding paper to their line of products.
Why?
Because wet sanding is serious stuff.
This also means this company not only has a COMPLETE line from A to Z but they can go head to head with traditional companies that cater to the body shop world. Most car wax companies cater to the consumer ore enthusiast world, their products are traditionally made for and targeted at the retail market. Nothing wrong this this but it is a specific demographic group of people that is extremely opposite of the needs of the body shop or fresh custom paint world.
Griot's has crossed the line with the introduction of the Nikken Finishing Papers to their already robust line. Griot's could now call on body shops and offer a system approach that includes body shop safe compounds and polishes. And more important, the abrasive technology used for the finishing papers and also in their BOSS compounds and polishes is top shelf. While not all body shops are focused on using the best compounds and polishes on the market as evident by the swirled out messes we see in the blogosphere all the time, there are some body shops that do want quality abrasive technology and they can get that with Griot's and their now complete system that includes,
* Wet sanding papers --> Technically these are finishing papers not sanding papers, the difference is in the extreme high quality of the abrasive size and placement over the paper
* Compounds
* Polishes
Because of my friendship with Bill Stuart (The Absorber), I know just enough about the Nikken Finishing Papers to be dangerous. Suffice to say, these are an electronics grade finishing paper, NOT an automotive grade wet/dry sandpaper. The primary benefits are,
- Uniform particle size
- Uniform particle placement
- 100% fill over the entire sheet of paper
- Latex impregnated paper that won't fall apart even after years of soaking in water
- Longer lasting
- Faster cutting
- Leaves more paint on the car
- Sanding marks buff out faster and easier
- Reduced risk for tracers
The above is just off the top of my head, I'm probably forgetting a few...
The introduction of a line of sanding finishing papers to the Griot's line is not surprising since in the last few years Richard Griot, in his wisdom has added three hardcore car guys that area also former employees at Meguiar's.
- Jeff Brown
[*]Rod Kraft
[*]Doug Hodge
[*]
Each one of these guys has forgotten more about car detailing than I can remember. They are as the saying goes... the real deal....
It makes sense that Griot's would add a super high quality finishing paper to their line of top notch product BECAUSE Griot's goes after not just Joe Consumer, (nothing wrong with Joe Consumer), they go after the hard core serious car owners that do things like buy and restore their own cars, in other words, hard core do-it-yourselfers.
What does this mean and how does this tie into wet sanding?
Great question, and here's the tie-in. Hardcore car guys do things like purchase neglected Mustangs and Chevelle out of garages and then fix them up, restore them or hot rod them and at some point in the process these types of cars get RE-PAINTED and as most of you probably know, most re-paints come with ORANGE PEEL and most hardcore car guys are not going to be satisfied with an orange peel finish. So what does a hardcore DO-IT-YOURSEVER car guy do?
He learns how to wetsand, cut and buff.
He learns by reading a forum like AutogeekOnline.net that if you want it done right you have to do it yourself and the reason for this is because most body shops don't and are not going to use high quality, more costly sandpapers like the Griot's Nikken Finishing Papers but instead they're going to use low cost, wet/dry sand papers that "yes" - will remove the orange peel but in the process will remove too much paint, (that they were just paid to spray onto the car), and if the buffing isn't done perfect they're going to leave behind tracers.
Most body shops are not sanding and buffing shops their collision shops, they specialize in fixing damaged body panels and spraying paint. Sanding and buffing is an art form. It's also something that takes TIME and quality products to do it right and that's not what your average body shop is about.
So hardcore car guys search for the right products and the right information to use the products and then do-it-themselves.
Uniform particle size i.e. uniform abrasive grains
100% fill = Uniform particle placement over the entire sheet of paper
The above is the back story... now lets take a look at the Griot's Garage BOSS Finishing Papers.
