Hello Mike,
could you please recommend what type of 1500 sandpaper are you love to use for damp sanding?
With that pigtails I'm fighting all day long and it's hard to chose good product.
I tested a lot of them with dry and wet method:
- 3m,
- mirka,
- kowax,
- trizact
but all are pigtailing some more some less therefore I know that 100% prevention does not exist, but it's good to know the right way.
I'm using Mirka electric sander- that new one looks like air sander with 2,5mm throw.
Thank you
Regards
Jan
The 2.5mm orbit stroke length sounds like a finishing sanding instead of a rough work sander. I don't know if that's leading to the pig tail issue or not though?
One thing I know, I rarely have pig tail issues. Sometimes, but then it's just a few sporadic pig tails, not like they are everywhere in the paint.
The key to ANY type of sanding, be it dry sanding or wet sanding is to work as clean as possible.
I start by sweeping the floor. This is what I mean by working clean as possible. Of course it's important to have a clean car and clean tools and even a clean workbench to place all your tools.
Pig Tails come from one or two sources.
1. Random dirt particle trapped between the face of the sanding disc and the paint.
2. Abrasive particles that have come off the sanding disc and become trapped between the face of the sanding disc and the paint.
For both types of contaminants, the only cure is to work clean.
So if you're dry sanding without any type of vacuum extraction then you need to be blowing off your sanding disc or cleaning it on the fly with a clean terry cloth towel PLUS wiping down the panel being sanded to remove all the paint particles and with them any other abrasive particles.
If you're wet sanding, by machine this would be called damp sanding, then you also need to work clean and this means using a clean water source, like clean water in a spray bottle you can use to mist the surface with water. Wiping or squeegeeing your sanding slurry off the panel being sanded before re-sanding.
Before moving onto a higher grit disc for either approach take a few minutes to completely wipe the car down including any seams where you can open the door, trunk lid or hood to remove sanding slurry splatter or sanding dust.
You really have to approach sanding like doing heart surgery, everything needs to be sanitized BECAUSE it only takes one foreign abrasive particle to get trapped between your sanding disc to cause pig tails.
You asked me my favorite discs?
For car paint I'll tend to want to use 3M Trizact because I like to finish out with #5000 to make the compounding step faster and easier.
For gel-coat boats or pontoon boats I much prefer Mirka Abralon foam backed discs because I like the flow-through screen design for their abrasives. These also work great for paint but for the finishing step I'd have to give the wink and nod to the #5000 grit by 3M.
Don't know if the above helped much....
