Learn to machine sand TODAY! LIVE Detailing Class at 3:00pm Eastern Time

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Learn to machine sand TODAY! LIVE Detailing Class at 3:00pm Eastern Time


Now that this is over, here's the YouTube version...





At 3:00pm today, Yancy and I will be going over a plethora of topics that are hard to find good information about let along video showing how it's done.

The car was here for our February 3-day class. It's a 1963 Plymouth Fury Drag Car. This car was recently repainted. There were some flaws UNDER the clear on the trunk lid so it went back and was repainted.

After painting, it was hand sanded and buffed. Now there is overspray over the entire car. There's residual sanding marks in the paint. There's holograms everywhere the fresh paint was buffed. No big deal, this is the norm for the body shop industry.


Turning lemons into lemonade

After seeing the results from the paintwork, I told Carlos to bring her back and I would personally fix the entire car. I also asked if it would be okay to use this project for one of our LIVE detailing classes and in his normal awesome self - he said no problemo.

Here's the car after my 3-day class completely hand sanded and then machine sanded the entire car. (I teach wetsanding in all my classes)


From this recent class...

Pictures and Comments: 2021 February 3-Day Detailing Bootcamp Class


1963 Plymouth Fury Drag Car - Brand new basecoat/clearcoat paint job

2021_Feb_Class_088.JPG


2021_Feb_Class_089.JPG


2021_Feb_Class_090.JPG


2021_Feb_Class_091.JPG


2021_Feb_Class_093.JPG


2021_Feb_Class_094.JPG





And although the trunk lid left looking like this,

2021_Feb_Class_092.JPG



It don't look like the above any longer.




Where to go to watch?

At 3:00pm today - head over to either the Autogeek YouTube Channel or the Autogeek Facebook page and see how it's done.



YouTube - You can interact LIVE via the comments section

Facebook - You can interact LIVE via the comments section




:)
 
More...


Here's the tools, pads and products we'll be sharing and pretty much in this order.


3M Trizact Hookit 3 Inch Foam Discs P3000 - 02087
https://www.autogeek.net/3m-trizact-h...​

3M Trizact Hookit 6 Inch Foam Discs P3000 - 02085
https://www.autogeek.net/3m-6in-hooki...​

Griot's Garage G9 Random Orbital Polisher
https://www.autogeek.net/new-griots-p...​

Griot's G8 Mini Random Orbital Polisher
https://www.autogeek.net/griots-orbit...​

FLEX PE-150 Cordless Rotary Polisher
https://www.autogeek.net/flex-pe150-c...​

RUPES Twisted Natural Wool Pad - 6.5 Inch
https://www.autogeek.net/rupes-twiste...​

FLEX XCE 8-125 18.0 Polisher
https://www.autogeek.net/flex-xce-8-1...​

Rupes DA Yellow Fine Foam Pad - 7 Inch
https://www.autogeek.net/rupes-da-yel...​

Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish
https://www.autogeek.net/pin230.html​

Renny Doyle Double Black Paint Coating Surface Prep
https://www.autogeek.net/renny-doyle-...​

P&S Double Black Legend Ceramic Coating
https://www.autogeek.net/ps-legend-pr...



:)
 
How timely given my very recent review of a few wet-sanding products, albeit they were hand sanding variants.

I'll be tuning in.

In the past I have always done my final wet-sanding by hand as I feel that is how you have the best control. But something you brought up and I read (can't remember exactly where) regarding machine sanding caught my attention. That is... that you like to do the initial 1500G sanding by hand and then follow that with 3000G-5000G machine sanding. I like that methodology and look forward to trying it at some point.
 
:bump:


Apologies I can't share this on YouTube and then quickly and easily insert the video for you to watch on the forum. BUT - here's two videos I just took of this car on my Facebook page.

Click the link if you want to see how bad the paint is and also a rundown of all the tools, products and pads we'll be showing.


The car outside in full overhead sun

Wetsanding class at 3:00pm TODAY!



Here's the car inside, I use a swirl finder light to show the current condition and then all the tools we'll be using.

Removing sanding marks and holograms today...



We go LIVE in about 45 minutes.


:buffing:
 
One more then it's time to mic-up...


Here's a couple of still shots....


Here's the car out in full overhead sunlight...

LIve_Wetsanding_008.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_008c.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_009.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_009c.JPG




Here's in the garage ready to film...

LIve_Wetsanding_001.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_002.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_003.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_004.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_005.JPG


LIve_Wetsanding_006.JPG




Fingers are crossed I don't screw this up! :D


:)
 
2black1s said:
Just participated. Great Demo Mike!
Click to expand...


Thanks for watching John. I was nervous knowing a "real" body and paint guy was going to be watching. :bolt: :dig:


If I were not doing this on camera live I would be more exact in everything I did but when doing it live on camera you have to be sensitive to the time issue and also try to stay out of the way of the camera view.


I'll take pictures when I'm all done, she's going to come out real nice.


:)
 
Mike Phillips said:
Thanks for watching John. I was nervous knowing a "real" body and paint guy was going to be watching. :bolt: :dig:


If I were not doing this on camera live I would be more exact in everything I did but when doing it live on camera you have to be sensitive to the time issue and also try to stay out of the way of the camera view.



I'll take pictures when I'm all done, she's going to come out real nice.


:)
Click to expand...


Mike Phillips nervous? I don't believe you LOL

I get the camera thing.

This is the second or third one of these Thursday deals I watched. I don't always have the time... but being retired is certainly a benefit. I like to say that there are only a very few benefits to getting older, and being retired is definitely one of them.
 
Hey Mike,

I hope you look at this thread again so you see this.

I just spent the afternoon cleaning one of my bikes and my truck (waterless). While I was in my garage doing that something from today's broadcast came to mind...

Early on you did some paint thickness measurements. At the end it must have slipped your mind and you didn't take any after measurements.

If you could follow up with that I think it could help many here. I read so many threads of those who are understandably a little timid when it comes to polishing... All the chatter about how thin paint is can be a double edged sword. On one hand it is very true. On the other, it can be a scary, intimidating, and limiting factor for some. What they don't realize is how little paint is actually removed during a typical polishing session, especially when you are working on factory baked finishes.

I'm not sure what the accuracy/resolution of the gauge you used is, but I'd bet that your after readings today, if you had taken them, would be negligible if determinable at all. My guess would be in the one to two tenths of a mil range; and possibly so little change that you couldn't positively identify the change with your gauge.

Even if the change turned out to be somewhat greater than my guestimate, given all the steps, i.e., sanding, compounding with wool and a rotary, then polishing, on a fairly fresh paint job, it could still calm some nerves and put some context to the "paint is thin" mantra.

Then again, maybe due to the paint being so fresh you may have removed a bit more than I surmise, and that could blow a huge hole in my thought process here, but it would be interesting to see the measurement results nevertheless.
 
I’ve asked Mike this before related to compounding/polishing and as you said, so little paint is removed that it is within the normal deviation of the thickness readings. Maybe with the sanding there would be enough of a difference to show a measurable and repeatable difference. Good question.
 
2black1s said:
Hey Mike,

I hope you look at this thread again so you see this.

I just spent the afternoon cleaning one of my bikes and my truck (waterless). While I was in my garage doing that something from today's broadcast came to mind...

Early on you did some paint thickness measurements. At the end it must have slipped your mind and you didn't take any after measurements.

If you could follow up with that I think it could help many here.
Click to expand...

Exaclty. Both of us simply forgot to re-read the paint in that one area and measure the paint. The good news is the car is still out in the garage so I can go measure - and I will.




2black1s said:
I read so many threads of those who are understandably a little timid when it comes to polishing... All the chatter about how thin paint is can be a double edged sword. On one hand it is very true. On the other, it can be a scary, intimidating, and limiting factor for some. What they don't realize is how little paint is actually removed during a typical polishing session, especially when you are working on factory baked finishes.

I'm not sure what the accuracy/resolution of the gauge you used is, but I'd bet that your after readings today, if you had taken them, would be negligible if determinable at all. My guess would be in the one to two tenths of a mil range; and possibly so little change that you couldn't positively identify the change with your gauge.
Click to expand...

The paint gauge I was using is an American-made, very high accuracy Defelsko Paint Thickness Gauge. Before going live I installed a brand new battery and then re-calibrated the gauge. I would bet my life on the readings.

Here's my article on this exact tool and it's in-depth.

All about the Defelsko Paint Thickness Gauge by Mike Phillips




2black1s said:
Even if the change turned out to be somewhat greater than my guesstimate, given all the steps, i.e., sanding, compounding with wool and a rotary, then polishing, on a fairly fresh paint job, it could still calm some nerves and put some context to the "paint is thin" mantra.

Then again, maybe due to the paint being so fresh you may have removed a bit more than I surmise, and that could blow a huge hole in my thought process here, but it would be interesting to see the measurement results nevertheless.
Click to expand...


As I'm typing, it's 9:30am on Friday morning. We shot the video last night. I have not re-measured the paint so I don't know how much I removed. BUT - knowing how safe 3M Trizact #3000 is and how safe that compound I used is - my guess the amount of paint will be very little.

I have to go out to the garage this morning and teach some young ladies how to machine polish Isinglass - when doing this - I'll measure the paint, take pictures and post to this thread.

Apologies for not doing this at the end of the video but I simply forgot to measure and my mind was on a customer bringing me a car to prep for a big car show next weekend that was outside being unloaded off a trailer.


Old_2-Door_Chevy_001.JPG




Hang tight.... I'll be back...


:D
 
More...


Here's screenshots of the "before" paint thickness measurements...


In this one area, a section I'm getting a range of 18 to 19 mills


aPTG_001.JPG


aPTG_002.JPG




Stay tuned, will take some fresh measurements and post later.



:buffing:
 
It's a darn good video! I watched it yesterday and learned a bunch!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Autogeekonline mobile app
 
Mike Phillips said:
Here you go...

Yancy and I took a number of different readings in the same general area and here's the lowest reading...


aPTG_003.JPG



:)
Click to expand...

Thanks for following up Mike.

If that 17.6 reading correlates to the 18.1 (before) reading from yesterday, it indicates that up to 0.5 mils was removed.

Note that the 18.1 mil measurement was the thinnest of yesterday's "before" measurements and the 17.6 mil measurement is the thinnest of today's "after" measurements.

That is a little more than I expected to see, but it still shows how aggressive you have to be during polishing to remove any significant amount of paint. In this case the paint was sanded, compounded, and polished. I'd expect the paint removal breakdown to be something like this (only my guestimate)...

Sanding = ~ 0.26 mils removed
Compounding = ~ 0.16 mils removed
Polishing = ~ 0.08 mils removed

In my eyes, this shows that during routine polishing and/or AIO processes to remove swirls and other minor/shallow defects, the amount of paint removed is minimal. Looking at the values in the above guestimate, the amount of paint removed during the polishing step is less than the resolution of the gauge (0.1 mils) itself. It would take multiple polishing cycles before you'd even begin to see the change in measurements, and you also have to assume the exact same measurement location to ensure accuracy.

While my analysis here is based on a single before/after measurement, I hope that it can relieve some of the concerns out there relative to removing too much paint during routine polishing and/or AIO processes. When performed using quality products combined with a sound process, the risks are minimal in most cases. There will always be exceptions, i.e., age, history, etc., but that is where we all have to make are own assessments when such cases arise.

The only other thing I'd like to see, in an effort to refine my analysis, is what the range of measurements taken today is. The range of the "before" measurements taken yesterday was 18.1 to 19.2 mils. If I knew today's range I could refine my analysis using averages rather than a single data point and doing so could provide an even clearer "real-world" picture.
 
2black1s said:
In my eyes, this shows that during routine polishing and/or AIO processes to remove swirls and other minor/shallow defects, the amount of paint removed is minimal.
Click to expand...

Agree. The above is my experience.

And when I'm asked a very common question,

How many times can I compound my car?

First I tell the person,

Well - if after compounding the first time, if you stop doing stupid stuff to the paint you won't have to compound again. :D



But realistically, for the masses - removing too much paint is the least of their worries as long as they are using great abrasive technology and then common sense stuff like matching the right pad to the tool and product and of course, using good technique.





2black1s said:
The only other thing I'd like to see, in an effort to refine my analysis, is what the range of measurements taken today is. The range of the "before" measurements taken yesterday was 18.1 to 19.2 mils. If I knew today's range I could refine my analysis using averages rather than a single data point and doing so could provide an even clearer "real-world" picture.
Click to expand...

Been there done that...

From October of 2009

Removing Orange Peel & Sanding Marks with the Griot's ROP and the Wolfgang Twins


From post #2

Whenever you do any kind of testing it's vitally important to remove and reduce as many variables as possible, so I came up with a way of using 3M Painter's Masking Tape to create a grid pattern on the hood that I could use to locate the 3 locations in a repeatable method.

I then used the 3M Painter's Tape Grid System to take my measurements with the goal being to record measurements from the same locations for each reading as much as possible. To check myself and my consistency in sanding and compounding, I chose 3 places to duplicate the same test and recorded all the measurements as a "control".

WetSandingExperiment1015.jpg


WetSandingExperiment1021.jpg





The FULL explanation of what I did and how I did it is in the actual article, I'm not going to post any more than what I have above as a teaser.

Removing Orange Peel & Sanding Marks with the Griot's ROP and the Wolfgang Twins



At the end of all my sanding, buffing and measuring, I found I removed approximately .5 mills and that was after hand sanding 3 times.

WetSandingExperiment1009.jpg


WetSandingExperiment1010.jpg



Mark you buckets so you can quickly and easily identify which buckets hold which papers.

WetSandingExperiment1011.jpg




I don't think I'll ever do anything so extravagant like I did for that article the rest of my life. Instead I'll just use common sense when doing ANY detailing process and of course, dial-in my process first via the Test Spot.




:)
 
Good stuff in this (and the linked) threads!

Now on to another topic... The rotary aspect of the video.

I can't tell you how much I agree with the "going on edge" aspect and that is exactly the way I use the rotary. I don't think I go quite as far on edge, although maybe I do and just don't realize it, as I have never seen a video of me polishing. The way I would explain my method is to say that I skew the pad slightly, one way or the other, to give myself better control.

Back in my heyday there were no discussion forums like this so I don't remember ever discussing this topic. But every instruction that you could find (few and far between relative to today) stated to keep the pad flat to the surface. Even product instructions gave the same direction. And most instruction that I have seen to this day still says the same thing.

You don't know how many times I tried polishing with a flat pad. That's what all the "experts" told us was the right thing to do. Right?

Not for me!

What a flat pad on a rotary does is makes you fight the machine through the entire process. One side of the pad wants to walk the machine in one direction while the other side of the pad wants to walk in the opposite direction. Then as you try to control the opposing forces the machine starts chattering and hopping around and you're in for a long day.

All you have to do to eliminate the struggle is to skew the pad a little to one side or the other. Now you have a very smooth operating tool that you are in complete control of. And when I say smooth, I mean absolutely smooth... Smoother than any DA polisher.

To someone that has never used a rotary I would use an industrial floor buffer as an analogy. If you ever used one you will know that just a little pressure to one side of the handle will make the machine move in that direction in a very controlled manner. A little pressure to the other side of the handle and the machine will now move in that direction. A rotary polisher on a car surface acts the same way.

As soon as I close this post I'm going to go find your book (Mike's Book - The Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine) and read up on the rotary section. I don't recall ever hearing of or reading of this practice before yesterday. Did I miss it? Or is it not discussed there?
 
2black1s said:
Good stuff in this thread!

Now on to another topic... The rotary aspect of the video.

I can't tell you how much I agree with the "going on edge" aspect and that is exactly the way I use the rotary. I don't think I go quite as far on edge, although maybe I do and just don't realize it, as I have never seen a video of me polishing. The way I would explain my method is to say that I skew the pad slightly, one way or the other, to give myself better control.

Back in my heyday there were no discussion forums like this so I don't remember ever discussing this topic. But every instruction that you could find (few and far between relative to today) stated to keep the pad flat to the surface. Even product instructions had the same instruction. And most instruction that I have seen to this day still says the same thing.

You don't know how many times I tried polishing with a flat pad. That's what all the "experts" told us was the right thing to do. Right?

Not for me!

What a flat pad on a rotary does is makes you fight the machine through the entire process. One side of the pad wants to walk the machine in one direction while the other side of the pad wants to walk in the opposite direction. Then as you try to control the opposing forces the machine starts chattering and hopping around and you're in for a long day.

All you have to do to eliminate the struggle is to skew the pad a little to one side or the other. Now you have a very smooth operating tool that you are in complete control of. And when I say smooth, I mean absolutely smooth... Smoother than any DA polisher.

To someone that has never used a rotary I would use an industrial floor buffer as an analogy. If you ever used one you will know that just a little pressure to one side of the handle will make the machine move in that direction in a very controlled manner. A little pressure to the other side of the handle and the machine will now move in that direction. A rotary polisher on a car surface acts the same way.

As soon as I close this post I'm going to go find your book (Mike's Book - The Complete Guide to a Show car Shine) and read up on the rotary section. I don't recall ever hearing of or reading of this practice before yesterday. Did I miss it? Or is it not discussed there?
Click to expand...

I've never used a rotary on a car or truck, but I have hundreds and hundreds of hours on them on boat hulls (gelcoat).

You are 100% correct, John. Trying to keep a rotary pad flat on the surface is next to impossible, and counterproductive to say the least.
 
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