Louisiana Classic Truck Club

Ok, here is the colorsanding and buffing how to I posted on another site awhile back. Most everyone knows this already but for the ones that are just starting it might help answer some questions. This isnt the right or wrong way to do this as every painter has different methods and use different materials, this is just what works for me.

Starting at the begining, the glass finish that everyone wants to acheive is the by product of MANY hours of bodywork, blocking, prep, spray techique, and last, color sanding and buffing. Notice that the buffing comes last! The very first step is the bodywork. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get the bodywork perfect or as close to perfect as you can. It is not possible to have a flawless glass finish if the bodywork is not finished to that level also. The paint and clear are just a film applied over a hard surface and are a direct reflection of what is underneath. I get my bodywork and final prep to the level that I want the finished product to look like, before paint is applied! The two pictures below are of finished ready to paint PRIMER. I use wax and grease remover to mimic the clear for these pictures. This is also how I check to see if I am ready to paint. I use the reflections of the lighting to see any ripples.





I wont go into how to get the bodywork to this stage since what everyone wants to know is the colorsanding and buffing process.

There are many versions of what is or isnt orange peel. This is mine! Trust me on this, everything I spray has orange peel to some degree and that is why everything that goes out of my shop is colorsanded and buffed, EVERYTHING! I posted this picture as a in progress shot of some paint work I was doing and was asked how I had sprayed it without any orange peel. My answer was I didnt!



Lets take a closer look under different lighting and I can show you that looks can be decieving. Look closer at the reflection of the flourecent light fixture in the lower right corner.



Notice how the reflection looks blurry and distorted, thats the orange peel that causes this. Yes, its glossy, the orange peel is minor and almost unoticable to most people but I cant stand to see any orange peel at all. My customers pay for custom paint, that includes the clarity of the final finish also! This is what I consider finished.





Colorsanding and Buffing are simply the last peice of the finishing puzzle for a show quality paint job!


Colorsanding

I start with a freshly painted door that I have let dry for 2 days. I do this so that the clear is hard enough that it doesnt burn as easily but it is still soft enough to buff out quickly.



The finish you see here does have orange peel but as you can see it is minimal and will be very easy to remove. You can also see why I stress so much about getting the bodywork perfect. The final finish is a direct reflection of the surface underneath it.



This is step one in the colorsanding process. I use a Dynabrade Ultra Fine Finish ( 3/32 stroke) DA sander and 1500 grit sandpaper for this how to but I have recently started doing this first step by hand/block with either 1200 or 1500 grit. The amount of orange peel you have will determine what grit paper you need to start with, that is why it is imortant to spray your base and clear in as fine a finish as possible.



This is to show what a quick dry pass with the da and 1500 should look like. Look closely and you can see a small amount of the orange peel still shows. I leave it this way because the next finer grit I use not only removes the 1500 grit sand scratches but also the fine remaining orange peel. This is a good practice to use as it leaves more clear on the surface.



Here is a closer veiw or what you want to remove. See the white dots? This is the lowest spots in the orange peel. Orange peel is nothing more than tiny dimples in the finish. To get a show quality glass finish you want to remove this gradually to get the paint surface flat and free of imperfections and that is the reason for colorsanding and buffing.



After removing most of the orange peel by dry sanding with 1500 grit I wet the surface down and clean it well. I then wet down again, and switch to 2000 grit and using the DA I wetsand to remove the 1500 grit sand scratches with in turn will remove the fine orange peel that was left.



This is what a smooth 2000 grit sanded surface should look like. Also notice the two small "V" imperfections. This is dust in the clear. Same as before, I never remove all of this since the next stage of wetsanding will remove slightly more clear and in turn these imperfections will slowly start to disappear.



That is the end of using the DA. I now switch to 2500 grit and wetsand by hand to remove the 2000 grit sand scratches. These pictures show just how little clear is being removed, VERY LITTLE! Sand until you dont see any more 2000 grit scratches, its hard to show in a photo but you will see what I am talking about as you sand.



This is what a finished 2500 grit sanded surface will look like. Notice that even though the paint finish is dulled from the sanding, you can start to see a reflection developing at this stage.



Next and final step in my colorsanding process is a repeat of the above step just now I wetsand with 3000 grit. Now you can really start to see what the finish will look like and the sand scratches are so fine you can barely see them. This will make the buffing stage alot easier and is easier on the paint since you dont have to buff on it very much to remove sand scratches.








Final buffing


Now lets make it shiny!!!!!!!

The buffing process simply returns the gloss and depth of the clear and brings it to the glass finish customers demand in a show quality custom paint job. The process is similar to colorsanding in that you use progressively finer compounds to remove scratches left by the previous stage of compounding. Here are the products I use with the pads that are used with each compound (left to right).



I start with making sure the paint surface is clean and dust free. I buff under flourescent lighting to easily see even the tiniest imperfections and fine scratches. I start with a White waffle compounding pad and 3M Perfect It III, Extra Cut Compound ( #05936) This compound is a more aggresive compound meaning it contains a grit that will quickly remove the 3000 grit sand scratches left from the colorsanding process. I use very little of this compound as it works very fast. This stage of buffing is the most important. What I mean is you want to remove any and all imperfections now. If you dont you will see imperfections later and will have to either come back to this stage or buff on the paint more than you need to, risking a burn through.



I apply a couple dime size drops and use the pad attached to the buffer to spread the compound evenly.





I start buffing with medium speed and using just the weight of the buffer, I start making even overlapping passes. This compound is a progressive compound meaning that as you buff the grit contiunally breaks down into a finer grit and should leave you with a nice clear reflection. The gloss will be slighly dull still because of the aggresive nature of the compound and will show lots of swirl marks. Dont worry about getting this out, the next step will remove the heavy swirl marks.





Now here is a little trick. Using the same pad and what compound is left on it I will spray the paint surface with water. Without adding any compound to the pad start buffing again. This makes a finer polishing paste and will remove all the heavy swirls and bring the finish out to a much deeper finished appearance.







This pic shows that the very first step in buffing is already starting to show what the final finish will be and is only dull right now. The next step is to remove the dullness, not to remove imperfections as that should already have been done.



When I am happy with the way it looks I take it outside and with soapy water wash it very well. This step cannot be skipped because if you dont remove all traces of compound it will keep mixing with your next finer compound making it hard for that finer compound to do its job correctly. The next couple of pics show where you should be at the end of the first stage in buffing.









Step 2 I use a soft black foam pad and 3M Perfect It 3000 Buffing compound ( #06062). This compound is a finer grade cream compound that removes all the swirl marks left from the first stage of buffing and brings the clear back to the wet glassy look you are wanting to acheive. The application and buffing are done the same as the first.



Same as before, when your happy with the way it looks, wash it well. This is what the paint should look like at the end of step 2.





Step 3 is the last step done with the buffer. I use the same type of pad as the previous step but now I will use 3M Perfect IT III Machine Glaze (#05937)



I use this as the final buffing step because it is a non filling glaze. This means that it will remove and polish out the finest of imperfetions and swirl marks and not simply fill them in. If you use a filling glaze or hand glaze in this step it will look great until you wash it, then the swirls will return because they were just covered up and not removed.

The next pics show the finished buffed door.











After this step I will wash again and apply 3M Perfect It III Finishing Glaze ( #05941) by hand using a 3M micro fiber Detailing cloth.



Now, go call the customer to come pick up their parts before something happens to it!

Keith,

Thanks for taking the time to write this up and sharing your knowledge with us. I bet everyone gets something out of this.

Mike

Excellent write up Keith! Looks like I need to add a few steps!

Thanks Mike and Wynne. Its no problem. I know pretty much everyone already knows this or have their own ways but when I am trying to learn something its always easier for me to see what a certain step should look like than try to understand someones explanation. If I can see it, it clicks in my mind.

Great explanation of the correct buffing procedure, Keith. I imagine that everyone will learn something from your write-up.

Thanks Kevin, and please add to it. I know that you have way more time behind a buffer than I do.

Great job Keith. Looks like we're "about" on the same page's.
One thing people don't do is WASH between steps and that is CRITICAL.
You've pointed this out exceptionally,VERY important step.
Also, When using a DA,I use the interface pad which I don't know if you do or not,but this is with the 3000 Trizact 3M pad. The initial stages are done with blocks.This way I know it's flat as the interface pad does "float" and won't give you a good initial,flat cut and the regular pads just scare the heck out of me at that stage.
I never considered not cutting ALL the peel in stages. Learned something here.
One other thing, What brand pads are you using?
I have the 3M White Compound waffle pad with the Velcro back,but it looks nothing like yours.
The Black pad looks to be "flat".I use the Black 3M waffle pad.
Any perticular brand of paper you "prefer"?

When the weather is bad and I don't want or can't do much water work,I do use the 3M Finishing Film disk's and just the DA. Not "quite" as good but just how it is sometimes.

The pads I use are 3M Perfect It II Plus. The white pad USED to be white, its just old and worn down.

I use the black waffle pads too, the flat ones were the ones that were clean that day. I do use nothing but the flat black pads for the machine glaze stage, just like them better for the last buff.

The DA paper I use is the cheaper Sunmight brand with an interface pad, 3M for everything else, then Mequirs 2500 and 3000 are done by hand.

I have switched back to doing the first 1200 or 1500 cut by hand though sometimes the clear lays out nice enough that the DA will take care of it. I do it by hand now 90% of the time. I did that how to for another site close to a year ago but the only thing I do different now is the first cut is by hand. Everything else is the same.

Hey Keith, you should post this on 67-72 in the paint section if you haven't already. It would go great with what we are trying to do. I've volunteered to write a how to on filler and/or priming, so I'll need plenty of help. Got anything along those lines written up?