i personally don't think that you sanded it right u have still stripes = no good btw: are u using a sanding block??
Time 4:28pm Day 2 i swear, i'm gonna be the example of how much you can screw up on a job... I got the Primer on find, but forgot to whipe the plates down with a tack cloth!! how could i forget on my way downstairs!? anyway, here's what they look like, the day is coming to an end so in an hour I'll bring them inside and let them dry overnight before I sand and prime again. btw, thanks for all the help everyone, i would have it royally screwed up by now if not for the assistance, instead of just semi-screwed. Thanks, Linear, too.
When you sand tomorrow, it will help take care of most of the junk you shoulda gotten with the tack cloth... edit: so it's not a total loss =)
I think it's ok actually. As long as there wasn't vast amounts of dust, the primer should adhere just fine. When you sand, you're pitting the surface and that promotes adhesion. Toric, when you sand your primer, go *really lightly* and be extra careful around the edges. It's just about a given that you'll sand through on some corners, that's the main reason for a second primer coat really. Feel free to hit the corners and edges really well with the primer. Also make sure that the sides (the thin edge) gets adequately primed. Missing a little detail like that sucks and makes you say bad words (and we don't want that). It's a bigger deal when you get to the color coats, but I thought I'd mention it now. Any way you could get those workpieces up out of the grass? I'm worried that kamikaze bugs will fubar your nice work there.
When I sand with the 400 tomorrow, should I use a sanding block then too, or go by hand, also, any particular direction to sand, or not sand? I'm guessing the point of the sanding to to make the surface smooth again? Oh yea, should i sand dry or wet this time? I'm guessing dry. The pieces are on a big plastic table, covered in newspaper, it's some 2 - 3 feet off the ground, I tried painting yeasterday on the ground, and because of wind, every half hour I would find dirt and leaves and stuff all around my pieces, the wind would tornado them all in, not fun. Now it's up on a table and siggnifigantly less windy.
Sanding will always be using water and a sanding block. You can use a scrap and hand pressure to smooth out little details like the handles in your panels though. The point is absolutely to make the surface smooth. If you want the mirror illusion, it's important to recognize that mirror surfaces are flat. Absolutely flat. So imperfections detract from the illusion. All the sanding in between coats is designed to provide flatness of your base surface. So going much higher than 600 grit is pointless really. Save the higher grits for the final stage, finish sanding your clear coat. On a table is good, I was worried a little bit cause it looked like they were in the weeds there.
it would be bad to discover parts of my computer while mowing the lawn. I'll take pictures of the sanding and let you know how it goes when I get to it, tomorrow. Also, I'm not going for an absolute mirror surface, it's fine with me if it's a bit bumpy.
Oh and before you add colour make sure that it won't react with the primer. When I sprayed my plastic bezel I used a different primer to the metal and it all went pear shaped and went misty. Luckily I managed to salavge the bezel by sanding off most of the plastic primer and putting metal primer on it which seemed to work far better and all was peachy in the end. And sand really lightly as linear said
heh. i never wet sanded. it just completely slipped my mind. just in between each coat i 600 grit sanded (but it had been used a bit before, so probably a lot smoother than new 600grit). hope this turns out good.
I'm not sure I like the idea of using a sanding block for smoothing out the primer coats, it seems it's going to be really easy to strip the primer coat anyway, and using a sanding block will just add pressure points that I can't see, like the corners/edges of the sanding block always sand harder that the middle. What's everyones take on this? Course, I may just have a crappy sanding block...
Wet sanding done correctly is much easier than dry sanding. You'll spend less time changing paper out on your block. The water carries away the dust and keeps the paper cutting longer. Finer grits of paper won't cut as long as the coarse stuff will. I probably switched out my 1500 grit 5 or 6 times doing the mirage case, but I never used more than one sheet of 220 if I remember right (and I may not remember right--between the fumes and the Dos Equis I was seriously buzzed). :dude: Edit: Toric you got that post in while I was typing... The whole point of a sanding block is its flatness--it's your reference flat surface. I have an off brand block I got at the Home Depot and it is crap, not flat in the center. That's why I was specific about getting a 3M block. It will buzz away the corners for sure, especially on the primer coats. just watch out for it and it's not that bad. Go really lightly--you're just evening out the 'orange peel' texture you get from the rattle can. Incidentally, the biggest advantage of using auto paint in a pneumatic HVLP gun is the lack of that damn orange peel effect. No real need to sand between every damn coat, just finish sanding on the clear top coat.
yeah, i know what you mean. just using 600, i was VERY lightly sanding, and i took a bit of the corners right off! so then i was extra careful, and now it's fine. whew!
I know i can sand and tack cloth it toady, but it's nearing 90 out, in the shade! You think I can still put on that other coat of primer?
Yeah, absolutely. Humidity is the thing that will screw ya, and it's the worst on a clear coat. Don't do the clear coat in humid air, but otherwise it mainly just slows down your cure time. Oh yeah, primer dires fast, but the colo coats won't. Leave those panels alone for an hour or two before you move them. After color coating I mean. Then jam them somewhere out of the way to cure.
Well, I lightly sanded the case and applied the second coat of Primer tonight, I remembered to wipe it down with a tack cloth first, too. My plan is to sand again tomorrow, lightly, and start the painting. Should I let the primer coats set up for a couple of days before I get on with the painting? Or can I safely start tomorrow? Can I do multiple paint coats in one day? as in, Paint, wait an hour, sand, tack, paint again?
>Should I let the primer coats set up for a couple of days Nah, primer dries in an hour. Rock on. >Can I do multiple paint coats in one day? as in, Paint, wait an hour, sand, tack, paint again? Not like you describe. Your can will say something like 'recoat within an hour or after 24 hours.' It's telling you that you can drop another coat on within the first hour, and you'll get a nice adhesion between coats. But if you wait longer than an hour, you want to let the thing cure for a day (I say two usually--it depends on humidity and temperature) then if you want a recoat, lightly sand with some 600 grit (yes wet sand, tack cloth, the whole ordeal) to rough up the surface of the cured coat--the next coat will stick dramatically better that way and you'll get less chipping problems. How does it feel, nice and smooooth? If you can leave the workpiece in the sun, it will warm up rather nicely and cure a little more quickly, although I would still allow a 48 hour cure time before you sand that color coat. From here out, it's a patience test. Can you let the thing dry properly without fecking around with it?
im not sure abuot you, but before any mod i did, i made sure to read almost every article and how to on what i wanted to do. It really helps stear ya in the right direction....im working on my first paint job right now too and its a lot more work than i thought it would be whatever hope ya have fun with it and hope it looks great when its finished
looks like rain and high humidity for the next day and a half, work will resume saturday, i hope one more thing, if i sand the primer coat and manage not to scratch off any of the corners, will i be ok to start painting? Also, can you really sand a clear coat? I'd think it would make it hazy.
>one more thing, if i sand the primer coat and manage not to scratch off any of the corners, will i be ok to start painting? Yes. >Also, can you really sand a clear coat? I'd think it would make it hazy. Finish sanding is sanding for a different purpose altogether than what you have been doing. Once your clear coat is on, look at it edgewise, and you'll see serious orange peel is you're using any kind of rattlecan. you start at 600 grit or so, and you are basically flattening the tops of the mountains on the orange peel. when you're partly flattened out, it will look mostly matte with some shiny dimples in it kinda lookin like acne scars (ewww). You gotta keep snading the mountains down until the valleys look matte, the whole damn thing will look uniformly matte, no acne. Then you switch up to the next grit you have and sand perpendicular to remove the scratch marks from the 600. This should be done with fairly light pressure, because cutting through at this stage seriously sucks. By the time you hit 1500, you should see what looks like a hazy mirror. If you can get some 2000, you'll see a mirror with faint haze after sanding with that. Then you bust out the compound. I like 3M Perfect-It rubbing compound, Fine cut. Use a CLEAN COTTON CLOTH to compound the surface until it looks like a mirror with an almost imperceptible haze. Then it's tiem for the glaze, I like 3M Imperial Hand Glaze. Once again, CLEAN COTTON CLOTH, cause getting a piece of grit in there while you rub this thing will fubar your hard work. Don't try finish sanding the clear coat until it's cured for 48 hours minimum. It will continue to harden for a full month (at least lacquer does, dunno about enamel).
