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wet sanding VS clay bar


camaro

Question

Hey guys

 

On an older vehicle (12 y/o) with severe paint swirls/fading etc does wet-sanding by-pass the need to clay bar?

 

Can i just wet-sand with a 2k grit sandpaper OR is it necessary to clay bar & then wet sand?

 

thanks!

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I'm glad to see the thread making a positive turn. Your "Shop" guys clearly haven't used these products before, but that's for a different show.

 

95% of the Swirl marks and hazing you see (that's isn't deep enough to be felt by a fingernail) is kill-able with SHR. The other 5%, SSR.

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Yea, you are definitely setting yourself up for a disaster. Here's my rule, I never tell a guy to do something to his car that I would allow him to do on my own. I wouldn't allow you into the same city as my car with 2000 grit sandpaper. Talk about a costly learning experience, especially without a paint thickness gauge, that one would hurt your wallet like Stone Cold Steve Austin coming off the turn buckle. Definitely trash that plan and take it back to the drawing board. It takes a lot of practice at wet sanding to get good at it. I see guys who work in the automotive body repair industry who mess up from time to time. The advantage they have is they can repaint and start all over again. Of course, that still sucks.

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Yea, you are definitely setting yourself up for a disaster. Here's my rule, I never tell a guy to do something to his car that I would allow him to do on my own. I wouldn't allow you into the same city as my car with 2000 grit sandpaper. Talk about a costly learning experience, especially without a paint thickness gauge, that one would hurt your wallet like Stone Cold Steve Austin coming off the turn buckle. Definitely trash that plan and take it back to the drawing board. It takes a lot of practice at wet sanding to get good at it. I see guys who work in the automotive body repair industry who mess up from time to time. The advantage they have is they can repaint and start all over again. Of course, that still sucks.

 

sever to swirl/haze remover it is :D

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Now you can come do that to my car anytime, with the PC of course. ;)

 

I have the PC but a local pro/shop guy keeps telling me that I should use Meg 105/205 with Uber pads bc the Adam's stuff will require more effort considering my lack of experience

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I have the PC but a local pro/shop guy keeps telling me that I should use Meg 105/205 with Uber pads bc the Adam's stuff will require more effort considering my lack of experience

 

Oh, I see. So let me see if I can decipher what he actually said to you. Please allow me to be blunt.

 

"Hey Jay, since you don't know what the hell you're doing, we're going to allow you to use a sledge hammer to drive nails up here on the roof with us. Us guys who know what we are doing can use a regular nail driving hammer but you probably can't hit a nail with one so we are giving you a hammer with more surface area. Yea, you may bend a bunch of nails and end up making more work for yourself but we can live with that. You might also hit your thumb a lot more but hey, you're a rookie!"

 

Where I would say to you, "Jay, technique trumps product every day of the week. It doesn't matter who's name is on the label because if your technique sucks, then your results will suck. I can take the worst product in America while using a solid technique and go up against someone using the best product in America with a crappy technique. Guess who's paint is going to look better? That's right, mine by a long shot."

 

There's nothing wrong with M105/205, all I'm saying is that the guy who is giving you that advice obviously doesn't understand how important it is that you develop a solid technique. Then you can pick up a bottle of Hershey syrup and polish your car to a shine. I look at technique like Jackie Chan in a alley fight. One guy shows up with a shotgun and there stands Jackie with a bread tie, two pickles and Lego block.

 

When the fight is over, Jackie has blinded the guy by squirting pickle juice in his eyes, shoved the Lego block down the guys throat and wired his lips closed with the bread tie. Then he takes the guys shotgun down to the pawn shop and gets enough money to buy some more pickles and bread ties.

 

Technique my friend. It trumps product every day of the week. ;)

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Then you can pick up a bottle of Hershey syrup and polish your car to a shine. I look at technique like Jackie Chan in a alley fight. One guy shows up with a shotgun and there stands Jackie with a bread tie, two pickles and Lego block.

 

When the fight is over, Jackie has blinded the guy by squirting pickle juice in his eyes, shoved the Lego block down the guys throat and wired his lips closed with the bread tie. Then he takes the guys shotgun down to the pawn shop and gets enough money to buy some more pickles and bread ties.

 

Technique my friend. It trumps product every day of the week. ;)

 

:lol: Where do you come up with this stuff? Totally true and a perfect way to explain it.

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:lol: Where do you come up with this stuff? Totally true and a perfect way to explain it.

 

I think A.J.'s been holding onto that little jewel of wisdom to unleash on us!

 

These little scenarios go on in my mind all the time. It's a mad house up there. You don't want to just wander in to it. It could get ugly. You'll be all like...

 

backing_out.gif

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I also saw that you wanted to start with 2000 grit paper. That paper will go though your clear coat so fast that you will be into the paint before you realize it. Also, is this factory a factory paint job or a aftermarket paint job that you were thinking about doing this too? Do you have a paint thickness gauge? If not, how would you know how much clear coat you are removing, even on your practice piece?

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I'm glad to see the thread making a positive turn. Your "Shop" guys clearly haven't used these products before, but that's for a different show.

 

That's what kills me about some "expert" saying that they couldn't get anywhere with a given professional product line. If you know what you're doing, you should be able to get somewhere with any quality line. Since most folks are not privy to where most of these product originate, they could be bad mouthing and using the same exact product in reality. Image that! But again, it all comes back to technique. yesnod.gif

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You can spend some time practicing on an old door or fender.

If you really want to take the leap using just the Junkman's video and without a paint guage, open your trunk and try using 2500 grit on the inside of the deck lid. You'll have an idea how tricky it's going to be and a reminder of the attempt visible only when you pop the trunk.

 

A few folks said it best: spend the time using each of the three polishes to get the correction basics down. Seal, Wax and then admire the performance of your effort and Adam's products.

After 2-3 rounds of machine polishing and still not happy...start practicing on an old car part until the feeling goes away.

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Jay, I'm over in NJ right over the bridge, drop me a PM if you want some help.

 

That's really nice of you! Thank you!

 

As for the "Shop Guy" he has used Adam's products & it did seem odd to me too that he wasn't coo coo for cocoa puffs about Adam's stuff. He told me it's more for "garage queens"

 

That's why I have doubt

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That's really nice of you! Thank you!

 

As for the "Shop Guy" he has used Adam's products & it did seem odd to me too that he wasn't coo coo for cocoa puffs about Adam's stuff. He told me it's more for "garage queens"

 

That's why I have doubt

 

... and that's why I doubt his technique. Not saying anything bad about what he uses but you've seen plenty of threads by me and some of the stuff I've fixed. The thing about a lot of those threads, someone was standing right there watching what I was doing. No opportunity for smoke and mirrors.

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... and that's why I doubt his technique. Not saying anything bad about what he uses but you've seen plenty of threads by me and some of the stuff I've fixed. The thing about a lot of those threads, someone was standing right there watching what I was doing. No opportunity for smoke and mirrors.

 

for sure JunkMan - I hear you. So all those restos were only the three step Adam's stuff?

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You can do amazing stuff with a PC - I've corrected stuff I thought I'd never get out, and I only had SHR/Orange pad as my most aggressive combination on the PC (until more recently). It took multiple passes, but it came out safely.

 

Once you get the finish corrected the first time, it takes much less effort to keep it in good shape by correct washing/drying products and technique, and periodic maintenance.

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Suuuuuuuper informative! Thanks so much for that!

 

That really helped because I was under the impression that I had to clay the entire car, wet sand & then the paint correction you diligently listed above.

 

Now I feel confident in approaching this project.

 

I will still do my best to put up progress pics.

 

The bug has been well maintained but the Caravan is a big blue junker looking for some much needed love lol

 

If you haven't already I highly recommend giving these videos a look:

Instructional Detailing Videos

 

I would baggie test the car panel by panel but typically if you need to clay one panel you most likely will need to clay the entire car... hope that makes sense....

 

As for wet sanding you would only want to do that if ABSOLUTELY necessary... and only those areas that you must.... wet sanding is NOT for the faint of heart (I would practice on some junk car parts first if you can...)

 

Once you have clayed the car once, unless it is out in the weather all the time and having contaminants shower all over it, I would baggie test after each wash, but expect you wouldn't have to clay each time.. or at least the whole car... the purpose of claying is to get any particles out of the paint that would get trapped in your polish pad and mar you paint up.... making your polish step kinda useless....

 

Hope this helps... Happy polishing... :pc:

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You'd want the paint fully decontaminated before beginning any sanding work. Really there aren't any direct comparisons you can make between either process.

 

Clay removes surface contamination and is a NON-ABRASIVE process.

 

Sanding removes material from the surface and is an ABRASIVE process.

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