Color Sanding With Meguiars Car Products - Get It Slick And Shiny

Part One: Cut It!
1. Let's talk about the sandpaper. If you are cutting a factory paintjob, grab some 3000. The factory clear is very thin, and anything coarser than 3000 will take off way too much clear and increase the chance of sanding through to the basecoat. For a custom paintjob, pick up some 1200 and some 2000. The 1200 will make short work of the orange peel, and the 2000 will help speed up the polishing portion of the job by removing the larger scratches left by the 1200. Before you start sanding anything, let the paper soak in clean water for a minimum of 15 minutes (overnight is preferred).

2. The first thing you need to do before sanding anything is to make sure you have a completely clean surface. A few light sprays of Final Inspection and a clean microfiber rag do the job nicely.

3. To produce the best results on flat areas, a sanding block is recommended. You can use your bare hand, but doing that might produce faint gouges from the unevenness of your fingers. One thing Mike says that makes a lot of sense is, "Don't sand an area that you can't get the buffer into."

4. Mike recommends making a soap-and-water mixture in a spray bottle to lubricate the paper during the sanding process. You can use a hose, but that will waste a lot of water and the bucket the paper is in will become contaminated pretty quickly. Start sanding in a back in forth motion (not in circles) from front to back.

5. After 10 to 15 strokes of sanding, use the block to squeegee the water away and check your progress. You want to remove the least amount of material possible, and checking your progress is the best way to ensure that.

6. You know you're done when the surface of the paint is dull and devoid of any little shiny dots (low spots). If you still have shiny dots, you'll need to sand a little more. It only took about six back-and-forth strokes to remove the shiny dots we had.

7. For curved areas around body lines, take the paper off the block and use your hand.

8. Do not try to push the block down into the low areas as shown here. This puts a lot of pressure on the edges of the block and increases the chance of sanding through the clearcoat.

9. Once the area is completely sanded with the 1200, it's time to switch to 2000. Sand the entire area again with the finer paper to make the sand scratches even smaller and much easier to polish out. Mike recommends doing it this way instead of using aggressive compounds and the buffer. It's easier to control the paper and your hand than it is to control the spinning buffer.

10. This is the finish you should have after all of the sanding is completed. The paint will be dull but very smooth to the touch.