Need a little clarification on my process.

y5mgisi;n76745 said:
Two questions I have still.

1) is 400 grit on my feather fill an acceptable substrate for my reduced coat of epoxy prior to base coat?

2) how do I prep epoxy that has been on the vehicle for over a month for base coat? Wet sand with 400 only? I'm assuming this "old" epoxy needs no sealer coat over it prior to paint.

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Personally I would wet sand with 600 grit even for solid colors prior to base. Not sure what the Pros do but for me its a little insurance against seeing sanding scratches. 400 for the epoxy sealer will work fine. It will show you how your paint job will look and if you are not happy you can let it cure and wet sand.
 
Prep grit depends on the brand of base and whether it is metallic or solid. A base that needs more coats for coverage will also tend to fill scratches better (usually but not always). With Standox I never need anything finer than 600, but with S-W Ultra 7000 fine metallic base coat, 800 was needed because the paint was thin but covered well, and the small metallic particles tended to lay into the sand scratches and show a pattern if coarser than 800 was used. With solid colors we actually keep some 500 around, it saves a bit of time and works well. With some single-stage solid colors you could probably get away with 400 even with no sealer, if at least 3 coats were applied and the paint had high enough solids.
 
I'm using Wanda base. It's a red metallic. At this point I'm thinking 400 will be ok for the sealer and I'll do paint right over that. But as 68 stated, once the sealer goes on, I'll get a good idea for how it's looking.
 
The so called rule of thumb is 400 for solids and 600 for metallics. However for all the reasons Crashtech cited I go with 600 grit minimum even on solids. I normally spray a minimum of 3 coats of base and more if needed depending on the color.
 
Paint is all done! Came out good! But might have to re clear one fender because a got a sweat drip on it... Anyway, here's some pics!











 
Thanks! I'll get a couple pics of the flaws today after work when I push it outside and I'll seek yalls advice on how to remedy them. So keep checking back! It did come out shockingly well with virtually no orange peel. Few smallish runs. But the major thing is a got a big sweat drip on the one fender that looks like poo!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top