Pig Tails

Good point!
When I dry sand I wear a cotton glove on my left hand and wipe the
disk with it occasionally while it's spinning, that removes the dust builup.
 
jersey gloves ! neatest thing since lace panties and pop top beer..................



and dont get me started on matrix , that crap cost me a small fortune.....:mad:
 
Sof, thats what i tell people all the time. For me atleast, the pigtails you see in the dust on the panel arent actually being put into the clear. They are just in the dust and thats it. I think most people see them and get all freaked out and worried then change the paper. I just keep going and going until the paper just slows down on the cutting as normal paper does.
 
Senile Old Fart;9948 said:
Are the pigtails actual scratches in the paint, or just look like it.
I use the 3M finishing fil and noticed early on that the 1200 and 1500 grits would cause me to get what appeared to be pigtails.
Upon closer examination there were no scratches in the substrate, what I was seeing was a polished area in the shape of a pigtail scratch.
Wiping with a mircro fiber cloth and distilled water would easily remove them.
The cause in my case was the build up of the ultra fine sanding dust onto the film disc.
It appears as little pin head bumps.
These bumps are what polished the finish in the shape of a pigtail.
As Shind stated the cure was to change paper often.
I now use at least twice as many of those spendy discs, but the increase in sanding speed alone is worth it .
Click to expand...

Mine are in the clear coat and there is no doubt about it. I have to do some color sanding today so I'll try the 3M 1500 dry (something I have yet to do) first to see if that helps. If I end up wet sanding I will filter the water through a paint screen. The other thing I need to try is slowing the DA down.
Thanks for all the input. I would really like to get away from hand sanding once I have everything flat and straight.
 
Mine will be in the clear also guys.. If I dont keep a close eye on it all, the paper will burn those tiny scratches in the Universal clear pretty bad, the Euro does better but still happens.. To the point where I will sand with a 2000 abralon disk and see them once I start buffing.. A quality compound will remove them, however it takes much more work than the surrounding area of paint that is being polished..

I also keep a towel and scotch brite pad to clean the film disk.. A paper towel roll with 50/50 mix to keep cleaning the panel etc..

I think on small items those 3M finishing disk are the bomb.. I think on an overall muscle car they are fantastic to move the process along at different times..

The last couple days I have been colorsanding and buffing..

I almost hate to admit this but..... I think for the ultimate finish.. You can not beat hand sanding the clear up to 3000.. I know I know.. sounds crazy.. I love those disk.. Truly love those disk..
But I noticed from the pigtails to whatever etc.. I sometimes will over work the clear when buffing to get rid of imperfections the DA and film disk have put in the clear..

This creates almost a super tight grainy texture you can see only under the correct lighting.. Also something only people like us who do this would ever notice.

I dont have that issue hand sanding..

The 3M finishing film disk are a love/hate relationship with me..Dont think I have not tried to beat hand sanding.. I have used over 50 disk on a car before trying to make sure no pigtails were present..

I feel like i gotta have them and use them.. But for the ultimate finish, I also feel like nothing will beat hand sanding the clear:cool:

In the end I think it is whatever level you want to achieve.. Ive tried short cutting the process to get the same result.. I dont know if you can short cut the color sanding process and achieve the same result as hand sanding now..

Gotta go.. Have a bucket and sandpaper waiting for me :p
 
Today I used the 3M 1500 film discs on an interface pad both ways - dry and wet.
My observations:
Dry Sanding - easier to see progress, no pig tails as long as I kept wiping the dust off the panel and disc, films seemed to wear out much quicker.

Wet Sanding - Instead of my usual method of lots of water I decided to try Damp Sanding. I simply wiped the panel with a wet rag and then run the DA over it until the slurry begins to dry. Again no pig tails as long as I kept the panel and discs wiped down. With this method you have to dry the panel before you can see your progress but the film discs seemed to last much longer with this method.

On one panel I hand sanded with 2000 on the other I went straight to the buffer. The Megs 105 and wool pad handled both panels fairly quickly bringing a nice shine and clear reflection. The follow up with Megs 205 and a foamed wool pad brought even more depth and clarity - enough where I decided it was good to go for this driver quality job.

Once I get my new back up pad I can start using the Trizact 3000 discs and buffing should be much easier and faster.
 
man i dont know what the difference is with you guys from me but im glad i dont have the issue because i sand and buff everything that leaves the shop and that alot of buffing. i first saw the 3m finishing fim discs when i started working for viking yacht probably 15 years ago. they used them on all the woodwork which had a sanded and buffed clear finish. there were 6 girls back then all in their sanding stations doing nothing for 8 hrs a day except sand with finishing film. they never had a pigtail issue either. i dont do anything special. i dont wipe the disc off, use it damp or wipe the dust of the panel. i have actually always felt the dust helped lubricate the sanding process and actually clogged up less with it on the panel. on universal i can even run the disc until its so clogged with little balls it wont cut at all and it doesn't leave a single pigtail from it. i dont know why so many have an issue. only thing i can think of is speed of the sander. i do run mine pretty slow, 1/3-1/2 speed and i always have a soft interface pad on it. i also always wipe the panel off first to remove any floating dust or dirt from the panel first, many time a quick wipe with a tack cloth before i sand. other than i am clueless and have no other advise i can offer.
 
Speed will create heat and soften the surface of the clear-may cause the dust to clump. I like the 3000 grit discs but I do get my best results blocking by hand, my final polish is also done by hand-just set in my ways maybe. The time on the buffer is less than 10% of the whole process.
 
Jim, you know I didn't really try to keep sanding once I saw a good amount of dust. Maybe I was just pig tail paranoid. LOL
I did like the fact that I could see the progress much better when sanding dry but it did seem the disc went dull on me quicker. Maybe as you say the dust provides some lubrication and thereby increases the life of the disc and had I just kept sanding the disc may have lasted longer. I did slow the speed down on the DA and that also seemed to help. I didn't get any pig tails today and it buffed out real nice so I believe I did make progress. My arms sure were happier.

Also, I ordered the Ferro 5236 back up pad today. Thanks.
 
yeah i dont know maybe its my imagination but the discs always seem to dull out quicker or get clogged faster when i clean the dust off it. only time i do that is when i switch grits like going from 1000 to 1500. bob made a good point on the speed of the sander and the heat. that could very well be the issue alot of guys are having.
 
Jim Ive beat my head against the wall trying to figure out what it is I was doing wrong,, Eventually i just decided to use allot of the disk and expect to spend either allot of time sanding on some projects or allot more $$ on paper ;)
 
Man i usually have a solution of some sort for almost any paint problem that comes along but i just have no more advice i can give on this subject. Why the system works flawlessly everytime for me and so many have trouble i just dont know.
 
well 2 days ago i happen to be in the shop and have a 53 ford truck door to sand and buff. i rememberd this topic and took a couple pictures with my phone. now the dusty one was at the final life of my disc. this was 1000. you can see the pigtails in the dust. none of these actually made it into the clear. its just the dust being swished around by a ball on the paper. after the 1000 i wiped the panel off did the same thing with 1500 finishing film then again with 3000 trizact. buffer with a wool pad and compound then foam pad and polish. there is a quick shot of the outcome. now this was a whole door. i did the whole thing, all 5 steps in no more than 25 minutes. 5 min per step. i did not have one pigtail on the whole door, atleast nothing that didn't come out with a normal 2 pass compounding step. IMAG0001.jpg

IMAG0002.jpg
 
quite honestly, this all has to do with your environment.

I've learned that I CANNOT cut and buff in front of my bay door with it raised. The way the building is positioned and the way the wind blows, it just creates havoc...even with the exhaust fan off in the shop.

Try to treat cutting and buffing, as you would painting. You want the area just as clean as you would if you were painting. As much as i hate to, a lot of times i just cut and buff in the booth. It gets a good simple green/dawn scrubbing afterwards. I just hate throwing that compound and polish around in there, but it is the cleanest area of the shop...and a lot of times the only area open to cut and buff in.

I do have a dedicated wash bay, but it ends up getting doubled as a build room at times...as it is the 2nd cleanest area of the shop. Just not enough room!!!
 
I used DA's (3/32" orbit palm by Dynabrade) for a few years and finally decided no more and switched to using an inline 1/3 sheet by National Detroit and wet/dry paper.

All in all, I'm much less worried about my work with the inline wet sanding and it's just as fast. The paper is much cheaper to boot. No need to use foam pads (trizact etc) to refine the pigtails to so fine you can see them. It's much easier and cuts just as fast so I'm very happy. I hated it when I'd think I'd have it buffed just perfect and look real close and see a pigtail reflecting in the light. Now I don't have that to worry about. An inline scratch is MUCH less obvious than a pig tail. And when it comes down to it, every sander leaves a scratch. There's no such thing as using a DA and not getting pigtails. It's just not possible. That IS the scratch pattern of a DA.

What I've noticed is that even sanding by hand leaves scratches. So it still comes down to refining the scratch from say 800 grit down to 2500 or so. I found that I'd still find a pigtail once in a while even after I thought I'd perfected a finish buff job. I find a few scratches left to be inevitable. So by inline and by hand only for me. This was after trying all the big brands, keeping it as spotless as humanly possible, using both wet, and dry papers etc etc. The Eagle Yellow film was the best dry paper I tested. But I still noticed some pigtails after buffing. The best system I found was the Eagle to level and the foam pad stuff (trizact or fandeli 3000 etc) to get it refined for buffing. But after a couple years experimenting and testing different brands, back to inline sanders and by hand for me. The results are better and actually quicker in my experience.
 
I paint about 2 cars a year. I do my sanding and polishing in the booth. I would love to have a extra clean room but I can't justify the added space just to sand and buff.

I use a power washer on the inside before I paint and after I get done buffing.
 
Only time I got a pigtail is from too fast, too hard. and/or not tack clothing before I start. I cut most everything within 48 hours with no problems ever now. 1500 dry 3000 wet. If trash is real bad I will knock the top off with 2000 wet first.
 
Didnt feel it was necessary to start another thread for a simple question, But in the courser grits like 600,800,1000 what paper do you guys prefer using on your clear? I see alot of bad comments on the purple 1500 3M stuff.
 
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