Wet-sanding to get finished look?

[Reckless32]

Never done it. Had a spot fixed on my boat. It's painted and clearcoated, but still needs to be wet-sanded with high grit paper to give it that smooth baby's-a$$ look. How high of a grit (2000?) and wet it how? (with water?). Just don't want to do it wrong and end up messing up the surrounding clear/gel with a big scuff spot....

[glassdave]

do you know exactly how this spot repair was sprayed? if it was not done a certain way you can end up with a mess on your hands. at the edge of the blend it should have been buffed with a corse compound and an adhesion promoter aplied prior to spraying. gun and blend line technique are also very important. if not, when you try and buff it it may leave a "halo" effect where old and new finish transion togather. if you are uncertain of how it was done i would sand it very lightly with 1200 than 2500 than a light wheeling with 3m's perfectit III compound and go easy.

[Russ G.]

It is very tough to do a blend repair on a boat with a flat surface. 360 degree blend will be almost impossible to make it a invisable repair. GlassDave is right on with his advice. I dont know much about boat painting put I painted cars for a long time. With any Base-Coat Clear coat you can blend the color but the clear coat is very tough to blend. Its best to blend the color and take the clear to an edge. You can roll body lines or clear to stripes or other colors. The clear coat is made to be a certain thickness. When it is blended out it gets to thin at the edges and usually dulls or peals at the edge of the clear. Usually it is best to let the painter buff the blend out because he know were and how much clear is there.

Russ

[glassdave]

very true russ. the painter knows how it was layed out. actually i have been doing custom boat finishes for a long time and have developed a method for blending in the middle of a panel that works pretty well.

1. do needed repair
2. keep area as small as possible.
3. sand the repaired area to 600 or so
4. buff out entire area with a corse compound past where you want to blend but not the primed area.
5. dust an adhesion promoter over entire area
6.spot in the color at the repair and keep your fan out as small as you can while giving enough room for the color to blend.
7. this is the tricky part. when clearing dont fan out the blend, rather stop the gun sharply leaving just a narrow clear edge. use only one coat and make sure its somthing high quality like PPG's 2021. spray to an edge if possible or do it in a square or rectanlge if in the middle of the panel.
8.now spray the edge with a good blending solvent. i use schrwin williams BS-10 euro-blend. lightly dust the edge till it starts to wash in. not to muich as it will run easily.
9.let that dry overnight and lightly sand the surface (1200 than 2500) and a bit on the edge than buff it with 3M's micro finishing compound.

the success of this process is largely dependant on how you spray the clear and blending solvent. i have done many custom boats and had great luck doing it this way. (my customers seem to know just how to hit a dock )

[Zanie]

Hey Dave,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge it's very helpfull.
Would there be a problem if step 4 was scuff the entire area with a 2000 grit wet sand?
Thanks,
Dan

[glassdave]

zanie actually yes that would cause a problem.i used to do it that way and i found that i had to over buff the blend line to get the 2000 marks out. i have found taht by using a corse compound and the adhesion promoter that it buffs up much quicker. the key to geting a blend in the middle of a panel is to not have to work the blend edge to much and keeping the repair as small as possible. i also use an AccuSpray turbine gun for all my repairs, they work great for that kinda stuff. very high transfer eficency.

man . . .between this and the "boat painting 101" thread i'm give'in away all my best secrets . . pretty soon you guys will be do'in your own stuff an i'll be out'a work

[Sean H]

Originally Posted by glassdave

. . .between this and the "boat painting 101" thread i'm give'in away all my best secrets . . pretty soon you guys will be do'in your own stuff an i'll be out'a work

i wouldn't worry too much, some of us are still too lazy to do it even if we knew how...

[Reckless32]

Not sure how it was done/fixed. It was my boo-boo patched up for free on the side near the bow, and it has a slight halo look now. I was told all I had to do was "wet-sand" it out and it would be fine? I certainly don't want to make the little halo appear any more noticeable by screwing it up. Right now unless you caught it in the light, you'de never see it. I have a thin paint line ending towards the bow and the boo-boo happened right on the paint. Now it just needs to be glossed out. But i'm not touching it unless I'm confident I'm taking the right approach.

So does wet-sand with water?

[Gmoney52]

Yes, wet-sand usually means water; CLEAN water! When sanding,stop and rinse paper and surface when you hear a squeaky or unusual noise so you won't put deep scratches that won't buff out. I like a spray bottle to keep the "slurry" moving and everything clean.
To be safe about making a halo, follow Dave's procedure with clear only to make sure you cover the original spot. G$

[customryder]

Originally Posted by Reckless32

Not sure how it was done/fixed. It was my boo-boo patched up for free on the side near the bow, and it has a slight halo look now. I was told all I had to do was "wet-sand" it out and it would be fine? I certainly don't want to make the little halo appear any more noticeable by screwing it up. Right now unless you caught it in the light, you'de never see it. I have a thin paint line ending towards the bow and the boo-boo happened right on the paint. Now it just needs to be glossed out. But i'm not touching it unless I'm confident I'm taking the right approach.

So does wet-sand with water?

you will likely make it worse if you try sanding ..the paint gets thicker as you move in the middle of the repair,resulting in a thicker edge. more noticeable