properly sanding the surfaces before sealer base coat clear coat well it's
pretty important in the outcome of your paint job in fact it's the foundation to
your paint job
things like using a dual action center on all the flat surface that can really
level out of panel you can follow that with sanding blocks and soft Sanders for
the rounded or crown surface is creating a system where you can work smarter not
harder
and that's exactly what we did with our zet sled 78 camaro project check it out
now this fender has been prepped and sanded exactly the same way as the rest
of the parts that you just saw in the spray booth and I've got it mounted on
my super stand so i can get access to the back sides of the panels and the
jams
so I don't have any over spray or tape lines when I assemble this car
now this fender obviously hasn't been prepped at all it's in eastwood hi build
2k primer surfacer in black and although it's been bodywork
it's nice and straight it's not prepped it's not ready for paint so we're going
to show you exactly how we did it
now there's a difference in the strategy between a solid color and a metallic
color
this obviously is getting a solid color is getting a black paint job
so solid color you can get by with 400 grit being your last stage of sanding if
you're spraying a metallic you want to finish off with 600 grid that way
the metallic particles don't end up in those sand scratches and stand up and
look weird
so we're going to prep for 400 on this pan
now the goal is to finish off with 400 grit but i'm going to start with 320
now this technique is going to tweak some of you hardcore restoration guys if
you're watching but i have a collision repair background so I know how to send
with machines properly and if you don't abuse a dual action center
it can really help you out this is flat this is not this is flat
this is flat it's a mating surface i'm going to show you how to use a DA sander
where you don't carve up your panel or round off any corners start off with the
relatively low speed on your sander and just sand the flat parts
this technique is about saving time and creating a very flat surface for your
paid to sit on you notice I'm using a light touch and only sanding the flat
surfaces
the DA sander will damage the peak the edges and create Distortion on curve
services so you've got to stop with your flats are sanded now this is the same
grade 3 20 on a soft Center you can see what i did but more importantly you can
see what I didn't do I didn't ride my style lines I didn't ride my convex and
complex shapes
that's four hand sanding but we just bought ourselves a bunch of time and
save yourself a bunch of rub it
so now i can use blocking techniques
one of the things I really like about the east with black toque a primer is
that it acts as it's on guide going you can tell you send it through you can
tell when you're done with this step
and watch my technique the block face is rounded slightly and I'm rolling with
this curve like I said we've done our body work panel shaped like we wanted
and it's nice and straight where it needs to be nicely straight so I don't
want to change that by sanding and a lot of time priming and blocking and we
don't want to go backwards we don't want to rob ourselves of having done all of
that hard work on these Peaks style lines i found that if they're too crisp
sometimes they look a little weird so when i'm done blocking I skate over them
just a little bit just a mute that peak edge and it's still nice and straight
but it looks just real clean and real crisp and just one step above factory
your tendency is going to be to grab the air hose and blow the dust off and see
if you still got some stuff to sand
I want to change your mind on this
yeah
the most obvious benefit is that we are not surrounded by a cloud of sanding
this that I'm sucking up in my lungs
the other benefit is that the dust has gone and now i can see if I'm finished
sanding yet I've got a couple of holidays here some stuff on the top so i
need to keep going just a little bit longer with 320
but here's the real point of using the shop back for extraction
if you hit it with an air hose there's a chance that you can blow that sanding
dust into a pinhole if you've got filler work and you didn't know it was there
it's going to show up in your paint job and cause you problems cause you a
solvent creator of fish I by extracting the desk to pull it out of those
pinholes and they'll show themselves to you before you paint think about it
so now that I've got the surface exposed sand into i'm going to start using
gloves because if it's a hot and sweaty day the sweat and the acid from my
fingers can be deposited into the paint job and come up through that clear
especially on a black ask me how I know
so we're going to start with 400 so 400 is the same drill but interestingly
enough when you change grits and you've sanded thoroughly to look at the panel
changes
so again the black toque a primer for me to it acts kind of as its own guide felt
even as you're switching grits moving up through your project
yeah
red scuffing pads work great for inconsistent areas like this because you
still want the paint to stick you don't want to peel off and if it's not sanded
it's not going to stick
so these make short work of these types of areas you can fold it over
do your inner crevices and cracks and just like I say in the paint education
dvds the harder it is to sand the more important it is to sand it places like
this
this is not where you want delamination when your car is put together and go
down the road
i'm using my 402 hands--and if I blocks and across this this is just a line from
the inner fender being pressed
well I'm going to knock the top off i'm not getting down in the group so with
the gloves with the finger sanding
I can get down in here and prep these surfaces
ok here's a problem that you might have
if you remember we put filler on these edges to close up our panel gaps and
look here there's a low spot
so if i get in there with a sanding block and I block that flat well I've
changed the fitment of the fender to the hood I've created a gap there
so this is a technique I want to show you on how to get away with that you
could fill that in and it won't show up in your paint job when you open up that
hood
this is a contour polyester glazing putty and the catalyst that goes with it
and this is a razor blade the reason I use a razor blade so i can get a very
small amount in a little bit of catalyst and I can mix it up with more catalyst
people like Bob Ross here but I can mix it up and get a very small amount and go
in and fix that pin hole with a very very tiny amount and I can judiciously
apply it with my razor blade very flat
it's a minimal amount
so my filters been sitting for a couple of minutes it's sort of hard
I've got 320 on a block and eastwood pre-painting prep
now here's where you got to know the rules before you can break them this is
dry sanding paper and this is a wet solvent but this is going to work so i'm
using my pre-painting prep and a wet sanding situation
what that does is allow me to fill the low spot the solvent activates the
filler but not the cured primer around it so I'm not digging into the sides i'm
filling in and I'm leveling and I'm doing it quick and now I'm ready for a
cedar and topcoat and you're never going to know that space was there and just to
explain it again my filter is much softer than the cured primer around it
the solvent makes it even softer so it makes it easy for me to level this piece
down not affect the edge around did not affect my panel fit between two panels
and I fill in my pin hole
so it's just a nice technique in one that you can you can get away with
something door if it's not really the intended purpose of that product but it
works great
right now we're going to wipe it down get it wet see what it looks like and
get the first layer of dust off first before you wet check the final wife
solvent
now the last final step that I like to do on something like this before paint
is to wash it with soapy water use dishwashing soap too because it cuts the
grease but before we do that I wanted to show you are cool custom z28 side
advance from the factory the z28 side gills went on from the outside and to me
they always had kind of a cheap look because it's a cast metal
it's not that great and the kind of bulges up so all we did was figure out a
clamping mechanism from the back side and mounted them from the reverse and is
such a clean tasty tidy look that cost nothing
we hope all these tips and tricks really help you get the job done and don't
forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel before picking up the supplies
you need to do the job right
ok