 Sand about one square foot...  Sand about one square foot of area at a time. Next, we squeegee'd the area with a 3M wet or dry rubber squeegee (PN 05517) to remove excess water. You are looking for shiny spots that are unsanded or remaining orange peel. And if the panel has a stripe, you want to work the dividing line between the main color and the stripe until you can't feel the transition between the colors. |
 The light spots on the surface...  The light spots on the surface are the shiny reflections of the spots of the clear that haven't been touched by the sandpaper yet. At this point, we kept going with the 1,000-grit paper until these were gone. |
 If there is a tricky part...  If there is a tricky part to any of this, it's the curved areas and anything with an edge. Here you will need to use your hand for sanding. Do your best to apply even pressure across the surface you are sanding, and be especially cautious around the sharp edges. You'll be surprised at how easy it can be to sand right through the paint on an edge. |
Sanding and buffing paint is nothing new. Quality restoration shops have been doing it for years, and that's what gives many of the restored cars you see at shows an "over-restored" look. The factory never took the time to make the paint mirror smooth; if it was covered it was good. That's why a lot of unrestored cars have runs, sags, and other paint imperfections; it just wasn't feasible to make them perfect on the assembly line.
Color sanding, or buffing, is the process of smoothing out minute imperfections in the paint, such as orange peel (orange peel is when the paint literally has the texture of an orange peel), or even dirt that mysteriously attached itself to the car before the paint dried. The first thing is to remove these imperfections. Sure, 80-grit paper would definitely remove them, but that's a bit harsh. Typically, a bucket of water and some 1,550- and 2,000-grit wet/dry sandpaper is where you begin. a good sanding block is a must on larger surfaces such as the hood, trunk lid, roof, and sides of the car-pretty much everywhere. If you try to use just your hands and no block, things may not turn out the way you want. An important part in the sanding process is making sure the area you're sanding stays wet. Dry sanding will make deeper scratches that you may not be able to be remove.
After you have properly sanded the panel to a dull sheen, it's time to get out the power tool. A good buffer will be one you can either control the rpm of the pad by setting a dial or by varying pressure on the switch. Either way, this job can't be done without one. When it comes time to decide which buffing wheel to use, there are several choices. choose a pad based on your car's finish after it has been wet-sanded. After sanding, if you have some minor sanding scratches to remove, a more aggressive wool buffing pad will be needed at first. If your paint shows no imperfections, just the sanded, hazy look, you may want to use a finer foam pad. For our job, we're going to stick with a foam pad because it's the easiest to work with. Start by applying some compound to the sanded area, and work the compound with the buffer by starting at a slow speed, moving the machine back and forth. Don't push down hard with the buffer or use the edge of the pad, let the weight of the buffer apply the pressure. The compound will slowly bring the sanded area to a brilliant shine, and the results will be noticeable.
After buffing the panel with a wool pad, it's time to switch pads. We switched to a much softer foam buffing pad. The foam pad is far less aggressive than the wool pad, and teamed up with our compound, it generated a highly polished final look.