# Wetsanding overspray by hand.



## handicap7 (Nov 24, 2007)

Hello all
I thought i would post this up as it's not unusual for people to find themselves in this position!!

The test bonnet in use is from a 6 year old VW polo and has never seen a machine polish, as you can tell from some of the early photos!
I don't know how it came to be in such bad condition regarding overspray, but that makes it perfect for the demo.
And no it's not metalic flake








As you can see its in pretty bad shape.
A Paint Depth Gauge was used to determine the level of coating i had to work with, which was a healthy 130-150 microns throughout.








So my sanding tools of choice for this task are the Mirka Abralon hand pads, comprising of a backing pad/plate that has straps to allow a secure fitting around your fingers. and a 2000grade sanding pad that affixes to the pad/plate using velcro








Like so








I then sprayed the area with Megs Last Touch and gently set about sanding the area in small circular motions, pausing frequently to wipe of residue and check my work.
Leaving this!








I then taped up the area to better take some pictures, to highlight the differences the sanding had made.








The white marks you can see are stonechips! As you can see there is a significant difference in the gloss and depth of the sanded area, and at 1st glance would look quite scary if this was the 1st time you had attempted this type of task. However i rechecked the paint depth readings and this is what i got!!








The next step was to polish out the wetsanding marks and start to bring back some depth and gloss to the paintwork, for this i used a Kestrel rotary a Megs 6" soft buff burgundy pad, and my polish choice was 3m Fast Cut Plus.
I spritzed the pad with last touch and put two pea sized dollops of polish onto the pad, this was worked initially at speed setting 1 to spread the polish and then i stepped up to level 3 to work the polish, two hits of the Fast Cut Plus were required to remove the sanding marks. I then changed to a Sonus 6" Red final Finish pad and 3m Ultrafina to remove any residual marring caused by the Fast Cut and add some much needed Gloss and depth to the paint.
This is what i was left with.








Not the best shot as i tend to steer clear of taped edges, but it does highlight the difference of the new and old sections.
This is a bit better.....i hope!
In this one if you look towards the top of the shot, you can see a significant difference in the overall appearance of the paintwork and the level of correction achieved in removing the overspray.









So from this.








To this.








Finishing up with this.








Using these and around 1hour on a Sunday afternoon.








And this is what i was left with after wetsanding and polishing.







.

I do hope you find this usefull:thumb:
And i welcome any questions or comments you may have.
Thanks for looking
Simon


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## amiller (Jan 1, 2009)

brilliant guide. very informative!


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## Clark @ PB (Mar 1, 2006)

why didn't you just clay or machine polish the overspray off?


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## handicap7 (Nov 24, 2007)

Clark said:


> why didn't you just clay or machine polish the overspray off?


I clayed the bonnet 3 times and what you see is what i was left with. The guide is aimed at those people with a little less experience than your good self Master Yoda


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## Clark @ PB (Mar 1, 2006)

Well if you've got little experience I'd rather machine polish it off as opposed to wetsanding mate. I'm not meaning to pick holes with your guide as it's really well laid out but just giving my opinion


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