I've read a hundred posts about wet sanding. The one thing I didn't read was how you know when to switch from 800 to 1000 to 1200 to 1500 etc...? My biggest fear is going too deep and really screwing it up. I've already played around in a few spots. What do you do with the milky oxidation as your sanding it? Do you keep a hose in one hand and spray off continuously? Wipe it with a rag? Thanks for the help!
Keep a bucket of water next to you and continuously dunk the sandpaper to clean out the contamination from the paper.
You make the switch in grits when the water running off the sanding area is no longer turning milky.
You should be dunking the paper enough so the area you are sanding is always wet with runoff.
Depending on where you are doing the work you can wipe the sanding residue off with rags, or if outside or in a drain area use a hose to rinse it off.
So if I start with 800, sand until it's no longer milky? When I go to 1000, 1200 and 1500 will it be milky at each step? Or, does the 800 get the oxidation out and then next few steps are just to smooth it out?
800 should get almost all of the oxidation out. 1000 will remove any leftover oxidation, the main purpose of the 1000 is to remove the sanding marks left by the 800, the 1200 will remove the fine sanding marks left by the 1000.
Thank you BASSCAT7, it's becoming much clearer now. Will I be able to visually see when I should move from 1000 to 1200?
You will barely notice any difference as the gel will still be dull and the very light sanding marks left by the 1000 will not be noticeable.
If you skip sanding with the very fine 1200, the 1000 marks may still be noticeable once the gel is compounded and waxed.
All depends on how good you are at running the high speed buffer and what cutting compound you use to remove the sanding marks.
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