To get the job done right you need the right materials. What you see here is far more than
You’ve spent months working over your sheetmetal until it was razor straight. Countless hours were spent getting every gap and detail just right in preparation for paint. But once the paint is laid down another step is required to get the big payoff from all your hard work: the cut and buff.
The cut and buff procedure, also known as color sanding and buffing, is the key to turning an average paintjob into a showstopping, winning work of art. A talented painter can lay down the paint nice enough to please many people, but to get that mile-deep mirror finish requires more work.
This is what we’re trying to get rid of—the infamous orange peel. How much you have determ
Color sanding, if done correctly, can turn a good paintjob into an amazing one. The idea is to smooth out the tiny waves and bumps in the clearcoat (commonly referred to as orange peel) and get rid of minute imperfections in the finish. Very specialized high-grit papers are used that range from 400 all the way to superfine 3,000-grit varieties.
This is definitely an area where “practice makes perfect”, and if you’re new to this then you might want to spray a few test panels to practice on first. For some professional guidance on how to do this we cruised over to Best of Show Coach Works in Escondido, California, to watch Jon Lindstrom work over Dick Kvamme’s freshly painted ’61 Corvette. Lindstrom’s been doing this since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and he’s learned what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, he has a keen eye and the patience it takes to spend 40, 50, 60, or more hours to create a show-winning finish.
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Lindstrom used to go from 800 to 1,200 grit, but after talking with Mike Pennington at Meg
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After some time with 800 grit and a 3M hard pad, it’s pretty easy to see how the finish is
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At this point the side of the fender is done with 1,000 grit, and Lindstrom can move to 1,
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You can also see that Lindstrom was careful not to sand the sharp edge on the top of the f
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It’s finally time to address that edge. For this Lindstrom uses 1,200-grit Meguiar’s Unigr
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Lindstrom then goes at the panel with 2,000-grit paper and a soft foam Meguiar’s pad. Lind
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Once the panel has been gone over with the 2,000 grit, Lindstrom gets busy with some Bufle
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It’s hard to see, but this is how the panel should look when done. Notice the crosshatched
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First up is a 100 percent wool 8-inch cutting pad from Meguiar’s. The compound used here i
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The scratches are gone, but they’ve been replaced by even finer swirls. To get rid of thes
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Lindstrom then cleans the panel with Meguiar’s Final-Inspection spray detailer. This clean
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Compare this shot to the earlier one, before Lindstrom started buffing, and you can see th