Recommend abrasive discs for flattening between 3rd coat and the 5th & 6th

M

MAKZ06

Newbie
I sprayed 3 coats of the Motocryl single-stage last month. I’ll be back to my garage in a couple weeks and plan to sand it with 600 grit to remove the dust nibs, flatten the orange peel and correct a couple minor runs. Then I’ll spray the final two coats which I’ll later cut and buff.
My question is, how important is the abrasive selection for this stage? I have a roll of cheap Dura-Gold 600 for the areas to be blocked by hand. Will the Dura-Gold 6” discs be adequate or should I be using a higher quality abrasive at this stage?
Am I better off ordering some Eagle Super Assilex 600 or some 3M purple finishing film, etc?
Should I be using a soft interface pad on my Dynabrade DA? Or attach the abrasive disc direct to the hook and loop urethane pad?

After the final spray I’m leaning toward the following based on what I’ve seen here.
Eagle yellow 1000
Assilex peach 1500
Bufflex blue 2500
Trizact 8000 wet
 
Or actually maybe I shouldn’t be using the power sander at all for this stage and should be hand sanding only with the 600?
 
MAKZ06 said:
Or actually maybe I shouldn’t be using the power sander at all for this stage and should be hand sanding only with the 600?
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I hand block at this stage. I only use the DA for 1500 and above, gently, to remove scratch's from prior grits.
 
Dean Jenkins said:
I hand block at this stage. I only use the DA for 1500 and above, gently, to remove scratch's from prior grits.
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Great. I’m more comfortable with hand sanding anyway. I was actually thinking all was hand-sanded during the cut and buff stage too until I started digging into the message threads here and realized most seemed to be using the DA. I just couldn’t find any detail on the sanding in-between the color coats.
Thanks much for the response. I’m sure my stupid questions are getting annoying ;)
 
DA is for saving time. If you are comfortable hand sanding, do that.
The questions are fine and more fun to answer than "now that I made a mess, how do I clean it up?"
 
I still hand sand, only using the DA when using Trizact in the final stage. I've seen a lot of guys using DA from the start and IMO it doesn't flatten the clear anywhere near as well as doing it by hand. Some guys like Jim C, TexasKing, and others can do it and get it flat but most can't. And if you have none to little expeince using a DA, it's crazy to try and do your color sanding with it. A screw up will happen almost guaranteed. Where you can use one (carefully) is when using the ultra fine grits like Trizact 3000/8000. But you gotta finesse it when doing so. Low speed is safer.
 
MAKZ06 said:
Should I be using a soft interface pad on my Dynabrade DA? Or attach the abrasive disc direct to the hook and loop urethane pad?

After the final spray I’m leaning toward the following based on what I’ve seen here.
Eagle yellow 1000
Assilex peach 1500
Bufflex blue 2500
Trizact 8000 wet
Click to expand...
That is the Jim C method. Use an interface pad.

If you use 600 use a quality product intended for paint. At least that is my advice.

Tape your edges when using a DA.

Don
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
I still hand sand, only using the DA when using Trizact in the final stage. I've seen a lot of guys using DA from the start and IMO it doesn't flatten the clear anywhere near as well as doing it by hand. Some guys like Jim C, TexasKing, and others can do it and get it flat but most can't. And if you have none to little expeince using a DA, it's crazy to try and do your color sanding with it. A screw up will happen almost guaranteed. Where you can use one (carefully) is when using the ultra fine grits like Trizact 3000/8000. But you gotta finesse it when doing so. Low speed is safer.
Click to expand...
Wow. Glad I posted and got these answers before I started ordering all the stuff in my list. Almost made an expensive mistake. Sounds like hand sanding is the safer bet for a rookie like me. Thank you
 
dhutton01 said:
That is the Jim C method. Use an interface pad.

If you use 600 use a quality product intended for paint. At least that is my advice.

Tape your edges when using a DA.

Don
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Yeah, that seemed to be one of the most talked about and respected ways on here. I knew I needed an interface pad for the final sanding, just wasnt sure about the 600 between color coats. Although at this point it sounds like I’ll be much better off sticking to hand sanding, at least for most of it. Thanks
 
I don't know what you are painting, I spray SS over 400 grit scratches most of the time. Unless it is really a bad mess, you should be able to hand sand it to 400 really easily.
 
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Jim C method. Using it is not a big mistake. He is one of the most highly respected folks on this forum. The Assilex and Buflex don’t remove significant amounts of material. I use the Jim C method with pretty good results. As a novice you just need to tape the edges. The 1000 is done dry so you can easily see when the peel and trash are gone.

Guys who are pointing you away from it have most likely not tried it….

Don
 
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dhutton01 said:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Jim C method. Using it is not a big mistake. He is one of the most highly respected folks on this forum. The Assilex and Buflex don’t remove significant amounts of material. I use the Jim C method with pretty good results. As a novice you just need to tape the edges. The 1000 is done dry so you can easily see when the peel and trash are gone.

Guys who are pointing you away from it have most likely not tried it….

Don
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I definitely had planned to tape the edges using Jim‘s method. Then some responses from this thread started scaring me away from using a DA sander. Having never done this before I don’t want to screw-up and make a mess once I get the final two coats down.
Would you recommend me using the DA with soft interface pad for my next round of sanding before I spray the final two coats? Or is 600 aggressive enough that I should stick to sanding by hand?
 
If you have considerable wave and you want it dead nuts flat then I would hand block with 600. Try not to get carried away and remove too much material.

There are two camps on hand versus DA. Neither method is wrong. Pick one and run with it.

Don
 
dhutton01 said:
If you have considerable wave and you want it dead nuts flat then I would hand block with 600. Try not to get carried away and remove too much material.

There are two camps on hand versus DA. Neither method is wrong. Pick one and run with it.

Don
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Appreciate the advice. Thank you.
 
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