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PSA: wetsanding with a worn out DA pad saved me $80 on a respray
I was working on a '97 Civic in my shop last Wednesday and had this spot of orange peel that kept bugging me. My normal wetsanding process (800 grit then 1500 by hand) was taking forever and leaving scratches. On a whim I grabbed this old DA pad that was already pretty flat from use and ran it over the spot with some 3M compound. Leveled out perfect in like 3 minutes. No buffer marks. Now I keep a couple worn pads just for this. Anyone else found a weird shortcut that actually works better than the proper way?
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fiona3306d ago
My 2000 Celica had this weird fisheye in the hood clear from a bad repair years ago. Tried every trick in the book to level it out, nothing worked. One day I was about to give up and just wet sanded it with a worn out 3M pad that had been through like 50 cars already. That old thing smoothed it out flat in about a minute. Sometimes the beat up tools just have that perfect texture, you know?
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phoenix_adams606d ago
And that applies to almost everything. Old tools just know the job better than new ones sometimes.
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holly_price4d ago
Oh hey, that's actually a really good point about how worn down abrasives can sometimes be exactly what you need. But I think what you're describing might be more about the pad being broken in just right rather than being beat up or damaged. A properly broken-in pad that's still in good shape is definitely different from one that's truly worn out and past its useful life, you know what I mean?
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