Polishing/buffing clear

[guitarsam326]

Has anyone ever used a dremel to buff clear and  what were your results? Also where did u buy the buffing bits?

[Ace-Garageguy]

I wouldn't advise it on rattlecan or airbrushed lacquers or enamels. I've tried it and the speed was simply too high with my particular setup...which was a corded variable speed Dremel on the lowest setting.

Rather than polishing the paint, it melted it and smeared an area, requiring a strip and repaint (this was the last time i experimented on a model rather than on a test panel).

You can probably get away with machine-polishing a 2-part urethane clear after it's fully cured...maybe...but experiment on a test panel before you try it on a model.

Once you sand all the orange peel out, hand polishing really doesn't take very long, and you're far less likely to damage a nice paint job.

 

 

[Snake45]

I wouldn't advise it on rattlecan or airbrushed lacquers or enamels. I've tried it and the speed was simply too high with my particular setup...which was a corded variable speed Dremel on the lowest setting.

Rather than polishing the paint, it melted it and smeared an area, requiring a strip and repaint (this was the last time i experimented on a model rather than on a test panel).

You can probably get away with machine-polishing a 2-part urethane clear after it's fully cured...maybe...but experiment on a test panel before you try it on a model.

Once you sand all the orange peel out, hand polishing really doesn't take very long, and you're far less likely to damage a nice paint job.

 

 

Agree completely--100% right on the money on all counts.

I wouldn't use a Dremel to polish plastic, either. Too fast, too much heat, and so forth.

Wet-sanding with the proper grade of 3M paper, followed by hand-polishing, doesn't really take all that long and works great every time, once you learn what you're doing.

[guitarsam326]

Thanks fellas, thats what i was thinking, what grit do u guys go up too, i started at 3200...

[Snake45]

Thanks fellas, thats what i was thinking, what grit do u guys go up too, i started at 3200...

I wet-sand paint with 3M Wetordry grits (always used wet) from 800 to 2000. Which ones I use depends on how rough the paint is to start with. I'll generally use two of the grits (800, 1000, 1500, 2000). And then finish off with Wright's Silver Cream polish.

[guitarsam326]

Ok, thanks man, i was worried about starting with too low of a grit cuz i didn't want to burn through. I shot two heavy coats of clear but that may not be enough. I usually build dirty old trucks so this is new to me.