Clear coat sanding

[rtwillis]

Hi All,
I joined in Dec of 05 and have learned a wealth of information between the forums and aAirbrush Magazine. I have very little knowledge of art but ventured out about a year ago to buy an airbrush and custommize my car. I purchased a Badgar Universal 360 and a Iwata Hp-C Plus last week. I completed about a hundered dager strokes (which kind of looked more like worms) and then forgered a head. I have completed two hard hats,one motorycle helmet, a couple of pictures, tatooed some friends, tanned the wife and did a couple of Darla's t-shirt lessons. My mose recent acomplishment 49cc mini chopper tank and fenders. So it being a sunny day I staked home finished the bike and started sanding my 2001 TransAm's beatiful black paint job. I used a brown scotch brite and completed about 3/4s of the car. If you havent guessed by now I just kinda like jumping in at things. (lots of other stories) I started feeling a bit uneasy as the abrasion was leaveing a little more than a scuffing and a uniform set of noticable scratches. I did think that I needed somthing fairly heavy to provide a base with a grip. I am only sanding the clear, doing the art work and then have it re-cleared I ran down to the local auto body shop (without the car) and tried to have my mind set at ease.They fingured I was to heavy and suggested 1500 wet, which I ran home and tried. Defenitly a more uniform scuffing and without any hugh effort and able to remove about 70-85% of the previous scratches. From the area I have covered so far I have only seen 10- 15 scraches that look deeper but I don't think to the clear coat. I will try and post a couple pics of my projects. I would appreciate any advice or comments.

Cheers
fEz

[rtwillis]

Lets see if this works.

[jeeptuff]

Wet sanding is the only way to go, scotch brite is not the recommended method for clearcoat removal. How deep are these other scatches?? Can you catch them with your fingernail?? You may have to work those "other" scatches out by feathering them with 1500 wet everso lightly, yo don't want to blow through the paint. If I was somewhere near you I would be there to give you a hand feathering it out.. If worst comes to worst you may have to do a little spot priming and paint blending..

[jeeptuff]

Nice car BTW I have a 98 Trans Am W-6 Ram Air..

[jeeptuff]

This is my baby

[rtwillis]

I like your taste in cars. As this job moves forward I would apreciate your comments, I may have crossed the line. No hints on what I'm doing yet though. I have a box of Norton 275A disks for a DA. I purchased a DA and compressor and then checked it out on an old helmet. Ouch!, even though I consider myself at having a fine touch when it comes to power tools or even milling machines, I kinda figure I would be blown though the car clear coat sooner or later. (decided to hand sand) It looks as though I can use Nortons disks wet or dry, so I checked it out for a couple of minutes this morning. I think the spot came out pretty good, fairly light scratchs but with an even scuffed layer. In the dimmly lit garage it looks as though I could finish up with 1000 and it would come out pretty good (that is if I thought I knew what I was looking for) If some one could describe what happens when you bust through the clear coat, exactly what I should see? Clear will peel at the edges when it gets super thin? the bast coat colour will show on the paper? Don't worry you'll just know? ahhhhhh! Suddenly this idea is becoming a little stressful. LOL