I have an SLP upper grille with a small minor imperfection in the center, a pair of roof rails with a few minor imperfections, and an engine cover with some visible marks of using too rough a sandpaper. I have gloss black covering the grille and roof rails, and gloss black and some clear coat on the engine cover. About 6 coats of gloss altogether. How does one wet sand these parts, and what grit sandpaper should I use?

 

Dub...

Generally when you wet sand any paint...It always needs to be wet in the area your sanding...generally plain water...
I would use a spray bottle set on mist... (You cant use to much water) Never let the area dry out while sanding or you just dfeat the purpose of wet sanding.

You first wet sand the color coat... then after adding the clear cote then you wet sand it again to make it smooth and remove all the imperfections... whether its the color coat and then the clear cote....
I would generally start with 600 grit, 800 grit, for that smooth as glass finish... I would also recommend going to 1200 grit as your finishing grit..

So, for me wet sanding consists of going thru 3 stages of grit when wet sanding... You could go as high as 2000 grit... but generally 1200 grit gets you a great finish.... Then..rub it out with some finishing compound and it should come out like glass.... then polish the surface for a great baby butt smooth shine and then to protect it.... I recommend using some Mc guires gold class wax tro keep it looking Great!

 

Man, such a much more lengthy and effort-filled process than I imagined just for some small cosmetic parts haha.

 

Basically...
That's why the shops get paid the "Big Bucks" for there time and efforts...

If it was simple,
EV1 would be doing it.

 

Here is a post that I did not to long ago that has some videos done by several people who are basically some of the biggest detailers in the world of detailing cars. They have great info on both wet sanding and on polishing out those sand marks. It's not really all that bad. It takes a while to do but as long as you have the right tools and take your time, you shouldn't run into any issues.

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/de...ng-tips-48251/

 

I'd say start at 600, then up to 800. If the marks you see are grooved and don't polish out, you might even need to go as low as 400. From there it's all about how shiny and smooth you want it - whenever I want to make something look good, I go 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000. Either way you do it, it's going to look like scuffed up **** until you hit it with rubbing compound. The rubbing compound and polish will bring out the shine and color. After you're done sanding, look at it in various lighting scenarios. If you can see it actually shine while being all scuffed up, you're doing it right (at least in the case of fiberglass).