trash n the paint

[dd113]

We are doing a bunch of small items on a daily basis using AE. We clean the crap out of everything and use a good cleaner prior to painting but we still get soem trash in the paint due to the long dry times of AE. What is the best way to sand/buff out trash on a samll scale?

Currently I am using 1000 grit paper wet then rubbing compound/finishing compound by hand. Is there a better way?

 

[toddslater]

Use a faster reducer...or maybe an accelerator to quicken the cure times. Do you put them in a booth or have an area that doesn't have the traffic stirring up dust ? Other than that, I'd say you have the drill down pretty good to clean them up.

 

[dd113]

The booth is rather 1/2 assed but it works. i will look into the accelerator and we already use the fast reducer.

 

[Wile E Coyote]

This "booth", does it have a 'crete floor? If you've got clean plastic, or whatever walls, and it's sealed, and etc. etc. (all the usual steps to prevent specks) then check the floor.
Wet the floor down lightly with water before final prep, and before any paint/primer gets shot.
If you haven't already, then try to incorporate a filter in the incoming air( tape a furnace/AC filter, doubled up even, over a hole in the plastic nearly the same dim. as the filter).
That's all assuming you've got a redneck engineered booth in a garage/barn, etc.

 

[Grinch01]

Forget about trash free paint jobs. The best body shops out there deal with trash ("nibs") in the paint on every job. The important thing is that you know how to fix or solve the problem by paint finishing. I wouldn't use anything coarser than 1200 for sanding out the nibs. I would follow this up with scratch refinement with 2000. ( If you want to really make it easy to finish out, use 3m Trizact 3000 grit on the DA.) Then, buy yourself a variable speed buffer. Learn how to use it. If you learn how to paint finish first (sand & buff), it doesn't matter how bad a painter you are, you can make it look great. Hand rubbing out 1000 grit scratches will kill you! Not to mention, it will never look just right. There is a little trick that we use to check our paint finishing results: If, and when you think you have it looking good, mix up a ketchup bottle 50/50 with water & rubbing alcohol. Wipe the area you sanded and compounded. If all you did, was fill in the sand scratches with compound, you'll wash it out with the solution. This is not the idea here. This means either your compound, or your method sucks. If you're using a var. speed buffer to do the work, it's obviously the compound you are using. Don't waste your money, only buy 3m compounds, they are the only products that will pass this test. Don't care about the test? Then your paint finishing will look like ***t after you've given that rig a wash or two. If it's worth doing, do it right.