Sanding for Primer

[Lacey]

Will keep this brief.

Planning on spraying at least one or two bits on the car tonight, and need to know the recommended grade sand-paper / wet&dry to use to rub down the existing paintwork ready for primer, and where the best place to pick up said paper is (or if hellfrauds sell it).

Preferably a quick response as I\'m going out to buy paint in about 35 minutes.

Much appreciated!

[Prof]

Wet and Dry - Halfrauds as good as any
 
Grade you need depending on how rough the surface is - could require anything from 400 (realy bad surface) to 1200 or finer - and used wet so it doesn\'t \'burn\' the paint that\'s already there.
 
Then primer, then dry then sand again with fine grade then wipe dry then primer and so on...
 
Be aware that you\'re parked under a \'sappy\' tree and there\'s enough solvents disolved in our driveway to power the town for a day, which may affect your paint finish :chat
 
PS Halfrauds paint\'s don\'t Match any Mazda colours...

[lee mills]

Jusst buy a brown scotchbrite pad. then 800 wet and dry the primer ready for top coat. All are available at halfrauds:Thumbs-up

[Lacey]

It\'s cool, so what do you think for rubbing down the majority of the car with?

(not that I plan on doing it all today, bit at a time)

700ish wet & dry then and use wet?

Mainly the thing I\'m looking to do first is sand down and spray the new sunroof, and get that in, then probably do the new back bumper as it\'s separate from the car so not as much of an arse to crawl around on the floor and faff with, then probably work over the rest of it panel by panel til (on the outside at least) it\'s all one colour.

Plus at the same time it gives me chance to sand the crap out of the drivers side back arch and treat the scabs that are starting to form around there.

I know halfrauds don\'t match paint, honestly it\'s not a paint job I want to last more than a couple of years max, so any white will do for now, I\'ll likely go with just X brand (ford, renault, whatever) white that hellfrauds has in stock as that means it\'s premade, premixed, cheaper and will cost less to coat the car.

Thats the plan at least, we all know my plans bite me in the arse after a minute or two, so we\'ll see what happens

[Lacey]

Thanks lee!

[Grant Monkhouse]

I would use 400 grade to start off with; using hot soapy water so the wet and dry doesn\'t get logged up with paint.

Are you putting any filler on to remove dents etc? It so you will need some rougher stuff to sand that crap down.

Remember the paint will need to stick to something so don\'t get the surface your spraying so smooth that it doesn\'t stick. Sounds stupid but trust me.

Once painted work from 800 - 2000 grade depending how smooth you want things and to get rid of the orange peel look of the paint. Don\'t do it so much that you rub all the paint off though.

Are you going to be putting a high gloss laquer on afterwards for the ultimate shine?

If so get some g3 and g10 compound to remove those last scratches. And a buffer too.

[Lacey]

This is just a temporary thing. Ideally I want the car resprayed professionally, but as it stands the bonnet is a different colour to the car, as is the new sunroof, as is the new bumper. The car is gunmetal gray, the sunroof is white, the bumper is black and the bonnet is a greyish blue colour.

So I\'m just doing a \'drift job\' (spraying every panel that shows, without bothering to do door sills, under-bonnet, back of doors etc) in white (the colour I want it) just so that all the panels on the car are actually the same colour, rather than a mix-match of parts off of obviously different cars.

So at the moment I\'m not too fussed about it looking a bit orange-peely, or having the ultimate glossy shine to it. The better it looks, the more I\'ll like it, but it\'s not vitally important as I\'m hoping to (some time in the next year to two years) have a 100% full respray and refurb done on the car (engine out job to respray the endine bay and everything, door sills, remove half the interior, etc etc)

So this is just basically a blow-over white that will probably be left matte white for now, I\'m going to test my lacquering skills on the sunroof and it it looks awful I\'ll just blow over it with another coat and re-matte it, and leave the whole thing matte-white for the time being.

[Ada7]

PS Halfrauds paint\'s don\'t Match any Mazda colours...

Thats an interesting comment. Do you know if thats the same for standard FD colours? I was gonna have a go at respraying a headlight cover
Where would be the best place to get a can of paint from then if not halfords?

Adam

[Lacey]

Camberley Auto Factors (Parts? Factors?) might do it. Other than that take your paint code into Hellfrauds (one of the bigger ones) and ask if they do it. If it\'s not one of the rarer colours (i.e. plain mazda black) you\'ll probably be able to get a can made up for you.

[Grant Monkhouse]

Just stick with 400 grade then, saves money and will give an ok finish.

[Lacey]

Awesome stuff, will do

[Prof]

Thats an interesting comment. Do you know if thats the same for standard FD colours? I was gonna have a go at respraying a headlight cover
Where would be the best place to get a can of paint from then if not halfords?
 
Adam

I got some Mazda Black (PZ) from Touchup Paints - it was actually a pretty good match - on their website you can specify the code you want.
 
http://www.touchuppaints.co.uk/

[Ada7]

Cheers Dave

Adam

[andrewrx7]

Thats an interesting comment. Do you know if thats the same for standard FD colours? I was gonna have a go at respraying a headlight cover
Where would be the best place to get a can of paint from then if not halfords?

Adam

It might be different now, but Halfauds had my FD colour code on their system, when Mazda didn\'t want to know a couple of years ago. One of the last FD\'s and in white, so not exactly a common colour either.