Wetsanding carbon clearcoat

[fmradio516]

Someone posted a link the other day but i cant find it for the life of me.

I have a SRAM group with tons of rough spots in the clearcoat that id like to make look more presentable for my new build.

Anyone have a writeup on their process? Id need to do cranks and levers

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by fmradio516

Someone posted a link the other day but i cant find it for the life of me.

I have a SRAM group with tons of rough spots in the clearcoat that id like to make look more presentable for my new build.

Anyone have a writeup on their process? Id need to do cranks and levers

I did a full strip of a terrible paintjob on a first-gen Open UP a while back, but if you're trying to even out the clearcoat on some SRAM stuff you're better off doing a three step process.

1-Wet sand with 600-1000 grit to get out the biggest rough spots

2-Use a power drill with the appropriate automotive set and cutting compound. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/PRIMEVERTIK-B...74645394&psc=1

3-Use a polishing compound with the above kit.

15-20 minutes later a set of cranks will look 100% better.

[fmradio516]

Originally Posted by yinzerniner

I did a full strip of a terrible paintjob on a first-gen Open UP a while back, but if you're trying to even out the clearcoat on some SRAM stuff you're better off doing a three step process.

1-Wet sand with 600-1000 grit to get out the biggest rough spots

2-Use a power drill with the appropriate automotive set and cutting compound. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/PRIMEVERTIK-B...74645394&psc=1

3-Use a polishing compound with the above kit.

15-20 minutes later a set of cranks will look 100% better.

Thanks! For step 1, do you wet sand just the rough spots or the entirety of the clearcoat?

[Dave]

If you were sanding and buffing a fresh urethane paint job on a modern car, you'd need much finer sandpaper. 1000 might be used briefly to knock down orange peel, but 1500 and 2000 or 2500 would follow. Modern buffing compounds would take forever to remove the scratches with anything coarser. All this stuff isn't cheap either.

In the old days of acrylic lacquer, 600 was used, but the buffing compounds were much coarser and fast cutting.

I refreshed a couple of seat posts by partially removing old clear and spraying with new urethane. Made use of leftover paint from my hot rod build.

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by fmradio516

Thanks! For step 1, do you wet sand just the rough spots or the entirety of the clearcoat?

Depends on what your goals are, and also the thickness of the clear coat.

If your goal is only to get them looking close to shiny/new then wet sanding only the spots that show a noticeable nick/deep scratch should be OK. A nick or deep scratch is something I define as something that will catch/stop when you drag a fingernail across it. But also, if the clear coat is very thinly applied you're better off just leveling down the aforementioned spots instead of doing a full wet sand all around.

If you're only looking to remove swirlies then a two step process of cutting compound and polish should work fine.

If you want to get the clear back to factory fresh, or have a thin coat of clear on the parts, or have a lot of deep nicks/scratches then what Dave mentioned is probably in the cards.

[Mikej]

https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/finis...brasives-fine/