Paint Your Car With Rustoleum

Step 3 Sand!

Sanding the car before painting it is like...opening a bank account before making a deposit. Ya just gotta do it. First, use strong soap, wax and grease remover, or whatever you have lying around to clean the heck out of the paint. Then sand it with 300 or 400 grit paper.

For difficult areas, you may want to get some abrasive foam or scouring material that conforms better than regular sand paper. The point is to completely eliminate the shininess of the finish, and get past the clear coat. You don't want to sand down to bare metal, there's no point.

Comments

[ragincanadian]

I tried the wire cup method on a set of wheels and man do I wish I hadn't. The wire cup takes it down to bare metal, great for a restore but not a simple overcoat. Spent hours trying to feather in the paint from areas out of reach from the cup. You are only trying to scuff the finish so the paint will stick, not obliterate it.

[geekyzeeky]

I recommend you all save yourself the time and effort of using sandpaper. Go to your local hardware shop and buy a wire cup for your angle grinder. It takes a shitload less time and the result is clearly better then using sandpaper.

[mattm681]

im not positive but it looks like he just dry sanded it to me

[drivera8705]

does it need to be wet sanded or just sanded?