1956 International S120 project: Buffing out the paint

Although most of the cab had been color-sanded a while ago, due to getting side-tracked by the 240Z and life in general, I finally got around to buffing out some of the panels today. Once the clear was sanded with 600, then 1000, 1500 and 3000, the buffing can begin, accomplished with coarse rubbing contact and a wool pad, then finished with a fine polish and a foam pad to fill in and remove the marks from the coarse compound.

The rubbing compound goes everywhere, so I covered the parts that where already painted black.

After the first round, the dullness of the  scratches from the 3000 grit where mostly gone...

And after a second round, the shine starts to come back. The finer compound will bring the shine back a final wax will make it show-ready!

1956 International S120 - Color sanding

Color sanding a fresh paint job is fairly common practice now - especially when you want to bring the overall restoration into the highest categories of superb paint work. The procedure starts with 600 or 800 wet paper to knock down any dust nibs or rough that is really rough clear  including orange peel and dry spots. Once that is carefully knocked down you move up in increments and finer sand papers through 1000 grit than 1500 then 2000 and 3000. Often 1500 up is done with the DA sander.

 Here it is after sanding with 600 grit wet paper. The white residue is the clear that is sanded off.

Looking closely, you can see the spots that are sanded down to flat. This is ready for sanding with 1500 and 2000.

Once DA'd with 3000 grit, we'll be ready for the final (although very time consuming) polishing stage. More on that next week....