Wet Sanding

[Eddie M.]

I'm curious as to how many of us wet sands our work, real or whif, to prepare for the final finish. There is no wrong answer to me because I range the whole spectrum, but lately have been doing it more and more, in search of the perfect finish......  

[BlackOps]

I try avoid sanding as much as possible! I do both, I usually do wet sanding when I have a bigger area that needs a little extra something, but I too have been doing it more often lately.

[puddingwrestler]

Generally only on cars. Everything else I weather so much that the perfection of the finish would be lost anyway.

[pyro-manic]

Not as yet. But when I start on some of the resin kits I have, I will definitely be wet-sanding. Don't want that stuff airborne....

[Weaver]

I routinely wet sand, although the motivation is more about getting better mileage out of the paper than "perfect" finish....

[Scooterman]

I voted without fail but I have a habit of attacking plastic without then realizing that FECK! I was too aggressive and should be wet sanding and taking my time.

[cthulhu77]

all the time. I like it wet.

[Ed S]

Mostly wet sanding, but I do dry sand for a quick touch up or repair.  Wet sanding is much better especially if sanding a painted or primed model, the sandpaper doesn't clog up as fast.

Ed

[PR19_Kit]

I wet sand 99.9% of the time.

Occasionally something just heeds a quick flash over and then I don't, but usually I have a bowl of water on the work bench the whole time.

[B777LR]

I wet sand as much as possible. My dad has lost the wet sanding paper last year, so now i have to resort to dry sanding with rough sand paper, and only doing final touches with wet sand.

[Brian da Basher]

Wet sanding is far too at odds with my caveman building style.

Brian da Basher

[noxioux]

I prefer wet sanding for the simple reason that the sanpaper lasts about a million times as long as without.  But I find that a nice, smooth surface is really beneficial no matter what kind of finish you're looking for.  Even a heavily weathered bird will look better if she's smooth before the paint goes on.  IMHO.

[Daryl J.]

Rather than using 1200 grit, I wet sand with the grey abrasive Brillo pads that equate to triple ot steel wool.   Two pads have lasted about a decade with some 80 percent of the pad remaining.   Not bad for value, eh?


Daryl J.

[Weaver]

On a similar note, what range of grits do you all use?

I generally start with a 400 or 600 and then go straight to 1500, the latter being the finest I could buy locally. I've got 240 but I only really use it for gross shape changing, rather than smoothing down. For instance, If I want to remove a few mm from the joint face of a part, then I put it on a flat piece of 240 and "scrub" it around....

[jcf]

On a similar note, what range of grits do you all use?

100 micron down to 9 micron for finishing films, 30 micron to 1 micron in polishing papers depending on what I'm working on.

Jon