A bit more about sanding clear coat.

When you are sanding clear coat it is extremely important to not introduce impurities that can do more harm than good. The thing to do is to become aware of what clean sandpaper sounds like when we work the surface. As you sand, if the tone of the sanding changes, there is a good chance we have picked up something. After you work with this stuff for a while, it becomes second nature. You will be sanding along and hear just the slightest tone change. When that happens, stop sanding...period! If you continue sanding, you may be adding scratches rather than removing them.

I always wet sand clear with just water with a few drops of dish washing liquid for lubrication. if I hear a change in tone while sanding, I immediately stop and wipe the surface with a clean cloth and rinse out my paper.

One other thing about buffing clear.

Keep in mind, it's a trade off of "when" we sand (cut) clear and "when" we buff it back to a gloss. Most clears become so hard after 24 to 48 hours after applying, they are very difficult to sand. But the problem is, when we sand the surface we are exposing uncured or softer clear underneath that is not cured as hard. Think of it as a hard surface, but softer underneath that we have now exposed. You can actually smell what I am talking about. As you start to level the clear we may pick up the odor of solvent that has not been able to escape. If we were to let that surface now cure for a few days then sand it again, we likely would pick up that same odor as we are now exposing clear that the solvents haven't released yet. It can take a long time for clear to fully release its solvent.

But the fact is, the harder the clear is, the better we can buff it back to a high gloss. So if we buff back a newly exposed (sanded) surface, we are buffing softer clear and we are not able to bring it back to its best level of gloss. What some of the car guys that do ultra high end paint jobs is to sand the surface level and wait up to two months before they buff it back to a gloss. The idea is, after two month, the clear has attained it final hardness, which will give the highest level of gloss.

Now to be perfectly honest, I normally buff the same day I sand, because.......well I'm impatient. I have found if I buff out the finish and come back a day or two later I can get another level of gloss, but is it worth all the effort? Remember guys...these are just toy airplanes, not show cars!