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I painted a test piece in my garage with some brightside. I noticed I got a lot of dust particles in the finish. The feel and gloss of the paint is very impressive, and from 3-4 feet away it looks mint. But when you put your nose up to it and feel it, it's dust speck city.

If I wetsand will these specs go away? Or will I just end up going through the paint before these specs are gone? Then what happens when I put the next coat on? More dust? Any suggestions?



I have to agree with what the other lads have already said. Dust specs are nothing compared to whacked out mosquitoes, micro-flies, dumb spiders and even your own falling hair landing on wet paint. Dust is almost a pleasure to deal with... as it does polish out.

But lets be honest here. If you took your car to a pro paint shop ( and I am including MAACO and the other paint shop chains ).... the truth is that they paint your car in a clean room... but they don't leave it in there. As soon as they can they wheel it out and move the next car in to the clean room for painting. At that point their paint also becomes vulneralbe to dust and flying things UNTIL the paint flashes and seals itself sufficiently to keep 'things that land on it' from sticking.

Sadly... a lot of these freshly painted 'pro paint jobs' get parked outside after painting. In some cases the car is pushed off to some spot in the shop where they have tried to reduce the amount of 'things in the air' from landing on the car.

The point being to not hold a pro paint job up as perfection until you go to a pro shop and closely examine the fresh paint job with the same critical eye that you would to your own 'roll your own' paint job. The reality is that it is really easy to spot similar or equal 'flaws' on a pro-painted car. It is only when YOU pay a higher premium for your pro-paint job that the shop takes extra steps to ensure every square of the paint job is FLAWLESS.

But bouncing further deeper into the reality of paint jobs... GO TO YOUR LOCAL car dealership's showroom and put that critical eye to work on the showroom creampuffs. You will see orange peel, you will see runs, you will see specs in the paint, you will see shade or depth differences between the panels. I have even seen Mustangs in the showroom where the hardtop had a different shade of metalic red compared to the body.

When parking in shopping lots I am always looking at the level of shine on the vehicle parked next to me. I am always surprised how new cars DON'T have a mirror shine. Normally their paint jobs have a hint of an orange peel that reduces the mirror effect of reflection that a perfectly smooth surface would have.

AND IF YOU SHOULD ever spot a showroom new car or a freshly painted pro-paint job car that has a mirror smooth and flawles paint job... well I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that car has had its paint job PROFESSIONALLY DETAILED by a detailer who knew how to polish and wax that surface into the flawless jewel you are seeing.

And when you get down to the nuts and bolts of this 'roll your own' paint job... one of the aspects of the work involved is the final compounding, polishing and waxing. So in a way, our roll your own paint jobs are simply taking it to the next step that is not normally executed on the factory paint job.

To be honest... when I first finished my paint job it was quite visually acceptable. BUT in my heart I just knew that if a professional detailer had my car for a day he could probably increase the shine by 100% - simply because they know how to do just that - its their stock and trade.

The whole 'roll your own' paint job requires three phases to be completed well, in order to assure a finished job that you will be proud of :

a ) attention to detail during the PREP stage,
b ) taking your time and having patience during the 'rolling your paint' stage... and finally...
c ) attention to detail during the final compounding, polishing and waxing stage.

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