Sanding

Sanding may seem simple, but as Dan Maffett is about to show us, to do it right, there’s a lot more to it. Here’s a smooth-down of sanding tips and tools on MotorWeek’s “Your Drive!”

DAN MAFFETT: If you’ve ever been down the hardware aisle, or you’re auto parts store and looked at the grinders and sanders, you know there are a lot to choose from. Now, each one of them have a very specific purpose. If you combine them with the right kind of grit sandpaper or attachment, they can have multiple purposes.

We have a few of those selections here, which are the most common used in my shop. On this end, we have random orbital sanders. We like to use these for blocking a panel down very quickly or cleaning up paint after it’s done, so with a pad like this you can add what they call an interface. Makes it nice and soft, so you’re not digging in to new paint. You can use this to wet-sand orange peel like this and then buff it smooth.

Next to those, we have what we like to call die grinders. Now, these are air-powered units that you can switch the heads in and out of. Different types of grits, sizes, and even, polishing bits to polish metal in really tight spaces you can’t get into with a traditional 7- or 8-inch head polisher. These ones even have die grinding bits to chew out metal, hog out holes and panels for blinkers, side markers, or even vents.

Now if you’re going to strip a whole panel down to bare metal, this is the world you want to kind of live in. They make regular flat-angle grinders that you can get flap discs or even surfacing discs on it. And these are high torque, very dangerous if you’re not careful.

Then something like this is really versatile, it’s kind of a hog, but you have a giant drum sander on the top, that strips stuff down to bare metal very quickly, which we’re going to demonstrate on that panel here in a minute. That one also has various types of drums and bits that you can get on it, so you can even polish with this if you have the right accessories.

Now if you’re bodyworking a car and you need to sand down a full panel of filler or primer, or high build, these traditional sanding blocks are kind of a staple. This is what everyone knows and loves, have them in various sizes, shapes for every kind of piece of trim. Now, dust is a big factor with these. So, when something this big is moving across the panel, you’re going to gather a lot of dust. So, if you’re doing it yourself in your own garage, you’re going to want something like this. It’s a traditional block with a mylar top, but you can hook it up to a shop vac, and it’ll pull all that dust– 98% of the dust will come out with this, instead of on your shop floor.

Now that you’ve seen these in use, you have a better understanding of what they’re capable of. And you can make an educated decision for your project, and what sander you should use. As always, if you have any questions or comments, hit us up right here, at MotorWeek.