Wet Sand Before Polishing?

[Roadrunner]

Well today I stopped at the local AS dealer and talked with the service manager about polishing our AS. He said that they had done some polishing and recommended wet sanding before polishing. I can understand sanding if there are scratches...but would anyone wet sand with 1500/2000 paper just to speed along the polishing? Seems like adding time to the whole process. Any thoughts from those that have polished...with or without?

Bob

[Frank's Trailer Works]

I would only wet sand if you have very heavy oxidation. Even 1000 grit will make courser scratches then most polishes. I personally swear by this system for polishing. You will still need a final pass or two with a cyclo though to get that mirror finish

[cruiser54]

In my visit with "airstream4u" in Hamburg I saw that the professional work, after the laundry with water, directly with buffing machine and site foreman's paste. See the photos in my Blog.
Greeting Werner

[InsideOut]

On the front "corner" panels of our GlobeTrotter, they were VERY pitted from road debris being kicked up. There were little crater-like pits that had rough edges all over the surface. When we went to polish it, every crater edge caught the fuzz & polish making a real mess so we did VERY LIGHTLY wet sand that panel with 1000 grit wet/dry. It worked out well and we did not go through the Alclad layer (or actually get rid of the pits themselves) - just took the edges off. I would only do this on a very damaged panel as a last resort prior to being prepared to replace the panel - NOT the entire trailer. For us, it worked out well on these two areas - but it is a pretty drastic approach to the entire trailer and easy to mess things up real bad.



Shari

[NJtoNC]

i had / have the same problem on the front corner panels of my GT as well. we used #0000 (very fine) steel wool w / a little bit of polish on it, then polished w/ nuvite #9(very coarse), then #7 (coarse) and will proceed with C(med) and S(fine).

i tested this on a spot and it helped - exactly as shari described - took the edges off the pitting and for very light scratches, it reduced or removed them.