airadvantage sander question?

[mmooney84]

i see under specials the air advantage sander and 100 discs of 1500 grit sand paper... It is dry sand or wet sand? How user friendly is it? Do you have to be careful sanding or does not take off that much material? I have cut through to the base before pretty easy hand sanding along body lines and so forth.. I just dont want to spend over 2 hundred and have to be super careful because I would just rather hand wet sand if I have to be super careful.

what do you guys think? I mainly paint bumpers and tailgates.. Would this be a good upgrade or should i stick with hand wet sanding?

[Len]

i see under specials the air advantage sander and 100 discs of 1500 grit sand paper... It is dry sand or wet sand? How user friendly is it? Do you have to be careful sanding or does not take off that much material? I have cut through to the base before pretty easy hand sanding along body lines and so forth.. I just dont want to spend over 2 hundred and have to be super careful because I would just rather hand wet sand if I have to be super careful.

what do you guys think? I mainly paint bumpers and tailgates.. Would this be a good upgrade or should i stick with hand wet sanding?

The AirVantage is very user friendly and when using the 1500 Finishing Film you're LESS likely to sand through than you are by hand because you're usually using it dry. When you color sand using this method you can see exactly what is happening and can stop before you go too far. Of course you can't sand on peaks or in tight spots but for 90% of the vehicle you can sand much more easily than by hand. I'd recommend getting an "interface pad" to help insure that the sander takes the shape of the curves rather than risk sanding flat spots in the surface.l

[mmooney84]

I think it would work real good for my tailgates.. I might have to pick one up real soon.

[Len]

I think it would work real good for my tailgates.. I might have to pick one up real soon.

Once you use one you won't want to pick up any other DA. We just got a 3" model and I can't wait to try it.

[showcar]

That's true. They are the cat's meow.

Can't wait til I can afford one of those 3"

[ymurf]

So our the main purpose of these sanders for wet sanding?To get orange peel out?color sanding?I am new to this and always thought you had to do hours and hours of hand wet sanding to do this.

[Len]

So our the main purpose of these sanders for wet sanding?To get orange peel out?color sanding?I am new to this and always thought you had to do hours and hours of hand wet sanding to do this.

If we were still wet sanding cars to remove orange peel I'd be retired by now.

The AirVantage can be used for leveling orange peel in a fraction of the time it takes to wet sand and you don't even break a sweat. You can use the sander for this job or for other more standard sanding jobs like feathering paint etc.

I'd recommend the 3/32 models for removing orange peel because they tend to be more forgiving and result in less "pig tails" in the surface prior to buffing. We usually use an "interface pad" on the sander's backing plate so that the sandpaper takes the shape of the panel we're sanding. We go over the paint with 1500 Finishing Film dry or 1500 Clear Coat Disks wet then we hit it with 3000 grit Trizact wet before buffing but you could get away with just the 1500 however you'll need to buff more to remove the 1500 scratches. Once you color sand with an AirVantage you'll never go back to hand sanding an entire car.

[showcar]

Yeah, the one with the black handle has the smallest throw and is the right one for sanding clear for buff, blend panels, and any prepping as long as you use an interface pad, except for feathering. You want it flat for that. I've never sanded for buff with it but the buffer worked across the building so I was amazed at how quickly and how good it turned out. No mess either. You don't have to worry about wiping to see your progress, which stops the risk of burn thru, but that's speculative cause I've never used it for that yet. I like it for anything that has to do with bumpers too. You can flatten bodywork without worrying about digging to deep into plastic and the best part is what it can do to fur on bumpers. Sometimes you use heat to get the memory back and so it goes to the original shape but sometimes there will be a small stubborn high that doesn't want to come back. You can only heat your bumper 3 times for short periods or it will get brittle. So you shave it down with 80 on a aggresive da and if you've tried this before you know anything over 80 just takes forever. So now you got fur everywhere. Hit it with 80 on the airvantage, then 180 and then 220. Then it will be good or I'll wet sand it with 600 lightly.

. If I'm prepping a hood that has rock chips galore but not enough to warrant stripping I'll start to feather with a normal aggressive da cause it starts the feather pretty quickly. Then I'll switch over to the black handle airvantage and it feathers it sooo nicely.

In any case, a must have especially if you prep.