1960 Corvette Full Wetsand Cut and Buff by Mike Phillips

[Mike Phillips]

1960 Corvette Full Wetsand Cut and Buff by Mike Phillips

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Stripped Down and Ready to Sand
Note this car is fresh out of the paint booth. There's no grill, bumpers, door handles, etc. This is the best way to sand down a car.

In the Paint Booth - Here's three pictures showing,

1. Car with primer sprayed
2. Car with basecoat sprayed
3. Car with clearcoat sprayed

Arriving to Dr. Beasley's Detail Training Center in Stuart, Florida
Always an honor when I'm trusted to do all the wetsanding to remove orange peel on cool cars like this 1960 Corvette Restorod.

Do you ever get nervous?
I get asked if I ever get nervous when tackling projects like this and the answer is yes. And while sanding down an entire car, from start to finish is a monumental project, it can actually be a tick overwhelming. But all you have to do is look at it like the old analogy of eating an Elephant - and that is, the only way to do it is one bite at a time.



Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

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Here's the process I plan to use - won't know for sure until a do the FIRST MOST IMPORTANT THING.

1. Wetsand by hand starting with 1500 grit Nikken Finishing Papers.
2. Wetsand by hand refining with 2000 grit Nikken Finishing Papers.
3. Machine dry sand using Eagle Abrasives by KOVAX Buflex 2500 using FLEX cordless DA Sanders and RUPES Interface Pads.
4. Compound using the new FLEX Brushless Rotary Polisher with Dr. Beasley's CoreCut or CoreCut+ (depends on the first most important thing), and Buff and Shine wool cutting pads..
5. First polishing step using the new FLEX Brushless gear-driven orbital polisher with Dr. Beasley's NSP 150 and Buff and Shine EdgeGuard foam polishing pads.
6. Final polishing step using the new FLEX Brushless 15mm free spinning, random orbital polisher with Dr. Beasley's NSP 95 with and Buff and Shine EdgeGuard foam finishing pads.
7. Ceramic Coat using Dr. Beasley's Nano-Resin 2.0 Ceramic Coating.

And like all the sanding jobs I do, the goal is to never see the color of the basecoat on either the wool cutting pad or any of the foam pads.




Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

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Here's the brand-new FLEX CORDED and also BRUSHLESS polishers.

New Brushless FLEX Rotary Polisher

New Brushless FLEX 8mm Gear-Driven Orbital Polisher

New Brushless FLEX 15mm Free Spinning, Random Orbital Polisher

Took 3 tries to hold all 3 tools using the camera timer to get this shot.

Thank you FLEX!
Thank you to everyone at FLEX for always trusting me to do an honest and thorough review of your tools over the years and for your brand-new tools being launched at SEMA in Las Vegas 2025!


And thank you for the really cool new FLEX backpack, Yeti cups and swag!

Stay tuned...


Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

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Here's everything I'll be using for this project.

Nikken Finishing Papers -1500 and 2000

Eagle Abrasives by KOVAX Sanding Discs - Buflex K-2500 in 6" and 3"

FLEX Cordless DA Sanders
This includes the FX3411 and the PiXiE or PXE-80 with the 6mm drive unit made specifically at my request by FLEX. The round white things are RUPES sanding interface pads. Normally I used the micro-hook foam interface pads from Eagle Abrasives, but the RUPES foam core used for their interface pads is much nicer, a tick thicker and great performance. We used these when Jason Rose and I taught a 2-day detailing class at the American Muscle Car Museum this last May.

The second day, the class machine sanded a 1971 Plymouth 440 Cuda and a 1962 Chevy Biscayne Pro Street.

I have the full array of Dr. Beasley's NSP Primers on hand plus the coating I'll use to seal the paint.

Buff and Shine Pads
I'll start with cutting with the wool pad to remove all the sanding marks and then at some point do a TEST SPOT to dial in the polishing steps using foam pads with all the new FLEX Brushless polishers.

Note: When looking for EdgeGuard pads, the word EdgeGuard is one word, and the letter G is capitalized. We do carry these on the Dr. Beasley's website.

Detailometer
I'll be taking before and after readings using the Detailometer.

This is the passenger side door, just to the left and under where the door handle is placed.

I see lots of room for improvement.

Mike