Sanding Blocks

[azygoustoyou]

I have to say. I didn't know what sanding blocks I was going to need to restore my 124. So I bought a few. I want to let you know which ones to buy so you don't waste your money. I bought Dura Bloc sanding blocks. They are awesome. Make sure you get the sandpaper that sticks to them though. You'll be happy you did. I bought the 24" and the 11". Don't waste your money on the 24". You won't even use it. You can see in the pic the ends are off the trunk. I thought I would use it on the trunk and on the straight edges. Even the trunk isn't flat. It has a curvature to it. The 11" works great on most of the car. I did buy a flexible sanding board and used it mostly on the back and front bottom of the car. It worked great. So all you need is a 3M 5", 11" sanding block and and flexible sanding board. I also used the sanding sponges that have sandpaper on them. I had fine. I didn't actually use the block to sand though. It was pretty firm and I used it as a block. I put sandpaper on the bottom. The sand paper I used was 80 grit to cut down the filler.120,180,220,400, 600. You don't need any other. The 400 and 600 were used to prep after the primer. I'm not doing any wet sanding. I only have to do the process to get to the base coat. My painter is doing the rest. I want to help you save your money! Now someone help me save mine!
http://www.tptools.com/pl/Images,SG-898 ... Board.html

[rocky]

Thanks, Brady. I'm working on the body of my car right now. Just a few small spots of rust and plenty of small nicks and creases. I will get the 11" sanding block and the flexible sanding board. What do you think about using a palm sander with 600 grit for the primer? Thanks for the advice.

Greg
'77 Spider

[azygoustoyou]

600 grit is too fine. If your done with the body work and your ready to final sand the primer. Go with 400. Then do the orbital sander with the 600.
If you use the 11" sanding block with the 400, you'll find the imperfections. I thought I was almost done. I'm still finding an area in the fender wheel well which was dented inward not right. After a couple hits with the hammer. I'll try some filler. This area is giving me a challenge. Another area to check really good is on the top rear fender just behind the doors.

[rocky]

Thanks, that's what I'll do this weekend. I'm finding more and more little spots that are not quite even but overall I'm pretty happy with how I'm doing. I haven't done this in over thirty-five years. Thanks again and I hope your Thanksgiving went well.

Greg
'77 Spider

[azygoustoyou]

I bought these sanding blocks from Harbor Freight for about $3.50 They work great when prepping the inside of the doors, hood, trunk, and engine bay.
They have different courses. This one is fine. You get a package of 10. It saved my fingers and time. I used them to prep for final paint.

[rocky]

Those are the ones I bought to do this. The coarse blocks were great for removing filler and the fine were good for getting the areas ready for guide coat and primer. I didn't get a large sanding block because most of the areas on the body that needed work were just small dings and creases. Instead of of my Spider looking like it was used as a parking lot crash dummy, it now looks like red and grey camo. Thanks for the info.

Greg
'77 Spider

[azruss]

The imperfection determines the length of board required. A sanding board cannot remove a dent or wave longer than the board itself. The long board is great on the doors and fenders. also great on the hood and trunk lid. When you look at barrett-jackson quality bodywork, it was all done with a long board. My car was wavey enough to require a long board on every panel.

[azygoustoyou]

I know what your talking about. I've seen some wavy spiders. Got any pic's of your car?

[azruss]

Body is a work in progress and nothing is long board flat yet. Since this is a ground up resto going on 4 years, i have close to 1000 pix of the details. Everything is in the primer state and hope to paint before summer. dont know how to post a pix on this site.