I finished up the horizontal surfaces on the car (hood, roof, deck lid), and spent today going back over by hand with the 2000 grit paper to try to work more on the orange peel. Honestly, the Porter Cable DA sander/polisher with the 2000 grit paper just doesn't seem to have the oomph to get the orange peel out. It just seems to skim the surface. Maybe I wasn't bearing down on it enough. Or maybe I should have worked with a rotary sander instead. I'm likely too much of a novice to try using the rotary with sanding, however. If it's easier to burn the paint by just polishing with a rotary than using a DA, I guess sanding would be a real good way to ruin the paint in a hurry that way. So maybe the way I did it is best for my skill level. Or lack thereof.
I'm going to do hand sanding with 3000 grit next, and then onto 4000 grit after that. From what I have been reading, I may be able to skip the compounding step since the 4000 grit paper may allow me to go right into the fine polishing. I guess I'll start with the polishing, and if I can still see sanding scratches, then I'll fall back and do some machine compounding.
Lord what a mess this makes. All that water running everywhere with the paint particles suspended in it has gotten everywhere imaginable on the car. But I think this is much better than dry sanding. At least I don't have paint dust everywhere all over the entire garage.
I gotta hand it to people who do this sort of thing for a living. They certainly EARN the money they make.
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