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I used to think my sanding technique was fine until a 2020 Silverado hood showed me otherwise.
I was blocking out a repair on that hood and kept getting these faint, wavy lines in the primer that I just couldn't see until the sun hit it right. My old boss, who's been doing this for 30 years, came over, watched me for about two minutes, and said, 'You're pushing down too hard on the edges of your block.' I switched to letting the paper do the work with just the weight of my hand, and the difference was night and day. Anyone else have a simple tip that fixed a problem you didn't even know you had?
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wades767mo ago
Wait, you were putting real pressure on the block? I can't even picture that. I'm over here barely touching the thing, scared to death of cutting through. The idea of someone leaning into a longboard on a fresh panel gives me the shakes. My old teacher would have thrown a sanding block at me for that.
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jackson.sage7mo ago
Yeah, it's all about trusting the primer. If it's on thick enough, you can really lean in without burning through. That first pass is just knocking down the texture, not trying to get it perfect. Once you see that uniform scratch pattern, you know you're safe to go for it.
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danielgonzalez6mo ago
My dad taught me to paint cars in his garage, and he drilled that same idea into my head. You see it everywhere now, people too scared to commit to the first step in anything from cooking to fixing a phone. They hover and make a bigger mess. That initial confidence, like your first sanding pass, sets the whole tone. What was the first thing you ever learned to do where you had to trust the process like that?
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