How long did you sand with the wrong grit before someone called you out?

I spent about 6 months doing paint prep on this 2010 F-150 I was restoring. I thought I was being smart using 80-grit on everything to save time. Then a guy named Mike who's been doing body work for 30 years walked past my bay and asked why I was putting tiger stripes in my primer. I had no clue what he meant until he showed me the deep scratches I was leaving. He said I needed to step down through 120 and 220 before sealer. I felt like an idiot but it made the final paint job way smoother. Do you guys stick to a strict grit order or do you ever skip levels to save time?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sean15d agoMost Upvoted

Read a forum post where a guy claimed skipping grits saved him two hours but cost him three more fixing the sanding marks later.

jade_grant9515d ago

My buddy Dave tried skipping from 180 straight to 400 on a classic Mustang build and thought he was golden until he sprayed the color and every single 180 scratch showed up like a road map. He spent the next weekend respraying the whole car and said he'll never skip more than one grit level again no matter how impatient he gets. I guess the two hours he saved cost him like eight hours of redoing everything, so I'll stick to the boring way.