Wet Sanding Louvers, Rolling Bones method

I stopped by the Rolling Bones Hotrod Shop today and watched Ken Schmidt wet sanding around the many louvers on a 32 deck lid. Obviously, he was wearing his fingers down to the bone.
I've seen guys use all kinds of aids to wet sand tight spots. Pieces of wood or plastic of various shapes and sizes. Rags, gloves etc.

So, Who am I to give advice to Mr. Bones and save him from sanding the tips of his fingers off. After all, it may lead him to a life of crime with no fingerprints and all.

But I wonder, is there a proper way to wet sand around louvers????

 

I've always done them by hand. The paint on the edges of the louvers is so thin and it's very easy to go through if you use anything else. On my old green roadster the louvers were hand sanded with a small flexible rubber block the size of a match book and buffed with a micro buffing pad on a die grinder...carefully

 

The only way that is better is to have someone else do it. But then it would get fucked up.

 

ain't it the truth!

 

I have used flexible foam sanding blocks available at all paint/hardware stores they come in fine med and course about a buck each.

 

Are they 600-2000 grit?

 

Oh man...I did mine and it SUCKED. First you have to do any bodywork, then you prime/block then prime/block some more, then prime/block one more time. THEN, you get to finally wetsand and buff.



My trunk is full of em. Plus, there is a shit load in the hood too...


If you are a REEEALLY good painter, you might be able to lay down your color so well that the actual louvers themselves don't need to be sanded or buffed...Didn't work like that for me, I was paintsticks wrapped in 1500 for about a week..

Good luck, -Abone.

 

I bet trying to pinstripe all those louvers would put a man over the cliff.

 

Years ago, I did this on a friend's/customer's original '33 Ford 3W coupe, along with a lot of other work on the car. It's one of the most tedious jobs I've ever done. No real shortcuts if you want the job to turn out nice. Unfortunately, he didn't appreciate the time or effort or givin'-a-shit that it required.

 

I too have sanded my share through the years and like stated above the flatter the paint is laid on the easier the louvers are to sand. Problem is not just the louvers but the area around them. Slow and easy will give you the best results, no other way. But like Flamedabone's '34 nothing looks better. BTW his chop is perfect, the best 5W '34 I've seen.

 

That car looks great man.

 

I haven't tried it myself yet but after rubbing through the skin on my fingers a couple of times I read a post that said wrap your finger tips with masking tape before starting.

I have no idea if it works or not but I am sure going to give it a try next time I do sanding.

Buy the way I love the louvers and the car

 

I've done my share over 40+yrs. I guess when to do em is as important as how. My best advice is do em 1st. Ditto on going through the edges, but if you get to the louvres 1st you can sand up to the punched area for better flatter job, other wise you stand a chance of digging down past your surface. Same with reveals where they meet the metal. The worst thing you can do is sand it all down then wad up a "tootsie roll" to sand in the bases and grooves. Leaves a bunch of chop-fuck reflections in the finished product. Now that I mentioned that those interested will start noticing what I mean, and not up close. More like 25-30' away. Solution? Scotchbrite the tight crevices 1st. You want the paint to bond in there, the rest is surface quality. And if you think punched louvres suck, the long OEM louvres in hood sides are way worse if you're looking for anything more than a coat of color, especially at the ends where digging in accidently is always possible.

 

it takes the same amount of time to wet sand a louvered deck lid correctly, as it does the rest of the roadster body. price/plan accordingly.

 

When I did my buddy Lefty's 58 Chevy hood, it wasn't wet sanding, it was blood sanding!

 

The hood on my '40 coupe has 72- 3" louvers. Wet sanding by hand and a hose (luckily I did this in the summer) it took about 6 hours. My arms felt like they were about to fall off when my Body Man Buddy came over and said, " now you have have to do it all over again with a hand buffer, but don't burn through the paint! I asked how do you do that? By hand, my friend. By hand"

Talk about the ultimate hand job! wow and I never got a kiss!

 

By hand is the only way,,I have a love/hate relationship with louvers,,I love to see them and hate to sand them.

I recently hand sanded a original 25 louver hood painted with Imron paint in preparation for black paint on my sedan.

The problem with sanding louvers is there is two sides to sand,,inner and outer,,that makes 100 louvers at the end of the day,,,I can imagine how sore Jeff's fingers are after that deck lid. HRP

 

Mr Bones is useing the tried and proven method. If you want the best results sometimes you have to sacrifice.

 

Save your fingers, cover with masking tape..

 

what a pain in the......fingers

 

you're all reinforcing my thoughts that I don't particularly like louvers and won't be putting them in my cars

 

I use to do them by hand...starting in bare metal and taking them all the way to final cut...one roof panel alone was 257 louvers...At one point, i could squeeze my finger and blood would come out..haha

 

good. that leaves more for the rest of us.

 

You mean like this?

 

By hand is the ONLY way to get it right. That's why there are NO louvers on mine.

 

There's another way to kep em slick n shiney. Put a few coats of clear on and sand em real smooth, almost ready for buffing. Apply 2 coats of clear reduced an extra 20% or so, but make sure that it's clean and it doesn't sag (flow check for you pro finishers). Done right it looks like it's been buffed like the rest of the car. Surely that makes sense to some on here. Not easy but very possible.

 

I waxed and polished louvers for over 10 years. There is no way I would torchure myself with putting them on a project and going through the sanding process..........

I prefer to bounce my head off a block wall. At least it feels good when I quit.

 

Maybe this is why so many louvered rods are flat black. I've got 120 in my hood and have been through the sanding process more than once. Not fun at any rate even though the end results are worth all the trouble.

 

FlameDaBone -

That is one fine looking coupe! What does the other side look like?

Dave.

 

I thought you had a big machine for that!
- quote from dumb customer who thinks he should get $1000 worth of work for $150.

Same guy who wouldn't roll out of bed in the morning for less than $1000 a week, and never gets his hands dirty.