Painting: Wet sanding vs rubbing compund?

Since I've been looking into repainting my bike, I've been doing a bit of research. The general consensus here seems to be to wet sand everything (between coats, before and after clear coating, etc).

Several years ago, my dad and I repainted his pickup and used rubbing compound instead of wet sanding. The end result looked just as good as the factory paint did and it wasn't nearly as much of a mess as wet sanding would have been.

Now, I'm not an expert on autobody painting so my question really comes to this: Is there a specific reason why wet sanding should be used instead of using rubbing compound for this, or could either be used?

 

If you're doing a 1 step paint I could see where rubbing compound would be sufficient. With a 2 step process (paint and clear coat) though you want to sand (preferably with a pad or block of some sort) to knock down the high spots so you have as close to a perfectly flat finished surface as possible before buffing. I personally never sand between coats as long as I can lay the next coat down within the time allowed to achieve a chemical bond between coats. The number of coats of paint is entirely dependent on coverage, and for candies, the amount of 'tint' you want.
Generally I will paint 2-3 coats of color, tape off for graphics, 2 -3 coats for coverage. Continue until all my paint is layed down, then pull any taped off areas and shoot 2-3 coats of clear. THEN after 24 hrs I will wet sand, making sure I don't break through all the coats of clear. Then another 2-3 coats of clear. After 24 hrs wetsand again. When you're done with this sand you should have a darn near flat finish unless you had some taped edges to deal with. You could go straight to buff from here but U like to lay down 1-2 more coats of clear, wetsand then buff. I know...it's a lot of work....but so far I've been happy with the end result...



And on both these paint jobs you can't feel any texture from the paint...I think that would be really hard if not impossible to do with rubbing compound....
Key to remember , like anything else, the most important part of painting comes before you do any spraying - Properly preparing you surface. You can't get a great paint job without a great prepped tin....

You can check out the entire bikes in my gallery...

 

rubbing compound makes all the little hills and valleys, lump and bumps whatever ya want to call them shine
wet sanding makes them flat
i think thats what Bohemian said

 

Mad_Bohemian, nice paint could you tell me what type of paint you used and did you use a gravity fed gun or is this a rattle can job? and is it 800 grit for wetsanding the rough coats and 1200 for the finiish?

thnx

 

Yeah...that's a much better way of saying it...thanks polock.

Hey oddball don't want to hijack Krryinstoch's thread here so I'll keep it short....
I use all HOK(House Of Kolor) paints and candies with an hlvp gun (a Harbor Freight cheapie too!). I'll prep the primer coat by sanding w/800 grit. When sanding the clear coats that will be cleared over I use 1200 grit. When sanding the final coat of clear I use 2000 grit, then buff with a buffer using Wizard brand buffing products. Hope that helps...

 

OOPS didnt even think about that sorry Krryinstoch's and thnx Mad

S!