Spot Sand and Polish TIP

Sometimes after the paint dries you'll find a raised speck of dust or a small blob of paint.
Sure, you could sand it all down and shoot it a second time, but you run the risk of it happening again.
Here's how I take them down and polish them out.

When I first started building rockets, the finest grit sandpaper I knew of was 400 grit. Later in life I found finer grades all the way up to 2000 grit! To polish a finish 400 grit is too rough.

To get by in a pinch, if you don't have any 1500 or 2000 grit - 
In the picture I'm "sanding" off some of the rough surface of some old, used 400 grit with a old piece of 220 grit.
The 220 grit removes a lot of the roughness and smooths the 400 grit down to somewhere between 1500 and 2000 grit.
If you go long enough, the 400 grit will feel almost like a piece of smooth paper, but will still lightly rough up a painted surface.

On the left I've wet sanded down some raised dust spots with the reduced 400 grit.

The inset picture shows the same area after polishing. The nose cone finish now looks like the paint is still wet.





I use Turtle Wax Polishing Compound. Apply the compound with a soft cotton cloth, I use squares cut from an old T-Shirt.
Wet the cloth, pick up a little compound and polish.

TIP: A trick to a wet shine is not to polish in just one direction.
Polish up and down, then side to side.