[Logan]

The secret to a really good paint job is many blockings with a long block. If areas done block out flat, fix them. Don't "cheat" by blocking out that little area with a smaller block. On average every car we paint gets anywhere from 4-6 blockings after all the body work has been "roughed in" before the first coat of primer. Depending on how rough the body was to begin with, the first 2-3 blockings are with 80 grit, everything after that is 180 grit. Then to prep for the top coat of paint, we do 400 wet on a block. No Disk sanders used except when we knock down the top part of bondo, but we finish off the bondo with a block. Do you see a trend here? Block block block. That's the only way you can make one as slick as you possibly can. For 80-180 blockings our sticks are about 18-24 inches I believe. The 400 block is like 9 inches I think. Once you switch from 80 to 180 80% of your body work should be done. You'll still pick up some highs and lows with 180, but the idea of using 180 is to get rid of the 80 scratch and start smoothing out the primer so that your 80 grit doesn't show bellow your top coat. If you take your time, block correctly, and you don't mind spending your extra time, and little bit extra money in primer you'll be really really happy with the end result. The reason 10 footer paint jobs exist is because people just don't spend the time to so a paint job right. It's not that everyone couldn't do a show quality paint job, its just that people get in a rush to get something done. We call blocks "idiot sticks" because any idiot can block a car, and as long as some common sense is used it's hard to mess up blocking. Don't run a block strait in any direction. You'll wear grooves into the primer that will show up in the finish even if you don't see it in the primer. Put your block parallel to the floor and run it in a long diagonal. When I'm blocking it is a full upper body work out. I use 2 hands on my long blocks, get my knees on the ground, and just start sanding as large of a pass as I can down the sides of cars. When I'm done I'm usually drenched in sweat, and my arms are jello but it's worth it to see the end result. At the end of a show quality paint job you can expect to have a 150-200 hours in just body panels. That's not putting the car back together or anything else, or wet sanding and buff/polish.

Simply, perfection takes time and not cutting any corners.