Sand the final coat of paint?

[Sylentwulf]

Seems that SOMETHING always get's stuck to the paint, be it a piece of sawdust, a bug, or SOMETHING.
So, should I sand the final coat of paint or would that just come out horribly? With 400 grit sandpaper, would it LOOK like it was sanded, or would it look nice and silky smooth?

[MonitorGuru]

I wouldn't, however if you do staining and polyurathane, they recommend steel wooling with '0000' (quad-zero) ultra fine steel wool.  It even tames down semi-gloss to almost, but not quite, satin texture.

Dunno how well that would work on paint though.  

But I can attest to sanding between coats on paint really helps the end product.

Unless you're in a dust free zone with a robotic spray painter, you have to learn to live with the occassional imperfections.

(Thats why you should use hammered paint as a base...then you don't notice such things )

[greywolf22]

Yeah, I sanded a lot between coats, but didn't sand the last coat of paint.  I just took a soft lint free cloth and wiped over it after it had dried and cured (I let mine cure for about a week prior to moving it, but I don't know if this is always necessary)

[Sylentwulf]

Actually, I just put on my first coat and it looks GREAT. The primer came out looking like crap (Primer always does, but this was worse than usual) I've never used oil based primer (or paint) before, and I can honestly say, I don't care for it at ALL.

[daeven]

I was thinking of making the move to oil-based paint.  It seems the latex paint is so fragile for such a long time after the final coat.

As for defects in the final coat - if you can't live with them, try lightly scraping the crud off with a fingernail, them just touch up with a good brush.  If you don't like that, build your own paint booth with an air filtration system!