[southernfriedcj]

HIQ, you are correct. From what I gather, after all the aluminum panels are TIG'ed up and pounded out, the body is filed to get it to a "rough smooth" finish. From there it needs to be sanded and painted or sanded to the level prefered by the owner. Most "bare cars" are sanded to a satin finish. Some go all the way to a polished finish(see Pat Buckley's KMP, it looks like it was chromed).
If you go to pic #DVC000091 in my gallery(exterior shot of the fender vent), you can see the lines the file leaves in the aluminum. I test sanded a small area on a fender top with 220 grit and it went to satin nicely. If I were going to sand the entire car I would start at 120 , then 220 the entire car and go through the grits until I got to 600 range. I believe Pat Buckley went all the way to 1500 grit before he polished the car out.


HTH