Fixing clear orange peel.....

[porkee]

Has anyone had any success in polising out clearcoat orange peel as opposed to wet sanding? Thanks[img]

[Bobboloo]

Sounds like using a pocket knife to carve a turkey. It can be done but it's more time consuming and harder work.

Wet sanding aggressively removes the peaks of the orange peel. It's easy to see your progress because the low areas remain shiny as opposed to dull from the sanding. This way you can judge how far you need to take it down. Once your down far enough then you polish back to a shine.

Trying to polish flat would be be much more time consuming with not as good of results in my opinion.

[porkee]

Originally Posted by Bobboloo

Sounds like using a pocket knife to carve a turkey. It can be done but it's more time consuming and harder work.

Wet sanding aggressively removes the peaks of the orange peel. It's easy to see your progress because the low areas remain shiny as opposed to dull from the sanding. This way you can judge how far you need to take it down. Once your down far enough then you polish back to a shine.

Trying to polish flat would be be much more time consuming with not as good of results in my opinion.

Thanks for the feed back. I have on order an orbital with foam pads and four grades of polish. My instinct and others have been telling me to use the rubber block w/1500 to 2000 grit (very wet) paper. I have a not so good feeling of possibly burning through with the polisher. I'll try to post some pics when I'm ready to correct the po's botched clear spray job.

[cgarr]

I am not sure if an orbital with foam pads is going to polish it up, I have only used them for glaze and wax products after the compounds. but I could be wrong.

[3.2 CAB]

Wet block sanding by hand, is what I would say that it would need. I certainly would not try to use an orbital or DA to try to clean up the orange peel. Doing it by hand, you will be able to tell exactly when you have removed enough, in order to then buff out for a nice slick finish. I would be afraid that by using power sanders, that you could burn through the clear coat very easily, before you would even notice it. Good luck!! Tony.

[jcunning]

I just went through this exact same process. As the others have said, a Random orbital and polish is much harder, but it is safer for the 1st timer.

I used Griots stuff for reference.

My process was the following:
1. Wet sand at 2,000 grit. (I would rather sand longer with 2,000)

2. Wet sand with orbital and 4,000 grit pad. (This was a key step and took me some time to figure out).

3. I then polished the area with Machine 1 polish twice.

4. This would mostly removet the 4,000 grit marks, but if any marks of 2,000 were remaining (I could tell because I always sended with 2,000 in the same direction), I would then hand sand those down with the 4,000 again.

5. Two to three more passes of Machine 1 until all scratches are pretty much gone. (You cannot use the orange pad for more than two applications. Otherwise the pad fills up and doesn't do anything except waste the polish).

6. Move to Machine 2 and do two more passes. (you should only have very minute scratches left over from the polish itself)

7. Move to Machine 3 for final polishing. If you see any scratches in the paint, then you need to just focus on that area.

For this entire process, it took me about 2 hours per 2x2 area. I easily put in about 50-60 hours on color sanding my car. The results however, are VERY good.
I didn't ruin the paint and the orange peel is severly reduced.
I did end up spending about the same amount of money on Griots product (pads, polishes, microfibre cloth) as just going out and buying a professional polisher with the right stuff from eastwood.com.

I probably could have also saved about 20-30 hours of time with the polisher.

One other thing to consider is how tough your clearcoat is. Mine is a very soft clearcoat and I can easily scratch the clearcoat. This also means it can be polished out very easily. I have read on the internet about some clears that are very tough. In that case I don't think my process would work.

You will be able to tell right away if you do two-three passes of machine 1 and you don't see any scratches disappear. Then you definitely need to upgrade to some heavier cutting stuff.

[tinamiller1]

I had a big problem with orange peel. The back fender of my bike had a lot and we wet sanded with 1200 like a paint place said and it turned out great. Buffed with compound and scratch X with buffer and then buffed again with the wool that is meant for glass and now the back fender I can see my reflection. The front fender not so lucky. I sanded a bit too hard with same process and we ended up with a large mark of revealed primer. I sanded thru all of clearcoat, new color and down to primer. So this needed repainted. Problem is we followed all previous steps and primed again and went to paint and the paint blistered. Internet searches said it was called solvent popping. Later we found that what PPG distributor said with the 1 to 1 for paint and solvent was not correct for our purpose. We should have done 1 to 1/2. But didn't do this on back fender at first. So resanded that. In meantime before we knew of the 1 to 1/2 we did the tank and it turned out great except orange peel. And got some drips cuz Internet search said less air more clearcoat to lessen orange peel. Well this caused drips and in attempting to sand off, we did the same thing with a portion of tank that we did rear fender. So taped off section that was messed up and redid all steps for prep and primed and painted and this paint also did the solvent popping. This is when we found out about the 1 to 1/2. But it was ruined so we were just going to paint the section again and upon taking off all the portion that was taped saw the shading of paint was so different. So just decided to restart the whole tank since we had to redo the rear fender. So, both pieces primed and little tidbit, don't use a tack cloth to clean. Just use microfiber clean towel and denatured alcohol and let that sit about 3hours before priming in your clean area. We found that tack helps with the blistering effect as does using the same plastic spray gun contained over and over and cleaning with laquer thinner. We bought disposables. Anyway, prep was done and 2 pieces primed again and now for the test with this 1 to 1/2 paint to solvent. Worked like a charm. Now blistering or solvent popping and paint laid down on both pieces fantastic. Now for the clearcoat. To orange peel or not to orange peel and have possible drips. Well we had to opt for the orange peel. Though we don't want it we are first timers and just will have to deal with it and try and fix it. This time we wet sanded with 2000 grit for the back fender and then did the same compound, scratchx, compound steps as with front. Back shines like a mirror. Today I am going to 2000 wet sand my tank. Crossing fingers that this turns out great. Will sand with the strength of applying lotion to a babies butt cuz I don't want any redos. Our paint was custom made. It is called Copperhead and was created for a guy that does a show called Gearz. You can see the paint on his site on a truck gearztv.com. The paint cost for 1 quart 176. Well we went thru that with the trial and error so had to buy another quart. Had to buy 2 solvents cans, 1 clear coat and the mixer stuff. The first purchase of all my stuff that is paint related including the gun was 322 and some change. The 2nd with disposable cups, another thing of paint and solvent, more sandpaper came to 226. This is still a ton cheaper than professional job. A professional job with me buying the paint would have cost me 2k. That is all labor. Of course if they supplied the paint it would have been over 3k cuz they would have jacked up the price of the paint. So even though from start to finish this project is going to take 3 weeks, including the weekends...it has been so well worth it. My bike will look fantastic. I have a VStar 1100 and it was the silver with dark silver color. 2007 is the year. I have done massive customizing of it and will post my before and final photos for all to see. Next task is finding either a helmet to match or I might have to paint mine since I have over half of the 2nd quart of paint left. Then I have black saddlebags with little chrome buttons and thinking about painting those the paint color. They are only about 1/2inch in diameter and I have yet to find a sanding item that is the same size. Like the size of a pencil eraser. I am discovering an item like that doesn't exist. Might be a good invention. The pencil sander or maybe a bit for a drill that is rounded like that for sanding. Anyway...I am going to sand away.

[kenikh]

Originally Posted by jcunning

2. Wet sand with orbital and 4,000 grit pad. (This was a key step and took me some time to figure out).

Can you give me your thoughts on 4000 vs. 3000 grit? I am just getting ready to DA wetsand my car using 3M 3000 grit pads (no clear). I was skeptical about 3000 grit when recommended (I have used only 2400 in the past for final sand) and it always polished out great. I have always progressively polished using three separate cuts of 3M compound.

Just curious on your impressions.

[scottrx7tt]

i have always hand block sanded my vehicles. I use the 3M compounds. If you use the right buffing pads, you can stop wet sanding at 1500. Throw a wool pad on there with the compound, then switch to a foam pad, then use the 3M ultrafine polish, with a blue foam pad to remove the swirl marks. looks as smooth as glass. BTW you really need a nice buffer like a dewalt, the harbor freight buffers dont have enough speed, or amperage to do the job.

[rnln]

Do you mean the harbor freight one doesn't have enough high speed?

[962porsche]

there is alot i could say about color sanding and buffing . but you will have to wate untill i finish my book about refinishing . the only way to remove peal is to color sand . if the peal is so bad that you need to start using grits like 800 and 1000 first then do so and reclear the panel .you are removing to much of the top coat and leaving little to none for UV and other portection . when it comes to buffing NEVER buff at real high speeds . every company that make cutting componds i have ever come across recommends the buffers RPM to be about 1800 to 2200 . higher speeds do to many things to list at this time . just don't do it . you want to bare down lightly on the buffer and only work a 1 ft by 1 ft sq. at a time . when its shines then move on to the next 1 x1 sq. ft. spot . when it comes to glazes and polishes you want to work the buffer light and at even a slower speed . 1200 to 1500 rpm . in my shop we use Presta products . its body shop safe meaning that there are no oils waxes or silicones . if your picking a system its best to go with only one brand . try not to use SAY 3m's compound then mothers glaze then ??? how ever . stay with one brand . most brands have a system that each product complements the other making it easier for you to do the task at hand .