Can you polish out a urethane clear coat?

[Rot 911]

Took my hood off for some at home painting. Used two part color-clear coat. The clear coat unfortunately has some orange peel. Can you rub this out by wet sanding? If so would you recommend starting with 400 or 800 grit and moving up? Thanks.

Kurt V
72 911E

[Jim T]

You could wet sand it, but you really need to know what you are doing.
400 seems way too harsh, even 800 seems a little harsh.
After wet sanding, the car will look terrible, it takes a lot of power buffing with various levels of polishers to bring the shine back.
Not for the faint of heart.

[Jerry Madderra]

Kurt, a great place I found for these kind of questions is www.autobody.com. the bbs has lots of answers already there or ask your own . They are very helpful

[Rot 911]

Jim, I've polished out a lot of lacquer paint jobs so I know the process, just not sure if it will work on urethane. Actually wish I would have just bought some lacquer paint. Jerry, tried the link and it didn't work.

Kurt V
72 mgb

[Jim T]

I think any automotive paint that is fully dried and cured can be color sanded. Doesn't need to be lacquer, although it is probably most common on lacquer because of the quick dry time.

I had my urethane painted car professionally color sanded around 6 years ago (to get out some imperfections left over from painting), and it came out great.

[Oliver911]

I recently polished the finish on my car. The results are outstanding if you follow these steps. 1. Wetsand the car using 1200 grit for fairly bad orange peel, then move to 1500. If the orangle peel is not horrible go straight to the 1500. ONLY use 3M sandpaper as it is in the american grit system. European grits are much coarser, and you might not always know when you are using it. Also, get yourself a soft foam pad for wetsanding. 2) Buy Farecla G3, G10, and an applicator kit. This brand of compound is superior to 3M, it is slightly more expensive, but well worth it. You can buy it at william wolf company mail order. This is one of the 4 stores in the U.S. that actually sells the stuff, so don't waste your time driving around looking for it like i did. They have an internet site, i don't recall what it is at the moment. 3. Use a high speed buffer with their applicator kit and use G3 then G10. Make sure they send you instructions with the products. If you are not familiar with using a high speed orbital, i would either pay someone or practice on something. Good Luck, the results are outstanding.

[Boss]

You didn't mention anything about the finish on the rest of the car which presumably you are wanting to match.

In my experience with urethane, you will not be able to polish the paint back to the same gloss as the finish straight from the gun. Close, but not quite. This may or may not even be an issue for you.

------------------
Brian Boss
Dallas, Tx
'87 911
'72 911T

[Jerry Madderra]

Sorry for the goof, the correct address is www.autobodystore.com jerry

[RoninLB]

I love black, done it a few times. I paint outside. I don't care if wind is 30mph. It's stunning when it's finished. Snap- on driver stops [who I don't know] to tell me it's the straightest black car he has ever seen. The body shop guys want to know how I made it shine without any orange peel. I tell them I use pure air from a SCUBA tank. They say "Oh, it makes sense". This is my way of faking the whole thing. Dump your 1st coat on and clean up imperfections with 400 w/d. If a section needs another coat do the whole fender or hood, dont blend a small section. When you have a clean base of clear,wet sanded with 400 w/d do a 2nd thin coat at about 60psi. using a reducer mix that you used for your base coat of clear. At this point use 1200 w/d to clean up dust,etc. finally do a final coat with a lot of reducer 50 or 60% at 90-100psi. practice this to develop a technique,to figure gun settings, etc. All the last coat is doing is filling scratches from 1200 w/d. High pressure makes coat tacky immediatly so no dust can settle inside your final coat. Any dust that settles on top of this super thin final coat is easily polished out with Meguiar's #5,then use #9 Use only Meguiar's foam pad, never use wool pads. Use only chamois to wash and dry or you will be slowley scratching it with terry or cotton. Urethane takes about 1 year to finish it' cure. Start working on thin final coat 4hrs after shooting. don't polish or wax ,if you can, for 1 year. bird ____ ,etc get off quickly,soak paper towel, lay on bird ____,etc for hours,if necessary, to soften it. When its finished you will look like you know what you're doing. When they can't figure out how you did it they will ask you. Only tell them "MAGIC".
Don't forget to keep in toutch....Ron........roninlb@optonline.net

[911pcars]

Here are some more variables for detailing your paint:

Clear coats on top of color coats change the "look" of the paint compared to paint jobs without clear coats. Therefore, you must be careful not to remove the clear coat during color sanding or buffing. How do you know? Each coat of paint has a certain thickness. Factory paint is pretty consistent. Custom paint is not. If you're a painter, you can measure the thickness of with a gauge after the layer dries (there are several types on the market). Knowing this thickness, you can buff or color sand using a gauge to track your progress. If you don't know the thickness, proceed with caution and remove the minimum amount, but still, without knowing, you're sanding/buffing blind.

Sherwood Lee
http://members.rennlist.org/911pcars