Boston!

Hi all! It's been a hell of a winter and my friends and I are all VERY tired of body work. I'll put together an overview post later to share with you all and some pics.

Right now, the car is painted black following the guidelines in Lars' paper (that guy knows everything!), and looks pretty decent. But there is orange peel all over the car, and a few drips in the clear. I sanded out the drips, which was a lot of work but was expected. But sanding out the orange peel is proving to be an incredible amount of work! If we use 1500 grit we can wet sand and wet sand and just barely make a dent - it's a little easier with 1000 grit. But then buffing it back to glossy just isn't happening. I buffed one spot with rubbing compound, then polishing compoung (Turtle Wax brand) with my electric buffer for about 5-7 minutes and I can still see the sanding marks plain as day, which makes for a very dull finish. Is it supposed to be this much work, or am I doing something wrong? And how wet is the buffer supposed to be when using rubbing compound? The directions say damp, and to use a foam rubber pad... is there supposed to be a cloth sock on the buffer at all?

Just checking with you pros out there before I spend more weekends that I should be driving - it even has plates now!

LittleJake

I dont know much about painting cars but I have an idea or rather a question. Is the orange peel in the base coat? You said you have sanded drips out of the clear, if you cleared over the orange peel in the base coat you would have to sand through the clear to get to the orange in the base.

I might have misunderstood your post and again I am no paint guy. Im sure there will be someone right along soon to help you out and answer your question. You might want to PM Bondoboy, he seems to know a lot about paint.

Good luck!

vetteaddic

Did you go 1000 to 1500 and use a sqeegee to check your progress on the orangepeel ,if you went back to 1000 you have to use 1500 next

hwcoop

If the orange peel is really bad you may want to wetsand the car with 400-600, and respray 2 more clear coats.
If that is not an option, like the previous post said you will need to wetsand it using progressivly finer grits...1000,1500,2000
How many coats of clear are on it?.

Lessons I learned while spraying are;
Make sure the product is properly mixed using a paint measuring cup
Make sure you have an air pressure gauge at the gun so you can adjust to proper pressure., a few pounds off can cause your orange peel
Make sure the car and booth you are spraying in are absolutly clean
I know its a Mustang, but here is a paintjob I did that shows some of the steps
http://www.piczo.com/CoopersGarage?g=5609519&cr=4

Here is a body shop forum that may help
http://www.autobodystore.com/forum/index.php

MIKER

I got some good tips in the Car Car Discussion section here on the Corvette Forum.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10

I'm in the home stretch of my do-it-yourself paint job. See: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1419864

Another good place to ask questions is at autobody101.com in the Color Sanding, Buffing, Polishing, etc. section. http://autobody101.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=7

Being the rookie painter that I am, I ended up with some orange peel, some pin holes and some runs but was able to sand out 90% of the defects using 1500 and then 2000 grit paper.
It takes a very firm sanding block to get the orange peel out. A foam pad will follow the contours of the peel instead of knocking off the high points.
There are a lot of right ways and wrong ways and opinions on how to get the job done. Do some research and you will finally start making progress.

Enjoy.

CF6873

The above posts are correct in that if you sand with 1000 you will have to sand again with 1500 as a minimum and possibly even 2000 before buffing a black car. What kind of buffer are you using? You should be using a regular rotating buffer that does not osilate at a speed of 1700-1800 rpms. Also a wool pad will buff faster than a foam pad. What kind of compound are you using? Do not use products that contain heavy grit or you will introduce more scratches and get a dull finish like you described. Use products designed for clearcoat. I like 3M products Perfect it 3000. I use the 6063 compound with pad # 5719 followed with 6065 swirl remover with a gray foam pad for a deep swirl free finish. If you don't have at least 3 coats of clear you will have a good chance of sanding through the clear while trying to remove the peel. The post that mentioned peel in the base coat is misinformed. If you have peel in the base and bury it with clear and sand the clear smooth you will not see the base peel. Although getting a substantial amount of peel in basecoat is hard to do. Do not sand or buff the sharp edges on your car or you will see the primer before you know what happened. Good Luck

crazywelder

Not being able to see exactly what you have makes advice difficult, but this is the procedure I use all of the time even on OEM and older paint.

Use a semi soft block for all of the wet sanding, make sure you have enough clear on the car before you do anything. You can use 1000 in the tough places and graduate to 1500, but since you have black, you need to do a complete final sand with 2000.

You didn't mention what kind of buffer you have, but if you want a show finish with no minimal marks for a first timer you need an orbital machine like the Porter Cable. A circular buffer will work, but it will leave swirl marks.

You should use 3 or more different grits of polish, starting with a heavier grit and working to the finest until the surface is acceptable to you. I use a mix of Meguiars and 3M products but these should do the trick for you. Meguiars Medium Cut Cleaner, followed by Fine Cut Cleaner, followed by Mirror Glaze, followed by Swirl Remover or 3M Final Glaze. On black you might do the last step 4 or 5 times to get rid of all of the marks.

LFZ

Get a finishing DA sander...put 1200 on it, and go...don't hold it one spot, just enough to rough it all up. Then buff with the white compound on a foam pad, then buff it with pink compound on a cloth pad, then polish with 3M grey polishing compound on cloth.

427basketcase

Don't feel alone, I just went through the same thing. There is a lot of good advice posted here. Just go slow, I used 1200 and then 2000 on a dark blue, then 3M perfect it II cutting compound to remove the sanding scratches, then swirl remover, hand glaze and Adams butter wax. The results were better than expected but yes it took a long time.
One helpful hint is to use blue masking tape and cover all of the high points before buffing, then remove it for the final buff. And did I say GO SLOW it takes time for a good job, and if you have fingerprints left when you're done you didn't sand enough.

MIKER

neoh77

This is why body work is an art and less of a science at times!

One thing that always messes me up is the patience part of the equation...my biggest downfall and how I solved it:

Wet sand with 1000 grit paper in one direction more or less. Wet sand with 1500 in a perpendicular direction. Wet sand in another direction with 2000 grit. The reason I do this is so you can see when you have sanded out the scratches from the previous grit. It just makes it a little easier to see what you are doing. You must get all of the previous grits scratches out or it'll look awful.

-Wool pad with rubbing compound.
-Foam with polishing (I use an old product called black ebony, no longer made but 3M perfect it II is better anyhow)
-Hand apply pure caranuba on microfiber cloth.

Remember...the color coat/clear coat paint is very hard compared to the sandable primer stuff so it does take a lot of work.

-Matt

p.s. I'm a total novice, but practicing all the time on junk parts!

FKING1

Orange Peel nearly always is in the clear coat. Need to wet sand with 1500/2000, then buff with the compound body shops use. Forget the name. Recently had my 70 repainted and got this info from the shop.
Fred