Started putting on the first coat of color and got some pretty bad orange peel. Might not have been reduced enough or temp wasn't right. It's a single stage acrylic urethane, so I wanted to know if I could keep going over it and sand it later, or if I should sand down and start over.
Orange peel - sand down or paint over?
- Thread starter jimothy
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
You don't have to sand it completely down - as in start over. But I'd sand it smooth. You should be able to do that without going back into the primer. Laying another coat over it certainly isn't going to make it any better.
But, laying a couple more coats on will help ensure the sanding doesn't get down to the primer. It's called color sanding, might be something on YouTube for visual help.
- Thread starter
- #4
Right, that was what I was thinking. Otherwise I'd have to sand out the current orange peel, repaint, and then probably re-sand at the end.
Do as you wish then. Not the sort of thing I do, though.
If you kept putting coat on top of coat you get material build up and that is no good either at some point. Just sand smooth with some 1500 w/d and reshoot. They use to make an additive to help with orange peel years ago. Maybe they still do. You might wanna check.
If the paint is sanded down THEN resprayed, won't it be orange peeled again?
Hopefully he'll get the conditions right this time - temperature, humidity, thick spray, whatever - and no orange peel for this coat.
thecrazygreek
A.K.A. TheCraftyGreek
paint it, sand it, buff it... Dont paint, then sand, then paint, then sand. Build up your paint, orange peel happens all the time, just make sure you have enough coats to be able to smooth it out, as someone mentioned.
Good Luck
Good Luck
Orange peel is as natural as it comes. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect for paint to go down everytime smooth as glass. I've been painting for over 20 years and only occasionally do I get perfect finish. Most painters will agree, the real quality comes from cutting and buffing AFTER the paint is dry. You can get all sorts of things in the paint, on the paint, or lumpy runs or orange peel, but how you treat it afterwords is what makes the final product.
Most finishes will say you can recoat within 24hrs without sanding (mechanical adhesion). It is important to atleast have two good coats of material in order to have enough to sand without going through.
Most finishes will say you can recoat within 24hrs without sanding (mechanical adhesion). It is important to atleast have two good coats of material in order to have enough to sand without going through.
I have found that using a higher temp reducer helps to reduce orange peel. It slows drying and gives the paint a longer time to level out.
This is the probably the best advice you can give a noob I think.
I remember the first classic car I shot myself, a '68 Chevelle about 24 years ago. I had spent a lot of time getting it perfectly straight and had spent a lot of money on good paint. Although I was determined to do it myself, I was terrified of shooting it. I used a paint booth at work over the weekend, and after I shot it I was devastated. It had runs and lots of orange peel also some dirt in it. When the painter came in on Monday, I asked him if there was anything I could do to save it. He laughed, seeing how disappointed I was. He told me that it didn't look too bad. For the next few evenings after work he showed me how to color sand and buff it. When we were done, it was beautiful, and looked like a mirror. Now I don't sweat the paint too much, because I know that I can easily fix just about anything that isn't perfect afterward.
Last edited:
^good advice and great pic! That's classic man.
Ed
Ed
cruiserbrett
GOLD Star
I will tell you this, if youve got orange peel and solvent pop no color sanding in the world will hide the solvent pop...
So, start by thinning the paint with a touch more reducer than called for by the mix ratio, and use a warmer temp reducer to get more solvent to flash after leaving the gun, before hitting the body... I do a stir stick test and the paint should run off the stick quickly in a stream for a sec or two, and be at a slow drip by 5 seconds. That seems to work for me. This almost always requires about 10% more reducer than recommended... Damn VOC regs.
What needle orifice are you using? this makes a difference in the final texture.
The other thing that I really cant stress enough is learn to manage the hose and gun for long periods of time. I found I started moving too fast once I got tired and the quality of the overlaps and quantity of paint suffers as you get more tired.
So, start by thinning the paint with a touch more reducer than called for by the mix ratio, and use a warmer temp reducer to get more solvent to flash after leaving the gun, before hitting the body... I do a stir stick test and the paint should run off the stick quickly in a stream for a sec or two, and be at a slow drip by 5 seconds. That seems to work for me. This almost always requires about 10% more reducer than recommended... Damn VOC regs.
What needle orifice are you using? this makes a difference in the final texture.
The other thing that I really cant stress enough is learn to manage the hose and gun for long periods of time. I found I started moving too fast once I got tired and the quality of the overlaps and quantity of paint suffers as you get more tired.
