Denim and compound too slow... Next step up??

[shadwell]

Hi mike,
Have been working to reduce the orange peel on
My 2015 c class, polar white, single stage...

Thus far using car pro denim pads, rotary (2.5 - 3 speed), Concours precision v82 compound (similar but a little more aggressive than scholl s3gold...

Whilst it's working and is finishing down very well and safely, the cut rate is still very slow...
Rear qtr panel 3hrs... Single rear door 6hrs..

In this instance would you continue or step up in aggressiveness...
If an increase, then what pads would you suggest... Machine damp sand 2500 or more... And if so rotary or DA (ie is there a big risk step up with traditional sanding pads vs denim which would make DA preferable or would that just slow it down again....

Means the car will take 2 months of one day a alweekend to get through...

Thanks for your time.

[shadwell]

Just a quick update..

1./ it seems judging by zero reposnses very few take on this sort of task.. and as you progress through the job you understand why.. its bloody hard work...

2./ after having done the test panel (rr qtr) and then a rear door using essentially Scholl S2 with the denim I have found that whilst it cuts, the DAT breaks down so quickly that it takes a long time to make progress on harder paints...
As such switching up tp something like Megs M101 was my plan.. finding M101 in SEQ (South East Queensland) was a bugger, M105 was available but didn't want the dusting.
So I called the local prestige body repair shop to see what they use.. they recommend an aussie made product from a company I hadn't heard of (Juice polishes..) I'll say nothting more than i was able to get a product very similar to M101.. and excuse the company mention but the key point here is the improvement in cut rate with the denim pads... i now ran 2 passes SMAT then 2 passes DAT with the denim, then DAT with a heavy cut scholl yellow pad.. to clean up the small amount of marking now left behind...
This latter point is the only negative to the change in compound... previously there was no swirl marks at all during the cut.. now there was a few... perhaps 15 across the whole door.. (mercedes c class door with concave and convex profile and 2 edges across the panel is a PITA to work evenly across.. ).... these were removed with the yellow foam pads and the Scholl s2 on a rotary..

The finsihing down process i have used is then Scholl blue spider with S20 (DA speed 5), then black finishing pad with car pro reflect rotary (speed 2).....

Through this I have removed 90 percent of the orange peel in terms of depth.. purposely being cautious to leave as much paint as possible whilst achieving an acceptable finish.... I'll get some decent pics with before and after.. the I phone pics are poo..

Oh and my confidence with the rotary has grown massively... sometimes you just have to dive in and learn hands on..

[Zubair]

Just thinking out loud...Have you tried Menzerna SHC300?

[haris300]

Thanks for updating with your experience. I always found that I needed to go over my work sections multiple times with the denim pads to really reduce the orange peel on some paints. I never considered using a SMAT polish with the denim pads. It makes sense that the DAT products could be breaking down quickly making it difficult to level the texturing in one go.

[Calendyr]

White paint is very hard because they use Titanium as a color base. Have you thought about using wet sanding instead of using a denim pad? The usual process is 1500 grit followed by 2000 then 3000. If you want to be extra careful you could start with the higher grit size 2000 or 2500 and see how fast it goes compared to using the denim pad.

Orange peel removal is a long process, no matter how you go about it. Denim pads are the safest way to do it but also the slowest. Do you know how thick your paint is?

[shadwell]

Thought about it but had the scholl at hand and I would have had to have waited a week to grab another Menzerna compound ...
Getting there now.... The gumming of the denim and the swirls from the SMAT and pad edge are the remaining annoyance... But the flat hard oads mean you have to angle the pads on the radius of the panels and that exposes the pad edge to the paint...
Deffo considering getting some 2000 sandpaper and doing the detail areas with it...

[shadwell]

No idea re paint thickness... As this process is so very slow and I check the condition after every pass I am removing 90% of the crest of the peel... It's bugger all... Knowing my luck some clown will smack into me a week after I'm done anyway..... ��

[parttimer]

I know what you are going through. I did this last year. Key points, a rotary is a time saver, I tried with a Flex, yes, it's possible, just much slower. Also I tried Menz 300, 400, M105 and Car-Pro fixer. Menz 300 cut very well, but the haze was incredible. M105 dusted, yes, like crazy, but I accepted it because it cut almost as well as 300/400 but left little haze compared to my other choices. You can check out this thread to see my process. I went as far as showing how you can see the leveling effect.

Peeling the orange, black Chrysler 300

[D Hull]

I have a 2015 Mk7 Golf GtI Volkswagen in Pure White with heavy factory orange peel. After reading numerous forum post over the past 3-4 months I found a post that suggested to reduce the appearance of the orange peel to an acceptable level instead of totally flattening the paint in order to save as much clear coat as possible. I used my Flex 3401 with the Carpro Velvet Pads and Scholls 02 Orange. One door panel was in the range of 2hours to complete and it was a reduction not an elimination of orange peel. It finished down perfectly and I will follow up with Essence then CQuartz. I choose this method after taking a paint reading from a test spot from inside the door jam with my high-line meter. 1) paint reading of 4.5mil, 2) 1500g sand, 3) 3000g sand, 4) Carpro fixer polish, 5) paint reading 3.3mil for a true flat mirror finish. Exterior door panel reading of 5.9 reduced to 5.1 with Velvet Pads.

[Mike Phillips]

For what it's worth...

My theory is that an older style compound, the kind where you can actually feel the grit in the formula, would work better with denim pads to knock down orange peel than all the modern compounds that pretty much feel like Jergans Hand Lotion. But I've never done any testing.


For me, if I wanted to knock down some orange peel on a factory thin finish then I would use 3M Trizact #3000 or #5000 with a hard backing plate and NO foam interface between the sanding disc and the backing plate.

If you go with the #3000 first then just buzz over the panels for a 4-5 passes and then do some clean-up with the #5000 and the buff out will be fast and easy and my guess is this will get you in the zone you want to be in.