You guys think you've seen orange peel? Check this out (2005 Corvette)

[schpenxel]

So, long story short, this is all on my 2005 Corvette. I purchased it a few months ago with some damage on the passenger fender, door & rocker panel (obviously, it was cheap). Unfortunately the rocker panels are epoxied on to the frame on these cars in such a way that they are pretty much impossible to get off (the GM techs I've talked to literally saw them off as best they can then grind the rest off.. the epoxy GM uses is no joke)

I decided to give repairing it myself a shot by sectioning in an undamaged piece on the rocker panel that I found on the internet and then repairing the door/fender. I bought a section of a rocker panel off a wrecked car, a few different types of SMC/fiberglass repair materials and went to town. Overall, the repair wasn't so bad.. I primed it with Southern Polyurethanes epoxy primer, then basecoat/clear that GM uses today on the C7 corvettes. I figured at worst I'd screw something up and have to pay someone else to fix it, but, at best I could save a lot of money and learn a lot along the way.

All was well until I got to the clear coat. It orange peeled like CRAZY, worse than I had ever seen. I later figured out I had not thinned it enough, and someone had added an additional regulator at the compressor, so I was not getting enough air.

Here's what I started with, prior to any repairs:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_7827.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_7827.jpg.html)

And with the fender out of the way

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_7953.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_7953.jpg.html)

What'd you do last weekend? Oh just took an air grinder and chopped a piece off of my corvette..

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8340.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8340.jpg.html)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8343-1.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8343-1.jpg.html)

So here's what it looked like with the "new" piece sectioned in:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8437.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8437.jpg.html)

And with a light coat of primer on everything (I later fixed the gap at the bottom of the door so ignore that)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8463.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8463.jpg.html)

Everything scuffed and ready to paint. The idea here is to put a good coat of basecoat over the repair areas where there was no paint at all, but to only give a light mist of basecoat over the rest of the area. This is to try to blend the colors of the old/new paint. Since this is black, it wasn't very hard to blend, but can be much trickier when dealing with metallics. Then you put a full coat of clear on the whole area

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8784.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8784.jpg.html)

After basecoat (at this point I'm feeling pretty good about it..)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8802.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8802.jpg.html)

And after clear.. uh oh, orange peel!!

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8806.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8806.jpg.html)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8807.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8807.jpg.html)

At this point I knew I had to either sand it all back off and start over, or sand off the orange peel. I had a good 3 coats of clear on it, so I decided to try sanding it off first since I thought I could do it without breaking through to the basecoat.

I ordered a pack of Mirka Abralon 1000 & 2000. Unfortunately, these lasted about 10 seconds before they clogged up so bad that they were useless

Next up I ordered a pack of Trizact 1500 and 3000. While not cheap, these did much better. I still went through probably 5 or 6 of each grit before getting all the orange peel out. Here's a before/after comparison where I was mostly done with the door but hadn't touched the fender:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8823.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8823.jpg.html)

Here's a close up of the "after"

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8822.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8822.jpg.html)

Before:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8821.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8821.jpg.html)

After:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8820.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8820.jpg.html)

You get the idea.

Oh, and my english bulldog of course

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8840.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8840.jpg.html)

Here I've started buffing the top, but the bottom is just sanded with Trizact 3000. This was buffed with a rotary, 3M wool pad + Chemical guys V32 or V34 (can't remember, I ran out of one or the other halfway through)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8843.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8843.jpg.html)

And the whole panel buffed out (one pass, same as above)

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8844.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8844.jpg.html)

Here's a little section I had left taped to help me not screw up the edges.. so, the left side is buffed, right side is sanded/unbuffed. It's pretty amazing to me the difference a bit of wool and buffing compound makes

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8849.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8849.jpg.html)


And finally, here's the whole thing after sanding/buffing:

http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k582/caparris/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8854.jpg (http://s1117.photobucket.com/user/caparris/media/2005%20Corvette/IMG_8854.jpg.html)

Overall I'd call this a pretty good outcome. Soon I need to do at least a small amount of buffing on the whole car, as it's covered in small scratches and other crud that's accumulated over the last few years. The paint on the rest of the car has a bit of a hazy look to it, while the new paint is very clear. I buffed a few test spots and it didn't take a lot to make the old paint look like new, I just need to find the time to do the whole car.

The repair isn't perfect though to be honest. I found a few small spots (edges mainly) where I sanded through, so I'm going to have to somehow fix those. I'm almost thinking of trying one of those paint scratch fixer pen things, then sanding everything smooth by hand after it dries.

For now though I'm happy with the results given what I had to work with. I've never painted a car before (and hardly ever painted at all) and had never used a rotary buffer before.. and had never worked with fiberglass before, so overall I can't complain and am happy with the outcome. The previous owner was quoted roughly $5K for fixing this damage at a dealership, and I have maybe $500 in the whole thing (including the rotary buffer and a lot of other tools that I get to keep)

As far as products used--I think the Mirka Abralon discs would probably be good for working on factory clear coats where you really want to make sure you don't take too much off, but are definitely not strong enough for something like this. 3M's Trizact discs were more aggressive and lasted a lot longer, but would probably be too much for a factory clear (at least the 1500's would be, the 3000's would probably be fine if used sparingly). In hingdsight I probably would have used 3M's purple 1000 grit discs to start with, then gone to 1500/3000. I spent so long sanding with the 1500's that I started getting careless and that's when I went through an edge or two. I think this would have been avoided if I had something that would have cut a bit faster

Anyways--I thought you guys might find this interesting.

[Tato]

I found it very interesting, you did a very good work, and the documentation looks good. Thanks for sharing your work and opinions on all those products, keep going.

Kind Regards.

[RobertJ34]

very interesting, I love reading/seeing stuff like this. Awesome job on that orange peel! Every try using the CarPro Denim Pads before?

[schpenxel]

very interesting, I love reading/seeing stuff like this. Awesome job on that orange peel! Every try using the CarPro Denim Pads before?

I ordered a pair of those but unfortunately they weren't on amazon prime and I didn't want to pay $20 extra for expedited shipping, so they won't be here until tomorrow. I have a few spots that still need a little work, mostly near some of the edges that I didn't want to go too crazy on, so I'll be able to give them a try on those spots

The reviews look pretty positive on them, so I am hopeful they'll make quick work of the remaining few spots I have to work on

[schpenxel]

I found it very interesting, you did a very good work, and the documentation looks good. Thanks for sharing your work and opinions on all those products, keep going.

Kind Regards.

Thanks--will do. I'm going to give the carpro denim pads a try on the few spots I have left

[allenk4]

The CarPro Denim pads were effective on my OEM GM OP

I have also wet sanded areas on the same vehicle. The reflection from the sanded sections is sharper than the Denim sections.

The Denim pads are much less scary though.

Still need to tape every edge and all high spots. The 1/8" vinyl tape from 3m is great for this application.

[Niblick]

fantastic work bud, and a great write up. really enjoyed reading this one.
one thing those mirka pads are really useful for are door handle wells, beyond that they're a bit useless lol

[schpenxel]

The CarPro Denim pads were effective on my OEM GM OP

I have also wet sanded areas on the same vehicle. The reflection from the sanded sections is sharper than the Denim sections.

The Denim pads are much less scary though.

Still need to tape every edge and all high spots. The 1/8" vinyl tape from 3m is great for this application.

Yeah, I really should have bought some thin tape, such as the 1/8" vinyl. I think the smallest I had was 1", which made it pretty tough to really protect the edges. Ah well, live and learn...

I'll give the Denim pads a try once on a few of the spots I have left once they come in (should be here today at some point)

[schpenxel]

fantastic work bud, and a great write up. really enjoyed reading this one.
one thing those mirka pads are really useful for are door handle wells, beyond that they're a bit useless lol

lol, thanks--I guess most of the things I read about them had good things to say, but it was also mostly people sanding over factory clear coat or taking out minor issues, not grinding through an absurd amount of orange peel.

Funny thing is today I was looking at the car and there are several panels with the original GM paint that have more orange peel than the area I painted/sanded. Good going GM..

[Dr_Pain]

What HVLP gun and tip did you use to shoot the basecoat and clear? You did an awesome job! Thanks for sharing

[schpenxel]

What HVLP gun and tip did you use to shoot the basecoat and clear? You did an awesome job! Thanks for sharing

I used a cheapo HVLP I found on amazon, this one: Tool Force A-C1 50 PSI 2-in-1 HVLP Spray Gun - Hvlp Sprayers - Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EWYASM/ref=wms_ohs_product_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

I used a 1.4mm tip on the primer & first coat of base, then remembered I had a 2.0mm so I switched to that for the clear.

I may have used the 2.0mm on the second coat of basecoat too, I can't quite remember

In the end I did not reduce the clear coat enough + did not have enough atomizing air, which were what caused the orange peel to be so bad. A week or two prior to painting the car I had painted a test panel and it came out really good. I didn't realize that adding another 25 feet of air hose to the setup I had used to paint the test panel basically choked off my air supply and caused me to not have enough air to atomize the paint properly. Ah well, live and learn.

The clear coat was supposed to have been "pre-reduced", which I should have realized wasn't going to be enough when it came out like syrup, lol

[allenk4]

Yeah, I really should have bought some thin tape, such as the 1/8" vinyl. I think the smallest I had was 1", which made it pretty tough to really protect the edges. Ah well, live and learn...

I'll give the Denim pads a try once on a few of the spots I have left once they come in (should be here today at some point)

If you don't have thin tape, you just have to tape the edge twice.

Not a big deal. I used the same piece of tape, just turn it upside down so you have a clan edge that has not been buffed against. Unless the vehicle has something like Wolfgang Deep Gloss Paint Sealant on it, the tape should still stick fine.


Also, trying to use the 5.3" pads on more contoured areas will not give the results you are looking for. I highly suggest the 3" denim pads for these spots.

[allenk4]

I used Denim with M105 on my FLEX 3401.

It definitely cuts, but nowhere near the 200 grit it is supposed to on a rotary.

I ended up doing a total of 8-10 passes per section.

- 2 passes

- Clean the pad

- Add Product

[schpenxel]

If you don't have thin tape, you just have to tape the edge twice.

Not a big deal. I used the same piece of tape, just turn it upside down so you have a clan edge that has not been buffed against. Unless the vehicle has something like Wolfgang Deep Gloss Paint Sealant on it, the tape should still stick fine.


Also, trying to use the 5.3" pads on more contoured areas will not give the results you are looking for. I highly suggest the 3" denim pads for these spots.

Gotcha--I need to order a smaller backing plate so I can try some of the smaller pads. Obviously I'll give it a shot with what I have first to see if it works well enough to finish off this project

[allenk4]

You definitely want to make sure your BP goes as close to the edge of the Denim pad as possible.

If it does not, you will have areas of OP adjacent to trim, etc, that will stand out.