How to fix this very heavy orange peel

[GLHX]

Sprayed it a week ago. With a new devilbiss finishline 4
Psi at the wall was 100
Psi at the gun was 25
1.5 tip
Full fan and trigger
6" sprayed from the surface.

3 coats of clear

I'm afraid of burning through......or not having at least 2 miles left. I think this amount of peel is unusual. I don't have a clearcoat depth gauge
What I've used so far is is the 3m short throw da with trizact system starting at 1000, then going to 1500,3000,5000 3m polishing system.....white, black, blue with dewalt adjustable rpm buffer and foam pads.

How should I go about cleaning this up safely.
Gray scotch Brite and 3 more wet coats of clear?
Knock it down with 400 then 2 coats and a flow coat?
Flatten it some with 600 to 800 and 2 more coats of clear?
Or sand it the way it is until the peel is gone and buff it.....but will there be enough mils left for protection


Hood. Started with 1000
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Roof
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Bumpers are better
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Door half sanded
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Trunk
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[LS430FL]

looks like a humidity problem during painting?

[builthatch]

yeah that is a process problem or a component issue/failure. even if you did level it to the lowest points of the peel, i'd be worried about the durability of the clear. not because of thickness, but just generally. i would go back to square one with this one, check the variables to make sure it all jives and re-spray.

[GLHX]

What should I scuff this with.......I'm reclear ing the whole project......and I'm not happy about it at all. I burned through about 6 of the smaller parts. I have to respray them and reclear them. I'm starting over again

[solekeeper]

Coming from a painter, this seems to be "dry"

Take 1500, and sand the entire car with it. I say this because you need to rid the orange peel from the surface. If you just scuff the car with say scuff stuff, the peel will remain when you reshoot.

Shoot at a tad big higher pressure next time. Do you have any experience painting? I'd say black is pretty tough to clear correctly.

If you don't, I'd send it to a shop instead of wasting money/time. Unless this is something you truly want to DIY.

[schpenxel]

What should I scuff this with.......I'm reclear ing the whole project......and I'm not happy about it at all. I burned through about 6 of the smaller parts. I have to respray them and reclear them. I'm starting over again

Are you going to re-base it or just re spray the clear? You really need to get the orange peel out of what you have now first or you'll just be trying to cover it up, which isn't going to make things any easier.

It doesn't look like you had enough atomizing air to me. Also may want to thin it a little more depending on how much you reduced it last time. 100 to 25psi is a bigger drop than I would expect.. What kind of water/oil filters are you using and what size air hose? Sounds like a restriction to me (that's what happened to me). Best case, more air volume + increase the pressure + thin the paint a little more possible should help fix it. I'd still expect SOME orange peel that you can take out with wet sanding / buffing

I'd use 1000 grit on a DA first and see how that does with getting the orange peel out--what you have now may actually be salvageable. Take a look at my thread (link at the bottom of this post) and you'll see how bad mine was.

Depending on how thick/hard the clear is you may have to go even rougher than 1000. Personally I'd try to get all the orange peel out with 1000 on a DA (I use 3M's usually), then give it a good pass over with 1500, I used Trizact. Take it easy around edges/corners obviously. You may be better off taping them off until you have most of the car where you want it then going back and doing the rest by hand.

Then I'd spray 3 coats of clear, 20-30 minutes between coats. Turn your air up--paint a test panel or something first and go all the way through the process of sanding it, basecoat, clearcoat, wet sanding afterwards and then buffing to make sure your gun settings work. It's time consuming but better than doing the whole car over.

Just hope you don't sand through the clear and base and have to redo the base too if you can get away with not doing it..

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...-corvette.html

edit: after looking at it some more, it's hard to say if that's orange peel or dry spray from the pictures.. do you have another tip you can try? I used a 2.0mm on mine but had some issues when I tried using a 1.4mm with it just not putting out enough paint. Have you tried buffing (with wool pad / rotary) one small section to see how well it will (or won't) buff out? Also, if it really is dry spray, too much atomizing air will make things worse.. so that's why I think you should do some testing before repainting

Good luck

[HenkeL]

First make sure you have control of flow rate of your paint and atomizing air. Using smaller hole decreasis flow rate and to keep ratio you'll need to deacrease atomizing air. You can test on white surface first, the spray pattern should be homogen with no "rings" and round or elliptical depending on using pattern air. If using wrong ratio, either too large drops or dry mist will be the result. If you have access to a good scale put the paint bucket on it when testing. Measure how much is used in 1 min. This will help you keep control of the process.