How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

I have painted my cowl using Ultracoat paint. Unfortunatly I have been a victim of orange peeling. I have found many posts about how to avoid it however none about how to remove it now that it has occured. Can anyone help me in outlining how to get rid of the orange peeling of the paint. Thanks for the help...

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Wet sand your cowl with 400 grit paper until it's smooth, then either rub it out if it's thick enough, or re-shoot the paint. I've had excellent results draining a can of ultracote into a container and spraying it with an airbrush.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

What Devo said and if it looks like the paint is thick enough after sanding out the orange peel, switch to 600 then 1000, rub it out and polish.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

What does Rub it out mean? By Wet sanding you mean 400 Wet sand paper make it damp and go to town on it correct? I have never wet sanded before. Thanks for the reply's guys.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

To "wet sand" you use the black carborundum wet or dry sandpaper available at auto parts and hardware stores. Use plenty of water when sanding to keep the paper from clogging.
To "rub out" means to use red, course, or white, fine, polishing compound found at auto parts stores. If you go through all the grits of sandpaper mentioned above use a dab of white on a soft cloth and rub it in a circular pattern to finely polish the paint out. Finish it out with a coat of wax.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Believe it or not wet sanding may seem messy but in end there is no dust and wet sanding is quicker than dry because the paper does not become clogged. Keep it real wet, in fact let water drip over the part if you can. I do all my parts at the kitchen sink. I've convinced my wife that its a lot less mess there than doing it dry down in the cellar.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Ballistic; I deal with the orange peel problem on automobiles almost on a daily basis. The 400 grit is much too coarse. You will likely sand off too much paint with it. When color sanding cars, we start out with 1500 wet and finish up with 2000 wet. Compounding to a gloss is very easy after the 2000........RS

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

There you go, words from a man that knows his biddnes.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

welllllll I don't know about that Tom. I used to work for a company doing industial spray painting and we didn't have to deal with alot of orange peel" CUASE WE GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME":D. He's a pretty smart fella learning from all those mistakes. Seriously, orange peeling is caused by applying the paint from tooo far away or having the wrong air pressure. ,It happens often when you're painting a car because you are often working in a tight space and the surface is so large. Just to mention a few of the problems. If you're working on a "small" item like a cowl you can mount it on a rotating surface When you begin to shoot your cowl do all the hard to get areas first. This may involve turning it upside down etc. When you have hit those areas place the cowl on your surface and shoot it, than turn it 90 degrees, shoot it again, turn it, etc until it is covered. Try to avoid going over lite spots. This causes runs. Instead try to be methodical and thorough the first time. Than after the paint dries get out you wetndry and sand off the orrange peel :D:D:D

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Thanks for all the Replys Guys. I will try out the Wet sanding paper and give it a whirl... I will try to post when it is finished. Thanks again If anyone has more ideas please let me know. Also Is 400-600 still the best or should I use the 1500-2000 It would seem that I am using paper with that grit sounds like it would take a week... Let me know.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Start with 1000 then 1500 and finish with 2000 (always wet). If you search "paint orange peel" into google you'll find some very useful tips.

Regards, Gian

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

I have had this problem many times using the matching paint such as 21st century paint but the fix is easy. and looks even better. After letting the part cure a day or two, I wet sand, breaking the surface with 600 then switching t 1000 grit (still wet) -a little dish detergent in the water helps. Once it is more or less even, rinse well then let it dry well ( I use my heat gun to dry it fast). Then spray a coat of clear over the part and voila.. perfect paint job. This way you dont have to remove as much of the base coat taking a chance of sanding too deeply and you will find that you don't have to get all of the orange peel off, just the majority of it. Wet sanding with fine grits takes a lot of time and you have to be very careful near any edges or raised areas as it will remove too much paint. Here is another trick. If you notice the orange peel while the color coat is still wet, shoot on a couple coats of clear first, then do the wet sanding. This sort of pre fills the low spots and makes sanding easier. For some reason the clear tends to go on less orange peel-ly then the color coats so it flows out and pref fills some of the low spots. I had a bad can of paint (21st century) that went on like sand! it was my last coat on a large plane and really messed up the cowl. I shot on the clear while it was still tacky, let it dry overnight and wet sanded the next day. One more coat of clear and it was perfect.. deep gloss, perfect finish.

RE: How to Sand out Orange Peeled Paint
 

Hi!
As been said earlier use 1500 to 2000 3M wet and dry paper and then polish the surface with 3M finess-it (1-2-3) polishing compound ...I use No 2 and 3 only. This is the professional metod...400 or 600 paper is way, way too coarse and you will never achive a mirror surface.
Done it on many pylonracers during the last 20 years.

Regards!
Jan K
Sweden