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Brightside gurus, what am I doing wrong here? I thinned out the paint at roughly 10%. This was the first coat. Basicall I'm getting tons of orange peal...perhaps it was just way too think of a coat?

I also tried marq's trick of running a spirts soaked roller over it, but it didn't seem to help much





It is a bit hard to tell from the pics due to black color.. but I can see the 'reaction' that the paint has had on your car.

My first thought was to ask if you thoroughly wiped down that surface with mineral spirits and let it dry completely before painting.

What my eyes are telling me is that it isn't orange peel in the true sense of the word. It is more like the surface the paint went on to was repelling the paint or not allowing it to adhere properly. For example, if the surface had not been wiped down with mineral spirits, there might be remnants of wax or paint particles or maybe even road oil there.

If you did not begin with the thorugh wipe down with mineral spirits, you will have to let the current surface dry to the point where you can sand it back down to a smooth starting point again. When you go to put on your first layer the second time - do not cut it with thinner. Just paint it on as thin and smooth as you can. Don't go for visual coverage... just go to get a thin layer down - even if you can see through it to the subsurface. ( You can built upon that one good surface later - with the emphasis at this point being to have one good smooth base to start building upon ).

Ok... assuming that you did do a thorough wipe down originally, than I suspect the layer of paint that was applied was still too thick or layered on. The top surface of the paint coat dried quicker than the lower surface... basically trapping a dried layer on top of a liquidy layer. So as the top surface dried it would move unto itself causing the elephant skin type effect. Basically you have to follow the recipe noted above to get yourself back to square one and to take another run at it.

Marq

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