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hey has anyone went directly from a final coat straight to polishing? after i wetsanded the crap outta the car i wound up doing a final thinner coat of paint because i didnt like how many small scratches were left over, and i have very little time to work on the car... im not really TOO concerned about orange peel, i just want this done already lol





I did. Some areas I lightly hit with 2000 grit paper then polished, but most of it I just hit with polish. I’m ok with orange peel too. Heck, if a $40,000 Mercedes can have orange peel, then by God, so can my $2000 bug! I painted the top with Black Brightside. Originally the bottom half was painted with Rustoleum Regal Red and then Brightside Fire Red. Both reds were a little too much in the orange range for me so I switched to Pettit Burgundy Eastpoxy which offered a deeper red. I didn’t have any adhesion problems either. I just followed what the manufacturer recommended. (“For Painted Surfaces: If the old paint is in good, sound condition, sand it thoroughly smooth…; solvent clean to remove residue, then proceed with the first coat of Easypoxy.”)

The first four coats were diluted 10% with mineral spirits from Fine Paints of Europe (a concentrated formula; I believe it’s similar to Brightside thinner.) The initial coats were also painted with just a foam brush.

After smoothing down and preparing the surface for the final coats, I used the decades old technique shown by Stephen Hull in his coach painting site. I determined that coach paint is applied in thicker layers than we’re use to. Stephen mentions loading the brush by dipping it an inch into the paint. If it’s a 3” or 4” brush, that’s a LOT of paint! I also figured coach paint must have a slower drying time then our paints. It’s worked over a lot more we would do. I was able to slow down the drying time by diluting with mineral spirits (5%) and with FRESH Penetrol (30% for the Brightside and 40% with the Pettit.) Following Stephen’s instructions, I dipped my brush an inch into the paint. I covered a panel by painting left to right, then up and down, then left to right and then up and down again. What I like about this technique is that it spreads the material more evenly than a roller would (IMHO.) What I don’t like is that you wind up with fine brush streaks. Now brush marks are ok on furniture or boats, but seeing it on cars is just freaky. To be honest, I’d rather have orange peel…that I’m use to. Since I didn’t want the brush lines, I did a “reverse” tipping by using a clean roller. After the 2nd up/down application with a brush, I did an up/down application with the roller; I first pushed down a little harder then usual, to “squish” any remaining brush lines. I then rollered with increasingly lighter pressure to eliminate bubbles. If a small section still had bubbles, I’d lightly roller just that section.

I was also fortunate enough to have colder than normal weather (low 50s) when I painted. That helped slow down the drying time considerably. The thick application, slowed drying time and reverse tipping left me with a smooth surface and a HUGE amount of gloss. The orange peel was no more and even LESS than what I’ve seen on spray painted production cars. In some sections it was non-existent. I had a few dust bunnies. I just hit them with rubbing and polishing compound. Some areas also had a sand paper –like surface, but a light touch with 2000 grit, then rubbing compound and polish took care of this. I was happy with the results. I didn’t go the glass-smooth/ Porter-Cable polished route. I had neither the time nor the money to do so. As one poster put it, “I just want to be able to show off my car with pride at Wal-Mart.” In fact, most of my equipment was supplied by Wal-mart: Brushes, polishes, Coleman polisher, plastic cups to hold paint mixtures and vinyl gloves. The really beautiful thing about this technique is that after each paint application, you just THROW YER EQUIPMENT AWAY! What I didn’t throw away is hundreds and even thousands of dollars a paint shop would’ve charged me to apply their “REAL” paint job. Thanks to all you guys for making this possible!

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