Quote:

If you have orange peel in the paint that you don't want once it's polished then keep wetsanding until it's all gone.

Once you have finished painting then don't worry about finding the cause of the orange peel unless you plan on painting another car. My guess of the cause though would be not enough thinning.




I may or may not attempt another car in the future - but I still need help with this one because I've only done 3 out of 10 panels so far. I took a cautious approach to this because I was still slightly skeptical about rollering a whole vehicle, so I started out doing a comparison - I rollered my tailgate and sprayed my hood, convinced that the spraying would yield better and easier results. How I wish I would've done the opposite! Oh well, I'm learning as I go.

I'm in the middle of doing the roof now, and I will definitely be rollering the rest of the truck entirely. I tried going a little thinner with the mix this time, and now I'm pretty sure that didn't cause my slight orange peel, because it began to run/sag on the roof sides as I applied it. I'm beginning to think maybe I nitpicked a little on the tailgate finish because what I'm seeing and calling "orange peel" isn't as bad as the word implied. I've seen factory finishes with a similar amount in dark colors. I probably could have wetsanded it away with a little more patience. You can see slight roller-strokes in one spot though (if you know to look) and that does bother me a little.

One quick observation for anyone else trying this for the first time - I'm on the 4th coat for the roof and I noticed I seem to be getting smoother results from sanding in a direction perpendicular to the direction I'm rolling (i.e. sanding north to south, painting east to west). It seems like such a simple thing, but I don't know if anyone else mentioned or tried that yet. At first I was worried I'd end up with a checkerboard effect, but that's not the case.

Thanks for all the great tips Aussie Driver, you can bet I'll be back for more!