Hello I have been lurking and looking at the thread and the method for a few years. Thanks for all the contributors that share the info, I now have an 86 MR2 that is covered with 6 coats of Rustoleum Sun Rise Red.



The car looked good. There are still a couple of areas that need more coverage over the darker shade primer color. And I still have to wait a while for the paint to harden before the last wetsanding and polishing step.

I am the first one to admit that I made mistakes and some area looked really bad plus a lot of orange peel of different levels. And this is what I found.

I found that if you have the mixture of paint and thinner close. The paint will have enough time to level out.

The amount of paint on the roller ..... for me seems to have some effect. I think the ideal situation is to have the whole panel drying together after the paint completely saturated. If it does not run, leave it. If there is some unevenness, too much paint from end of roller, go over with a pretty dry roller and just run it slowly over the the area to smooth it out. Again keeping the whole area as one.

The problem is some areas got painted first and is drying faster. I found that if I had to fix a run, to run the roller over, not having enough paint on the surface or roller, the surface will dry to have sever small orange peel.


Now it's funny to look at the runs. There is no orange peel in the run. ?????

Now I think too much paint on the roller/surface does not give more orange peel than not enough paint.



The upper part, I went over with a very wet roller thus smoother. But the part not went over with a wet roller is rougher.

--> laying down too thin a coat can lead to orange peel.
(anytime when the paint is drying too fast)

What is your experience?