Orange Peel Effect?

[mb911]

Orange Peel

How badly is orange peel effect seen amongst enthusiasts like you guys?

I liked my Mercedes finish until I saw a posting on one of the fan forums where people would complaining about the orange peel effect. First, they thought it was a certain plant's cars, but then we've noticed it's on all the cars.

It depends on the angle and certain areas seem a bit worst than others, but even guys that went to the lot said almost all the cars are like this. Plus months apart in production, so it must be the paint used or something causes it.

How badly do you guys hate orange peel effect? I know it *****, but should I hate my car now because of it? Ha-ha!!!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

This is just a personal opinion...

If I owned a true show car then orange peel wouldn't be acceptable because when it comes to a show car one of the MAJOR attributes of the car is the quality of the finish.

When it comes to a show car you can either buy one or build one. If you buy one then hopefully you've been a member of this forum and you know what to look for and can avoid purchasing a car that was not properly painted and then sanded and buffed or dicker on the price to make-up for the orange peel finish.

If you build a show car, then hopefully because you're reading this you'll know to work with your painter to let him know your expectations and then you can together create a plan that includes the painter spraying a few extra coats of clear onto th car and then having someone that knows what they're doing be in charge of the wet-sanding, cutting and polishing work so you don't have orange peel and you don't have swirls and burn-throughs.

I don't own a show car, I own a daily driver and it does have a new paint job but the paint job does have orange peel When I bought my truck i was more interested in function over forum, I wanted a full convertible and I wanted 3/4 ton running gear, not half-ton which is stock for 4x4 Blazers and Jimmy's.

So when I found a 1975 GMC Jimmy with 3/4 ton running gear that fit the criteria and that's the primary reason I bought this particular truck. It came with a 4-speed manual transmission so that was removed and replaced with a 700R4 Automatic transmission and the mated transfercase. To me that was a little project, switching the front and rear axles is doable but not desirable, so luckily I found one that someone else had already upgraded this area of the truck.

As for the orange peel?

At this time I would rather live with the orange peel and have the maximum thickness of clear paint on the red basecoat versus remove the orange peel and reduce the thickness of the clear layer. (It's clean and shiny, that's plenty good for a DD)

This is a daily driver, not a show car...

1975 GMC Jimmy 4x4 Full Convertible (Factory Original)
4" Pro Comp Suspension Lift
350 Cubic Inch Small Block Chevy - Soon to be a 454 Big Block
700R4 Transmission with shift kit
NP208 Transfercase
4:11 gears front and rear
8-Bolt 3/4 Ton Front & Rear Axles
4-Wheel Disc Brakes
Full Roll Bar out of a 1972 Blazer (Hardtop fits with no clearance issues)




Could we sand the orange peel off? You bet, not going to happen for now.


That's my take... when you buy a new car you kind of get whatever it has when it comes to the paint. If it's vitally important to you to own a specific make and model of a car and the car in question has orange peel then you can take the car to a body shop and pay to have the car re-painted and in so doing make sure the painter knows what you're looking for and be willing to pay for it.

At least if the car is new there shouldn't be any body work that needs to be done so you'll get out of paying for time, labor and materials for this aspect of a paint job.

[Murr1525]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Sometimes you just have to have the shiniest orange peel possible.....

[Jimmy Buffit]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Not long ago we did a complete detail on a black MB S63 AMG. This car's MSRP was $217,000. Owned by an NBA player, I complimented him by saying that it was the flattest finish and best paint I had ever worked on. His response? "It better be."

The finish really was impeccable. MUCH nicer than your run of the mill S Class sedan.
Just shows that the mfgs know the difference, but they do what the market will tolerate.

Ford puts a really nice finish on their GT40, but take a good look at any F150. YIKES!

Paint can be made flat, it just takes time (money) and desire.

BTW, we've found a simple way for the novice to evaluate orange peel: Catch the reflection of a fluorescent light in the windshield of the car, and then move to catch that same reflection on the hood of the car. Can be quite enlightening to a newbie.

Jim

[mb911]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Thanks guys. At least I can live with knowing it wasn't a one-off with orange peel. I hadn't even thought much of it until I read more about it.

Thanks all. You guys know it all!

However, when I get a nicer car someday, it sure will be painful to see orange peel. ha-ha.

[SVT Lightning]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

take a good look at any F150. YIKES!

Jim

I can confirm that. But thanks to Megs, my paint still looks better than new.

[Sal329]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

I live with mine. If it was a show car it would be a different story or even a collector car but for a car that is driven as a daily drive or often I do not worry about it. I will make sure I have one clean and shiney orange peel.

[acsuppa]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Sometimes you just have to have the shiniest orange peel possible.....

I hate orange peel!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Just another note...

Removing orange peel means sanding the paint flat and then compounding the paint to remove the sanding marks. The compounding step usually requires a rotary buffer with a wool pad and an aggressive compound, this combination will remove the sanding marks which will restore gloss and clarity to the surface of the paint.

Now think about this... both sanding and compounding will remove measurable amounts of paint.

The term wet-sanding is posted and talked about often all over the Internet and this leads to some confusion so let's try to establish a few simple facts.

The majority of all wet-sanding is done on fresh paint at the body shop level. That is, when a person has their car painted, often times a "Custom Paint Job", (which costs more), part of the process is to wet-sand, cut and polish the paint within days of when the last coat of paint is sprayed.

For new cars, the factory sprayed paints is baked on usually at high temperatures before any plastic, rubber or cloth, vinyl, leather or other upholstery is installed, (it could melt or warp, or shrink, etc.). This means by the time you take ownership of the car the paint is fully cured and hardened.

Besides the hardness factor between fresh paint and cured paint, factory paint is usually very thin, thus there's not a lot of room for error. Paint sprayed at the body shop level is controlled by the painter and if he knows the paint will be sanded, cut and polished he will adjust his process to increase the amount or the thickness of the paint to take this into account providing the person that will do the sanding, cutting and polishing more film-build to work with thereby reducing the risk of making a mistake.

Now follow me on this....

It's easy to sand paint, in it's base form that means putting scratches into the paint. The difficult part, or the tricky part is removing the sanding marks and doing so without making a mistake.

• Body shop repaint = soft paint, usually thicker.
• Factory paint = cured paint, usually thin and in comparison to fresh paint... it's harder.

That's why we don't encourage people to go out into their garage and sand on their factory baked-on paint with the idea of successfully removing all the sanding marks and not making any mistakes.

Can it be done? Sure. Is it easy? That's relative to the skill, ability and experience of the person doing the work. For a Newbie? Probably not a good idea.

[CarbonBlack]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

I would rather have orange peel with no scratches, Versus flat paint with swirls!

Orange peel is better than scratches

-Nick

[Black Bart]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

Mike Phillips post is very good advice.
One other thing to think about is if you successfully wet sand and buff, the paint will be very thin so if you get a scratch and try to buff it out you may go through and then you will have to repaint.

Orange peel is caused by incorrect adjustment of the spray gun.
I can usually spray with hardly any to NO Orange peel but everything must be just right.

When repairing a factory paint job you try to make it match the rest of the car by adjusting the gun for some orange peel otherwise it would not match.

I made the mistake of painting a door of a car once with the gun properly adjusted and when the owner saw it he complained that it did not match.

You must try to match the OEM paint by spraying the same peel.

When I painted my car I put on 2 base coats sand them spray 2 coats of clear. Let dry then wet sand.
Clean the car and spray 2 more coats of clear let dry and wet sand then buff it to Awesome gloss.
A show car finish is time consuming and expensive if done right.

[Megafast13]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

2 of my 3 cars have orange peel. I don't mind it at all. It just makes it shine at more angles lol.

[Andy M.]

Re: Orange Peel Effect?

2 of my 3 cars have orange peel. I don't mind it at all. It just makes it shine at more angles lol.

yeah thats it....kinda like the disco ball effect..... yeah yeah thats the ticket.