Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

[hillcgolfer]

I've read many of the threads on here and have not seen my situation addressed so thought I'd start a new one.

I recently acquired a street rod with a VERY ROUGH orange peel to the paint. The paint is only about a year and a half old (home shop) but just wasn't a very good job by the builder.

It is shiny and glossy and is great for a daily driver and will shine up okay for taking to small car shows but....I always want, like alot of rodders, to make it as good as I can ....or, get the "biggest bang for my buck". From 20 feet away, it looks pretty good.....but up close it is pretty rough.

I've read alot on here about being very careful with wet sanding, as a person could get into trouble....ie. sanding on through the paint into the primer or....maybe create some sanding marks on it that won't buff out. Of course I'm not dealing with a thin baked-on factory paint job.....but it is still an "unknown" paint to me.

M105 is a totally new product to me but it sounds like a pretty strong compound. My question is, if a person skipped the wet sanding (1) could the strength of the M105 possibly be enough to cut some of the orange peel finish off there? and (2) would not that also be a safer route to go? (for those reasons above)

Anyone out there had results from beginning with M105 only? (and skipping the wet sanding). I have a drill w/power ball, an elec. DA and a elec. rotary polisher/buffer....I would probably use the rotary.....at about 1,000-1,200 RPM.

BTW....the color is a red metallic with a blue pearl undertint to it. I definitely do not want the expense of a new custom paint job! Thanks for any feedback.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Trying to remove the orange-peel texture by only compounding with a rotary buffer will remove paint so technically it's removing the orange peel but it will tend to remove paint from both the tops and the valleys of the texture at the same time so it's not effective at all.

The most effective way to remove orange peel is to wet-sand either by hand or machine and then remove the sanding marks using a wool pad on a rotary buffer with a compound like M105, not a DA Polisher.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

The below was posted here,

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27205

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.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

I recently acquired a street rod with a VERY ROUGH orange peel to the paint. The paint is only about a year and a half old (home shop) but just wasn't a very good job by the builder.

If you're full of energy and passion, you could try a little test spot using just M105 by hand or with a rotary buffer and check your results.

Run a piece of blue painter's tape onto the paint and then only work on one side of the tape. After working the M105 to this section, polish and wax the section and then remove the tape and compare your results to the before/untouched section.

If you're full of energy and passion and a little on the brave side you do all the above but first sand flat a little section using some #2000 grit paper and then remove the sanding marks by hand or with a rotary and see how hard it is to completely remove all of the sanding marks.

This little test will tell you real quick if the pant is hard or soft. If it's soft and you're able to quickly and easily remove your sanding marks you can tackle just a panel a weekend till you've worked your way around the car.

If you find it difficult and even close to impossible to remove all of your sanding marks then you'll be glad you only sanded in a small area.

Another option would be to find someone that's really good at sanding nd buffing and hire them to do it for you.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

What kind of street rod did you buy?

Picture?

[hillcgolfer]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Mike , thanks for alot of great info on the orange peel. . It's a '39 Chevy, 4 dr. sedan....slammed low to the ground and chopped 2 and a half inches. Has a crate Corvette powerplant. A "cool ol skool" rod....just some rough paint right now. (It's still a great daily driver. ha!)

Will send a pic when I figure out how that works. I have some pics of it saved on my computer but am new to your site and haven't had time to see how to send pics yet.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Will send a pic when I figure out how that works. I have some pics of it saved on my computer but am new to your site and haven't had time to see how to send pics yet.

There's a forum group that is chocked full of meaty information called the "Information Station" in this category you'll find the below forum group.


Forum related how-to articles

How-to articles for learning how to interact on a forum, like adding pictures, watermarking pictures, replying to a thread, etc..

And in there you'll find this,


How to place an image in your messages


Or just send them to me and I'll put them in your gallery, but if you're planning to be active on this forum or any forum the ability to know how to work with images is a real benefit and the above thread will show you everything you ever wanted to know about getting a picture into your messages on forums...

Here's one like yours except it still needs the fixing up part...

[hillcgolfer]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Couldn't make it load.....I got a pic onto this site from my files....just didn't do something right to get it onto the thread.

[roushstage2]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

[hillcgolfer]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Hey thanks a bunch for whatever you did to make this picture post! I was gonna give up tonight and go to bed!.... So, here's the '"orange peel" '39 Chevy, Mike.

[Megafast13]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Typically you have to sand your paint and then use a compound to fully remove Orange Peel.

[hillcgolfer]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Thanks very much for the feedback....I was fairly certain about the conventional method..... for wet sanding to remove the orange peel....the best. But....since I had only just now heard of the M105 compound and.... that it seems to be the heaviest of Meguiars compounds...I was wondering whether it might not take "a portion" of my orange peel away.....in the event that a test of wet sanding first (on a small portion of the paint) might prove to be unsatisfactory. In other words....a "partial salvage" job with compound only....if there were factors found that prevented the wet sanding process from being used.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

I was wondering whether it might not take "a portion" of my orange peel away.....in the event that a test of wet sanding first (on a small portion of the paint) might prove to be unsatisfactory. In other words....a "partial salvage" job with compound only....if there were factors found that prevented the wet sanding process from being used.

I've lessened orange peel with only compounding with M04 on a wool pad using a rotary buffer.

This was a buff-out on a Black-Cherry 1958 Chevrolet Belair with lots of orange peel. I had the owner's wife stand to the side of the car and snapped a picture of her refection after only buffing out the top portion above the chrome strip running down the side. You an see the reflection in the top portion is more clear, more distinct than the lower portion that had not been buffed yet.

I actually have a picture and will try to scan it and post it. This would be back in before M84 and M85 were introduced and I think I used M04 Heavy Cut Cleaner. I'll look for the picture today and try to get it scanned just to show that it can be done but the correct way to remove orange peel is by wet-sanding.

So as posted on the first page of this thread,

If you're full of energy and passion, you could try a little test spot using just M105 by hand or with a rotary buffer and check your results.

Run a piece of blue painter's tape onto the paint and then only work on one side of the tape. After working the M105 to this section, polish and wax the section and then remove the tape and compare your results to the before/untouched section.

Beautiful car by the way...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Use M105 first to cut orange peel?

Here's the car and the results mentioned above...

Didn't forget about you... over the weekend I dug up my scanner but couldn't find the power cord for it so I took some digital pictures to try to give you a little hope...

This is 1958 Chevrolet Belair that I compounded heavily from the center chrome trim up including the hood, roof and deck-lid. The owner didn't want to spend any more than $300.00 so wet-sanding was out off the table.

The pictures don't show the results as well as looking at the results in person but you could definitely see there was less orange peel on all the paint above the long stainless steel trim running down the car and the paint below the trim.





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