Flow coat....again

B

Bullmoose44

Okay, keep in mind that I am a rookie and still learning! I was really pleased with my spray job until I started cutting and buffing, then I realized what a orange peel mess I had made...not that deep but I felt I had to sand it all down. I know you guys say to not sand or buff the edges, body lines, and convex surfaces but when I cut and buff the flats, the rest of the finish looks really bad by comparison. I love the few flat panels results on this car...used the Presta Ultra Cutting Cream and a black pad and it worked great. I have tried more sanding to flatten the peel out, but still have the shines on the curves and edges.

I worked on it more tonight and decided that I just would not be happy after all this time if the peel was noticeable everywhere, so I think I will sand it once again with 600 wet until it is all flat, then respray the clear. I have a few basecoat places to fix while it is flattened out as well...one run and a place or two where I put the doors back on.

I know the operator is more critical than the tools and that you can't buy skill, but I have ordered a little better gun to spray the next time. I have a Finex 3000 on the way to hopefully improve my efforts over the cheap Vaper gun. I hope I can improve my finish so that the places that I cannot sand and buff will not look so bad.

I put on 3 coats to start with, sanded with 600 wet, then put on 3 more. If I put on 2 addidional, that will be 8 total. I am going to spray a fender and step back for a few minutes to see if I need to adjust the gun more. I think I was too scared to lay down a good, wet coat the last time.

Am I crazy to go this route??
 
Bull, your not crazy, you just want to be proud of the job you do. Its your car; paint it as many times as you want! Just a few things to keep in mind.
Universal sprayed wet will build about 2 mils or more per coat. You have six coats of clear on this job already. Even if you didn't lay the clear down as wet as some more experienced painters, you still have alot of mils on your car. (best guess: 7-8 mils). Cut that in half after sanding; you might still have 3-4 mil on there. I would make this the last round of clear so you don't overbuild. Just to be safe, I would spray three good coats to make sure that if you have to sand and buff near edges to achieve a flat look you have enough clear to do so. And as Chevman said, spray a few junk panels to get a feel for how wet you can spray it before it runs. It will be worth the extra clear you go through in the long run.
 
You can re-spray a few panels at a time, rather than shooting everything at once it would take some pressure off and allow you to concentrate more shooting just a few panels and getting the clear on right. Just an idea.
 
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