[777funk]

I know we all like to think that we shoot orange peel free and I suppose there are a lot of finishers here who get pretty darn smooth laydown. I have pretty good luck with my Iwata pressure pot gun and enough reducer.

But of course every gun no matter how good and how good the finisher, leaves some slight amount of texture.

What do you do to get a mirror smooth showroom finish... i.e. looks like liquid glass with absolutely no texture or orange peel.

-I'm curious the grits you go through and what paper you use?
-DA/No DA (All by hand and block)
-How long does it take you on an average sedan?

[TucsonJay]

R-M DC92 Diamont Clear
45 minutes to 1 hour between coats.
3-4 coats... but I have shot as many as 8 to bury artwork.
24-48 hours dry time... depending on time of year.
...but will sand and buff easily for about a week.
1200 meguiars paper
3M 06031 compound on a white waffle pad...
then 3M 05973 finishing compound on a gray waffle pad.

This works great with this paint... but most others can be much less stable, and harder to finish.

Over the 45+ years I've painted, I have used many name brands and different lines they offer.
This one is the best I have found. I have used this clear over R-M, HOK, and X-otic basecoats with zero problems... for about 10-15 years.

[50bowTie]

two coats clear, one day in sun. 800 wet on a foam block. one more day in sun. two more coats clear, some more sun drying, and then 800, 1000, 1500, 2000 all wet with guidecoat.

I usually let it set for a couple days before washing it real good and starting the buff. mostly cause I'm worn out.

[freethinker52]

i wonder if its necessary to sand clear and add 2 more coats? if your final coat of clear is sanded flat and buffed it will shine. i cant see where it helps to sand coats underneath.
to me it seems it could even be detrimental. i want my clear to have a chemical bond. you lose that when you sand midcoats. i am interested in hearing what others think and do though.

[TucsonJay]

Originally Posted by freethinker52

i wonder if its necessary to sand clear and add 2 more coats? if your final coat of clear is sanded flat and buffed it will shine. i cant see where it helps to sand coats underneath.
to me it seems it could even be detrimental. i want my clear to have a chemical bond. you lose that when you sand midcoats. i am interested in hearing what others think and do though.

I agree. I paint for a living, and only do custom and restoration work. I need a great finish that last for decades... but I need to produce that in a reasonable period, or I will price myself out of the reach of my customers. (Then I would need to find a "real job".) :-(

If someone is a hobbiest or part-timer... and wants to chase perfection, with no limit on hours and materials, then it doesn't matter. I need a great result in a reasonable time, every time.

[shine]

if you want the best out of the gun job find a painter at a macco shop to shoot it .

[MARTINSR]

I have found that if you want a perfect flat out of the gun you are going to have a short lived product due to the application not being proper. Properly applied paint or clear is going to have a little texture, period.

I did have a shop I visited up in Fort Bragg along the coast that produced the most amazing paint out of the gun that I have ever seen. He did so with PSYCOTIC levels of cleanliness, we are talking PSYCOTIC levels. How about a different gun for every color? NO I am not making this up, he had ROWS of guns marked with "Dark Blue", "Light blue", "Silver", and so on. Each gun had a cover over the end of the hose nipple until it is put on the hose. The booth was treated like a clean room, NOTHING was done in that booth other than actual spraying the paint. NO masking and certainly no sanding and the doors were shut at all times.

He produced the most amazingly clean, smooth paint I have ever seen out of a gun.

Brian

[777funk]

Originally Posted by shine

if you want the best out of the gun job find a painter at a macco shop to shoot it .

I've never been to a Macco, but I've heard about them. I'm not sure a $200 paint job is going to be a good one.

You're saying this jokingly I'm guessing right?

[BarryK]

Originally Posted by 777funk

I've never been to a Macco, but I've heard about them. I'm not sure a $200 paint job is going to be a good one.

You're saying this jokingly I'm guessing right?

I think what he was saying is if you want the best sprayer, get a guy that works at maaco, not take your car there.

I disagree on all account, Many people spray clears with no orange peel but these are custom painters and retro guys, production painter would be going back wards if they sprayed clear slick because it would not match the peel from factory. There are a bunch on here, look at some of shines jobs, Arrowheads- just finished factory 5.

I have four coats of clear on my black Sequoia painted last week and have not wet sanded and buffed yet, if anyone of the coats of clear had any peel other then urethane wave I would have stopped painting and wet sanded and I sure would of not be caught driving it, I can explain a few nubs in paint until I 600 it to buff but I would go to H before I got caught driving a paint job I did that looked like a factory finish.

[milo]

I worked at a Miracle when a complete paintjob was $49.95 back when I was 16.. The painter painted 8 cars everyday 5 days a week months on end like a machine..he got really good after 3 or 400 cars.. All he did was spray..he even had a helper mixing the batches and setting up the next color the main thing was the same conditions every time, temperature and viscosity .

The bodywork and prep was handled by mostly minimum wage workers who were just learning and having fun but the painters do one thing well and that is spraying the material.

[jcclark]

I find it's easy to spray small parts really smooth right out of the gun,
it's the overalls, and multi panel shoots that are challenging.
I usually spray bumpers without needing buffing, I use the slowest
activator and reducer and usually it looks as good as the panels
around it that I've buffed, close enough anyway.
But useing a super slow reducer and reducing 20% lets it lay on and
flow out smooth before drying. You just gotta be careful for the runs.
Useing retarder helps too.
But all this is a moot point because no matter how smooth it is when you spray it, it will shrink a little after a summmers worth of sunshine
if you apply very much clear to start with.

[shine]

as barry said the sprayer at macco will shoot circles around most painters. on average they spray 50 cars a week. i only paint one to two a year now so i tend to get a little peel from time to time from just being lazy but these are jobs that get blocked and buffed. but if i get it together before going into the booth i can lay it pretty slick when i need to. i know a few gun hands that paint weekly that never get any peel.
i also don't agree that peel free paint will fail for some reason. don't see how texture is going to effect it. now if you use a cheap pos gun and pile it on trying to get it slick you may very well have problems. but we've been over this hf junk before and there's no talking to someone who feels a 20 dollar gun is fine to use on a top shelf job.

[MARTINSR]

Shine, you're right, you said it better than I did. It's not that the super smooth job is more likely to fail it's that often when people try for that super smooth job they create a film full of solvent that is more likely to fail. Just simply "smooth" paint or clear isn't more likely to fail, it's the application that changes things.

Brian