I am NOT a painter...so what is this? | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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I am NOT a painter...so what is this?

I am no painter, and I now see why decent body shops charge as much as they do...

Does this hood repaint attempt seem recoverable? It's been 9 days since I put the final layer of clear coat on, and have spent a few hours wet sanding (1500 & 2000 grit), polishing, and buffing since that time, with little apparent change in the surface finish. Even tried clay this afternoon (some of the residue is visible in a couple photos).

Does this look more like "orange peel" / clear coat that needs more wet-sanding, or does this look more like clear coat that's been sanded all the way through?

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that looks pretty deep. It seems to be under the color. I am not sure. I am not a painter either....
 






Hard to tell from the photos, so it's just a guess, but it looks like the orange peel texture is the paint under the clear. You can tell by feel pretty easily - if you can feel the texture with your fingers, it might be the clear, if it's smooth on top, then the texture might be the paint or the layer under the paint, and the clear has filled that texture in some.

The streaks front to back on the hood also make me think it was sanded like that rather than in circles.

If the top surface is smooth to the touch, I doubt you'll get an improvement by sanding more, though you might get a better finish wet sanding with some 2000 grit going in circles and polishing aftewards if you've been sanding front to back.

If the finish looks otherwise ok and the clear holds up, it's probably ok to just leave it like that.
 






Yep, wet-sanding along the length of the hood. Didn't polish after this round. The surface doesn't feel smooth at all, quite rough and even plasticky in fact. Besides the sanding marks, it doesn't look much different from when the last layer of clear coat was freshly sprayed. I'd rather it be nice and shiny like it was before. (Painted it because of numerous chips all the way through primer)
 






You might be able to smooth it wet sanding with some 1000/1200 grit, sanding in circles rather than side-to-side/front-to-back. Once the roughness is gone, wet sand with 1500 a few times, then 2000, then polish.
 






Looks like there wasn't enough reducer/thinner in your clear and it dried before it could flow out. Second possibility is your psi coming out of your gun was too low, that would make it more like spitting out instead of spraying out.
 






To me it looks like the base was sprayed at the wrong pressure, and the clear wasn't applied wet enough.I've never wet sanded in circles before....never heard of that.if you keep wet sanding you will probably burn through.I spray base around 24 to 26 psi and clear at 28 to 30 psi.distance and overlap are crucial.
 






Thanks all.... I'll probably have it redone professionally next year. Painting is a PITA.
 






Random thought..
Why not plastidip it black or something?
You could probably get it done in about a can or 2.. and it's very hard to screw up plastidip..
 






Eh, black Plastidip isn't really my style. It doesn't look as bad now as it did when those photos were taken, so I'll live with it until I have a second vehicle, which will hopefully be next year sometime.
 






I just tried my hand at auto painting for the first time today. I broke the door handle off of my wife's van from snatching it open... so I was told it would be in my best interest to fix it. I just used Duplicolor perfect match (rattle can version) and it worked well, although I have a little orange peel action myself. I think polishing and maybe a light wet sand (or clay bar) will blend it in to the point that wife won't be able to notice. I will, but that doesn't matter so long as she's happy ;).

Anyway, a hood is hard to get right for some reason. I can polish my truck and everything looks great but the hood... it always ends up having swirl marks. I can only imagine if it's that big of a pain to polish how big of a pain painting it would be.
 






The orange peel is from the paint being nearly dry before it hits the hood while you're spraying. It isn't wet enough to flow and "level" itself, like airbrushing.

Not much you can do at this point except strip it off and start over.
 






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