Help my paint job looks like garbage; orange peel?

[Anthrobus]

So I sanded down most of the layers of paint off of my school bus and applied Sherwin-Williams DTM acrylic. Like most Sherwin-Williams acrylic products dry time is 2 hours, repaint is 4 and it has a 21-day set time at 50 degrees. I want to apply a Sherwin-Williams Sher clear 1K. The problem is I have these paint lines where the pneumatic sprayer left overlapping dry paint marks.

This being my first time at the rodeo painting a vehicle I'm trying to figure out what my next step would be. Should I polish out the haze or should I wet sand before applying the clear coat? I'm not going for perfect I just wanted to look semi-decent in photos.

 

[Booyah45828]

That's not orange peel. Orange peel is exactly as it sounds, the painted surface looks like that of an orange.

It looks like you sprayed with the paint too dry or your coats were too thick. It's a fine line between spraying too wet and the paint running and spraying too dry and having what you have here.

HowToPaintCars.com - » How to diagnose and prevent Dry Spray Paint problems

How many coats did you apply?

You can fix this a couple ways.

One way would be to wet sand with 1000, then 2000, and so on until you get a smooth even finish. That would take a long time and a lot of elbow grease on a full sized bus.

Another solution is to spray more coats of paint until the effect is essentially masked. That might not work though depending on how large the defects are(I can't tell through photos), how long you've waited since the last coat, etc.

 

[ol trunt]

A couple of hints. The dry almost sandy looking patches are most often caused by an improper spray pattern. As you spray, it is easy to allow your hand and therefore the spray nozzle to scribe an arc. The result is that the nozzle is closer to the bus as it passes through the arc than it is at the end radius of the arc resulting in more paint reaching the bus mid arc and almost no paint hitting at the end of the arc--except for partially dried over spray which doesn't have the ability to flow out.

Before you do any more spray work try practicing with water sprayed on something flat like a block wall fence. Practice until you have trained your wrist to keep the nozzle at 90 degrees to the surface at all times. You must also train your fingers to use the two stage nature of the spray gun. As you start your pass first open the air valve and momentarily later open the paint valve. As you reach the end of your pass close off the paint flow and just a moment later close off the air fan. The whole process is sort of like a dance and becomes fun once you have practiced enough.

As to what to do with what you have, beware of applying more color--it could lead to paint wrinkle and really make a mess. As long as the color isn't a metallic, light sanding of the dry spots will work as the clears are now all high solids and will "fill" pretty well. Metallic paint doesn't sand well and will require a LONG cure before resanding and repainting. All the same rules apply to clear coat as to application. Clear is less likely to go on dry and is very likely to develop sags and runs if sprayed to heavily--whip up a batch of clear and practice on the side of your neighbors mini van until you get the hang of it.

While you are practicing with water try a few slow motion passes so you can watch the actual application. Always do a small test patch of your mixed paint on a smooth surface (every batch) just to make the gun is properly adjusted.

Jack

 

[HappyInTN]

So I sanded down most of the layers of paint off of my school bus and applied Sherwin-Williams DTM acrylic. Like most Sherwin-Williams acrylic products dry time is 2 hours, repaint is 4 and it has a 21-day set time at 50 degrees. I want to apply a Sherwin-Williams Sher clear 1K. The problem is I have these paint lines where the pneumatic sprayer left overlapping dry paint marks.

This being my first time at the rodeo painting a vehicle I'm trying to figure out what my next step would be. Should I polish out the haze or should I wet sand before applying the clear coat? I'm not going for perfect I just wanted to look semi-decent in photos.

same thing happened to me... I did one more coat with rollers only a light coating.. looks good now. Wish I had just rolled it from jump street.

 

[Tango-SKO]

Me?...I'd scuff it and apply a couple of more coats. You could probably get away with wiping it down with some "Liquid Sandpaper" (a chemical deglosser that preps the surface for fresh paint).



But...


As noted above, the nozzle and settings need to be right. The gun should be laying down a fairly wet pattern that is consistent from edge to edge.

 

[Johnny Mullet]

I am not a body or paint guy. I painted my bus with mostly rolled on oil base. It looks great from 20 feet. Your paint looks great at 10 feet. I call that a win. Let it dry and spray on the remainder of the paint on the next hot sunny day (or wait till spring) after some wet sanding. Weather plays a major rule in paint.

Also. The darker the color, the more imperfections will show.