Over the last week or so I have sanded my engine bay back to bare metal and have resprayed it. It was all looking good until this morning When I went to do the final couple of coats of gloss on it. Basically it has started to develop the orange peel finish / texture

Heres what I did:

Sand it back to bare metal
Kill rust the engine bay
1 coat of filler primer
3 coats of etch primer
6 coats of colour
and now 4 coats of gloss

The only thing that I can think of is that the kill rust stuff has caused it I followed the directions properly and panted it 4 hours after the stuff was added. It was touch dry.

Does anyone have any ideas on what could have caused it and what i can do to fix it? I assume sanding it back is probably the only way.

Any help muchly appreciated

Thanks
Matt

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I hate to say this, but the etch primer is supposed to go on first, cos it creates a chemical bond with the metal - painting it over the primer filler doesn't do anything for you....

I'm not a painting guru, but did you rub the coloured coats back inbetween coats?

I think when a paint job comes up with orange peel, it can be sanded flat with really fine grit wet'n'dry and it'll fix it

can you put up a photo of your orange peel?

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

I thought the same thing... Etch on bare metal, then spray putty, paint and clear...

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Santo

"The Lone Ranger"
HI-HO Silver......AWAAAAAY!

id say either its a little too thick, or somthings reacting with somthing else, more likley the colour is a little thick and the gloss is making you notice it as it gives it a shine.
then again, i could be any number of things.
how bad does it look?

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speed costs....how fast do you want to go...

thanks Simon!

I didnt put the filler primer everywhere only in a few spots but that makes sense

I think jbeenz was right in the fact that the clear has shown it up quite a lot!

I wasnt after a pefect finish as it is only my daily hack but still after sanding for so long i didnt want orange peel as you can imagine It will just have to do unfortunately as I need to have it back on the road asap.

Here are a few piccies - I will take some without the flash in a sec so they arent so glarey It looks grey with the flash






Thanks for all your help

Matt

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mmmm quite orangy... looks like mine does actually, but mine has tar body spray on it...
at least its nice and tidy and with engine in and bonett on only you will notice, but it stil anoying when ya spend ages on it and it dosent come out perfect
good luck.

oh, i take it this is the white van with a bad big end?

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speed costs....how fast do you want to go...

I am not a good spray painter but I am a good critic.
The top coat looks like it went on far too wet and has sagged. It may have been because the gun was far too close and the film was simply too heavy.

yeah, I'd say it wasn't flat enough before you put the clear on..... don't worry about it - what you've got there is a heat and scratch resistant surface - because it has more surface area due to the ups and downs, it has less heat retention as you get 'balls' of air moving over it that pick up more heat than a straight stream of air moving over it.... it'll keep your engine bay cooler

I reckon clear coats over paint are a cop out anyway

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

Also at no time has anyone asked what paint and primer types you used (enamel, acryllic etc) and whether there might be incompatibility issues there.

If the orange peel "appeared" the next day, it may be due to incompatibility. The others are also correct - etch primer for bare metal only.

KB

yeah it is the clubby - not cracker.

It has the nice engine to drop into it soon atleast I am just a bit dissappointed that it wont do it justice no one else to blame but myself.

Ohwell, atleast i wont get as horrible greasy/muddy hands working in the engine bay anymore

Here are some more pics without the flash - it looks very glossy in these pics still though it nice and sunny in adelaide today











Atleast it looks better than it did before

Thanks again
Matt

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Thanks for all your help!

I will know for next time now!!

Matt

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here is a before shot



Matt

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good work mate, Orange peel used to be very desirable once upon a time. (infact look at many new alfa's they have orange peel galore - specially the 147's) You just put the paint on too thick and too quick i would say.

next time do 3-4 coats of the colour, then rub it back flat, then the final few 4-6 put them on nice and wet for a good gloss.. what paint did you use? u really dont need to put a clear over a solid colour??

Thanks for the advice Chris, i used enamel.

If only orange peel was still desirable

I now know for next time Or I will just pay someone who knows what they are doing

It looked brilliant yesterday

Cheers
Matt

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still looks blardy good to me mate.

no idea on enamal paints!