Whats going on here? Wet flatting

[ross_m]

Wondering if anyone can tell me why this is happening while wet flatting cellulose top coat. It will sand down until its completely flat and polishes to a mirror finish so im not too bothered but I would like to know what caused it so I can avoid it in the future.

As you can see it looks like theres little chunks out of the paint and while flatting some panels when you look at the wet and dry paper there little flakes of paint stuck to it. Really strange

Once polished with g3

I sprayed the car using a compressor and celly paint in a warmish environment with anti bloom thinners.

 

[the snooper]

thats easy its known as orange peel looks like you have sprayed the paint too thick and has highs and lows just like orange peel

 

[ross_m]

Hmm I thought about that. I didnt realise it would appear during flatting in this way though. It looked better before flatting and then like a mirror when polished.

I didnt realise I was spraying it on too thick as there were no drips and the setting it was at seemed to make it look good out the gun which is what I thought was best to go for. If I adjusted it so it wasnt so thick it meant the finish wasnt as good so i adjusted it back..

 

[cumbriasteve]

It could well be orange peel, photos are always hard to judge, the fact paint is being left in the paper suggests the paint has not cured fully in certain areas and is in effect being 'pulled' off.

I am leaning towards contamination of some sort but do admit without seeing close up it could be orange peel.

 

[the snooper]

did you mix the paint 50 50

 

[ross_m]

Yeah, 50/50 all the way through. 4-6 coats on everything and went straight onto the next coat once it was tacky. So I actually did those 4-6 coats right after each other. Maybe i did too many coats straight after each other. Im just glad its polishing well

 

[steveo3002]

looks like the lows in the peel to me

next time heave it on a bit wetter and /or sand it more

 

[the snooper]

my guess is that it is orange peel effect thats what it looks like its definately not silicone contamination

 

[the snooper]

with cellulose or 2k if you put it on flat enough in the first place you dont need to wet flat before polishing.
with celly i used to mix slightly on the thin side so it went on nice and wet / flat then once dry polish.
it could also be be your air pressure / gun setup that caused the problem

 

[ross_m]

I was extremely careful not to contaminate it so Im confident its not that.

I sprayed it like this as I read somewhere that more experience sprayers will get the paint going on as thick as possible to the stage where its on the verge of running in order to get the best finish possible

I used an Aldi compressor and the gravity gun that came with it so maybe if I used the same technique with a better gun it would have been alright. On the other hand I could have been doing something wrong or it was going on too thick like you said

I suppose these things will iron out with experience but atleast its turned out well in the end I suppose

 

[Old92ra]

orange peel

 

[brightspark]

orange peel

there must be an echo in the room

 

[Old92ra]

there must be an echo in the room

 

[ross_m]

Yeah i think its safe to say its orange peel

Im just trying to figure out how to prevent it in the future

 

[the snooper]

by the sound of it you put it on wet, i always go for wet but make sure its like still water when you do it ie perfect reflection from it if you dont get that it means you have a texture to the finish

 

[ross_m]

Yeah I put it on wet. I could see a perfect reflection but it was a textured finish. I could see the lines/hairs on my hands in the paint even with the textured finish.

I could tell it would polish well because of that so i just kept going

Do you think I would have avoided the textured finish/orange peel in the pic if I thinned the paint more for the last coat?

 

[the snooper]

if you spray and see a textured finish you will know for future reference that something isnt quite right paint too thick, pressure to high & too much paint could be one of those or a combination you can always do a quick test on something

 

[ross_m]

I tried lots of setting but it seemed to dry with the same texture whether it was thicker/thinner. Would more or less pressure help from your experince or is it hard to say without actually physically trying it?

Maybe its my Aldi gun

 

[the snooper]

could be any of those my advice is add a little more thinner if you use the same set up again, mix 50 50 and test then thin as required until you get the required result.
celly is good you can do virtually anything with it, its a forgiving paint.

 

[ross_m]

right thanks a lot for your help again and to everyone else who replied. Im spraying another car soon so will take that on board and see how it goes.