Buffing out orange peel.

[pgerhardt]

Will enough orange peel scramble the reflected police radar waves?

Only if you wear an aluminum foil hat!

 

[SeaSlugs]

Will enough orange peel scramble the reflected police radar waves?

i think mythbusters tried various paints and tactics to defeat the radar gun but it was busted haha. About the only paint i know of that will defeat radar is the stuff painted on B2 bombers....that and thier goofy shape.

 

[Terry NJ]

That stuff is R.A.M. Radar Absorbent Material. From what I'm told, It can't be produced for civilian use. It's got too many proscribed chemicals. It was probably produced at area 51.
Terry

i think mythbusters tried various paints and tactics to defeat the radar gun but it was busted haha. About the only paint i know of that will defeat radar is the stuff painted on B2 bombers....that and thier goofy shape.

 

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

A friend runs a NARROW masking tape on sharp edges, to eliminate the possibility of sanding through the paint.
Bill W.

 

[tinman080]

sand the peel lightly, just the tops. Buff slowly with a slow buffer speed and coarse compound. Tape high body ridges and door openings. Hand polish confined areas and then progressively polish open areas with medium compound and faster buffer speed. Final polish at top speed and light polish. Worked great with Jags and Porsches. Remember the slower the pad the more cut you get. Higher hand pressure on the buffer means more cut. As the surface polishes out, less compound, less pressure and more speed will mirror out the surface. 'course this is plywood.....lol

 

[Tinbasher]

Nice.

 

[pgerhardt]

sand the peel lightly, just the tops. Buff slowly with a slow buffer speed and coarse compound. Tape high body ridges and door openings. Hand polish confined areas and then progressively polish open areas with medium compound and faster buffer speed. Final polish at top speed and light polish. Worked great with Jags and Porsches. Remember the slower the pad the more cut you get. Higher hand pressure on the buffer means more cut. As the surface polishes out, less compound, less pressure and more speed will mirror out the surface. 'course this is plywood.....lol

First of all that panel is beautiful! But the reflection of the wheel is not a good test. It is too close. As is this reflection of the door pocket on my 29 tudor (picture 1). BTW there is no clear coat here, just color sanded and buffed acrylic lacquer. I like the "Hemmings test". Hold up an issue of Hemmings at least 10 feet away from the car. If you see a nice sharp reflection and can clearly make out "Hemmings" you are good. In Picture 2 you will see a clear reflection of my neighbor's AC through the garage window about 100 feet away. That passes! Picture 3 is a reflection of my house about 200 feet away. That also passes. When it comes to my restoration OCD are my initials!

 

[Tom Wesenberg]

Nice colors and paint job. Someday mine might get the paint job it needs.

 

[CWPASADENA]

OK Having read this thread it is time to understand what is going on here. WARNING the science teacher in me is forcing its way out!

Orange peel is caused by paint that has not fully flowed out to a perfectly flat surface. On a microscopic level the surface of the paint is like a landscape of gently rolling hills. To get a perfect reflection you have to get the surface of the paint perfectly FLAT. Now if you just use compound, the compound (regardless of grit size) is made up of abrasive particles suspended in a liquid. Since the particles are free to move within the liquid, as you buff they abrade both the tops of the hills and the valleys. The landscape does NOT get flatter it just get smoother. You will get just shinier orange peel. To be honest the tops of the hills get abraded a little faster than the valleys since they experience more pressure from the buffing wheel, but you are still wearing down the valleys along with the hill tops. By the time you reach anything approaching flat either all your paint, or your resolve, will be gone!

The abrasive on wet/dry sand paper is glued to flat piece of paper which is in turn affixed to a flat sanding block. The abrasive particles are NOT free to move. So when you run the paper over the rolling hills landscape of your paint only the tops of the hills are abraded away. The landscape starts to become flat. Unfortunately the abrasive particles of the sand paper create their own much smaller valleys (more like scratches) as they work. Each succeeding finer grit sand paper removes the new scratches caused by the preceding courser grit paper leaving in their wake their own still smaller scratches. The course compounding just smooths out the final tiniest scratches of the finest paper, and you guessed it, leaves behind its own even smaller scratches! So we go through a series of finer and finer grit compounds to remove almost all the scratches. At that point the scratches are so fine that they have no visible effect on the reflected light and we have a perfect reflection and a perfect finish!!!

BTW if you go all the way up to 5000 grit paper you will start to get a good reflection even before you start compounding.

BTW2 Yes the scratches left in a less than perfect wet sanding/buffing job can be filled with wax and the appearance will improve. But the effect is only temporary. Wax is used to protect your perfect finish NOT create it.

Wow! that was a lot of typing! I am tired. Going to bed! I hope this enlightened you on the science behind color sanding paint.

This the best explanation of what color sanding is all about I have ever read.

I totally agree. I have been involved with show quality paint work for more than 60 years. There are no magic short cuts.

Chris W.

 

[pgerhardt]

This the best explanation of what color sanding is all about I have ever read.
Chris W.

Thanks. Explaining the science of things for 35 years as a science teacher is what I did. Explaining the science behind color sanding is not as difficult as explaining DNA and RNA to 7th graders!