The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop orange peel and fish eye

Well I painted the cab yesterday. It was a learning experience. Today I went to go start wet sanding the orange peel, and noticed some fish eye. It's not everywhere but in some places quite noticeable. Its also thinner than expected. I was afraid of runs so I may have moved too fast with the gun. I put 5 coats on, but my wet coats were probably not so wet. So I started wet sanding with 400 grit down to where there is not orange peel, then I want to put another 2 or 3 coats on. I got a can of the fish eye eliminator. Any recomendations for the next time? I did wipe it down with grease and wax remover, and I also have a air dryer hose in line with the gun. I think the fish eye came from painting in the garage. I might spray a mist of water on the ceiling and floor next time.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1268/5055721/20931166/391179328.jpg

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Be careful about water on the ceiling. You don't want dripping on your work. Just water the floor.

Clean everything in the garage spotless (or take it out). If you use cleaners, wd-40, change oil, oil spots on floor, silicone products, etc. They all can leave behind fumes or traces that can create fish eyes.

To add to Builder's advise, always wipe the surface to be painted with wax & grease remover BEFORE sanding. It is not uncommon to actually drive contaminates into the surface pores if you don't. Also when you do use wax & grease remover keep the rag wet and wipe it off with a clean dry rag before it dries. If you don't wipe it off while still wet all you're doing is moving any contaminate around instead of removing it.

good thought. I guess i was kind of lazy about not cleaning the garage completely. Am I planning the re-coat correctly? sand smooth with 400 grit (not completely to primer...just smooth), then a couple more wet coats.

Have you ever used a silicone-containing wax, cleaner, rubber/vinyl/seal lubricant/conditioner, or touch-up polish on the body and/or in your painting room? Products containing silicone leave hard-to-remove residue that will cause fish-eye.

Your cab looks nice in the pictures.

You will have a nice truck when done

David, are you using single stage or base/clear coat? If you are going to re coat it dont sand with 400, it's too fresh. Wet sand it with 1,000 or 800 then recoat it.
400 is too coarse for fresh paint.

When you re spray it try getting in a little closer when you spray, that will help avoid the dry spray and orange peel, but dont get too close or you will get runs.
Also try to avoid the use of fisheye eliminator. i don't recommend it unless there is a severe fisheye problem.
What are you using to wash everything with just before paint? That will make a difference.

If you use fisheye remover you'll have to use it every time you repaint.

Fisheye Eliminator , believe it or not is actually silicone.
The most common cause of fisheyes is from silicone in the air or on the surface.
When added to paint, it's like fighting fire with fire.

I used wax and grease remover to clean it, but didn't use to rags. I have it sanded with 400 grit, which it sanded just fine. Actually after 24 hrs, the paint was so hard I got tired of sanding with 400. It was taking forever to get smooth. I then went with 180 to get it knocked down, then 220, 320, and 400. I did hit some sealer/primer in a few spots. It's been about 50 hrs now since it was painted. I'll try to get closer when painting. Would you recommend reducing it a little further than the tech sheet says. Its a 4-2-1 paint, reducer, hardener. I'm using single stage solid. Its pretty humid here so I was thinking that it might be too thick. Going from a 1.3 tip to a 1.5 helped, but still a lot of orange peel. I'll try again without the fish eye eliminator. If multiple people say that it is junk, then It must be. It wasn't cheap, so I'll have to go get a refund on that.

Dave, what brand paint are you using? You say the mixing ratio is 4-2-1 paint, reducer , hardener? Usually the reducer comes after the hardener, Id double check that.
Also what temp reducer are you using? if it's too hot out, you may want to switch to a slower reducer so it will lay down better.

I'm no expert, but I have painted a few vehicles and found that following the directions/instructions to a "T" is very important! The other note I'd like to make is orange peel can be caused by your paint gun adjustment. Volume of material and spray pattern will depend a lot on the product your spraying. For novice painters you have to learn how to read the spray out. You can tune the gun to your own ability. Check out the tech tip here at Stovebolt for painting. I found it very helpful.

I'm using PPG dcc single stage paint. Double checked, and also verified every time before mixing, it is 2 reducer, 1 hardener. I talked to the person at the ppg store when returning the fish eye eliminator. She said I could ad reducer up to 10%, which isn't much. She said Its better off just laying it on thick and sanding the orange peel than to go too much reducer. And the reducer is 75 degrees to 95 degrees. I am in range. I was just thinking that the humidity levels might have a play in that too.

Try adding a little more reducer see how it looks. Try it on a test panel first.

What gun are you using?

Agreed. Also, check your hoses. If they are brand new or if they have ever been used for an air tool, they can contaminate the air stream. Paint spray hoses should be dedicated to the paint gun, never used for anything else.

Avoid fisheye eliminator if you can. Always better to eliminate the source of the problem than to band-aid it.

You are not putting the paint on wet enough. You need practice before tackling painting the cab so here's my suggestion.

Get a quart of the same brand of paint in black because it's easiest to see orange peel with that color.. Get some 24" wide paper and tape a couple pieces overlapping to the wall and practice on that until you get a smooth finish. Intentionally slow down until you produce a run so you know how slow you have to go to make that happen. That will give you a benchmark for reference.

When you get enough confidence tape off your firewall down the middle of the line where the top weatherstrip goes and along the seam between the cowl and firewall and just paint the firewall using what you learned so far. You should see a marked improvement and since it's the firewall you can live with any minor imperfections.

You should apply one coat all over and then follow with another coat being sure to cover everything, then go back with another good coat to give you enough thickness to color sand, if necessary.

My suggestion would be to paint the doors, hood and fenders before the cab because the cab is definitely the most complicated part to paint and you need as much experience as possible before painting it.

Another thing is your gun. I've tried all the cheap guns out there and thought they were good until I bought a Devilbiss Starting Line set... HUGE difference! Get a good gun!

Fisheyes are a result of oil or silicone droplets on the surface. This is usually the result of painting in an area where you have used spray silicone or other oil such as WD40. Follow the advice previously given for cleaning the surface.

I hope this helps.

Is orange peel when it looks like skin (bumpy)? And fish eye when there are round craters?

Just wanted to know what this stuff looks like. Thanks

orange peal is too dry or too much air pressure.

orange peel is what it is. Looks like the peel of an orange. A fish eye is a little round crater usually caused by silicone in the air or on the surface.
Now if you get a million little fish eyes on the surface on the second or the last coat, that's called solvent popping.
This is caused from not enough drying time in between coats. The solvents are trapped under the next coat.
Solvents need enough time to escape before the next coat goes on. if you can touch it without sticking to it your'e ready for the next coat.
There are a few things that will cause orange peel, wrong tip in the gun, not enough reducer, paint drying too fast due to hot weather, dirty gun causing paint not to atomize correctly. Sometimes some paints just wont lay down right. But usually the number 1 cause is the person doing the painting. Just not holding the gun close enough. And beleive it or not, confidence & comfort has a lot to do with it. If im nervous about painting something, something usually goes wrong.
If I go in and paint with complete confidence or the I dont care how it looks its just a [censored] attitude they usually come out great!

Some guys will have a few beers before they paint, it relaxes you. They allways come out great. Ive tried it, it works!

I painted again yesterday. I'm using a devilbiss GTI/PRI gun. I cleaned everything twice, including the gun. I'm getting better. Some spots came out great, but I still have orange peel in most. I tried holding it closer, but started getting runs. But They don't look too hard to sand out. As long as I don't hit the sealer while sanding, it will come out good. One problem was that I had orange peel in the sealer, with paint on top. So when sanding it smooth, I started getting white dots from hitting the sealer. This time I shouldn't hit the sealer since it was sanded smooth. I still got some fish eyes, but not too bad. I can't see them unless I get my face 2 inches from the paint. So I think they will sand out easily. But I think that is just one of the joys of painting in a garage. The reason for doing the cab first is because the body work is done on it, and I want to get it back on the frame before winter. That will free up a ton of room in my garage.

That could be a big part of your problem. Unless you're pumping out that overspray hanging in the air it just settles back onto your paint. By that time it's dry as dust.

I think you need to take the advice thats been offered, cause until you do you will do the same.
Woody had sound advice when he said practice on something until you get the paint to lay down right.

You can't paint over a surface that already has orange peel and expect good results.
The gun adjustments play a big part, and you need to adjust the gun for the mix you have and the temp the day you shoot.
Look at the fan the gun is putting out,give something a blast and look at surface you blasted, is it even, is it too dry or what.
Many years ago, when I first started painting I was afraid to mess with the gun adjustments for fear of messing things up....only to find out it was necessary because conditions change every time you paint.

Now I can shoot a 6 in wide fan, a big fan, shoot it dry, shoot it wet, what ever I want.

It just takes practice, which is what you need, cause you're sure going to get tired of sanding, plus that sandpaper ain't cheap anymore.

Dan

I am taking the advise. I have a lot more painting to do. Fenders, doors, bed. Sandpaper is cheaper than paint. I spent about $800 on a gallon and a half of paint. I don't want to waist it on scrap metal. If I get orange peel I'll sand it smooth. This truck doesn't have to be perfect, so it is my practice area.

I think Czechman has it right, its hard to tell in the pictures but it looks like its shot too dry, really looks like too much air pressure, and not enough paint.
If you mess with the mix instructions you could have bigger problems, but I would up the hardner a bit, and test shoot a door or something, I never like testing paint on paper as it never looks right.It just doesn't look like it has a good shine for a solid color, upping the hardner will help that.
AM

When I get to the doors I'll try lowering the air pressure. I have been playing with the controls. But I've just been looking at the shape of the spray. Setting it for the cigar looking spray.

pics after wet sanding. The black spots in the first pic are flys that just happen to have landed when I snapped the pic
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1268/5055721/20931166/391468557.jpg
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1268/5055721/20931166/391468571.jpg
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1268/5055721/20931166/391468594.jpg

There is some spots that I hit some sealer, but I'm going to leave it. It adds some character to the old truck, and its not going to be a show vehicle anyways. I might get the doors ready before it gets too cold. When I paint them, I'll try lowering the air pressure and see what happens. It's hard to tell if there is going to be orange peel until it is about dry. But I guess it takes some practice and getting used to.

David, I'm sorry I didn't look at it your way, but then I'm not paying 500 bucks a gal for paint, and then I look at at wet sanding as a drag and don't enjoy it much.

What you said made me wonder why you want to throw all that expensive paint away, meaning when you sand it off it's gone.

When adjusting the gun, here's what I do. To start...big area to paint, big fan out of the gun,so I adjust air to make a big fan, then I open or increase the paint supply to match the fan to make it wet enough so when it hits the surface it can lay out smooth.

If you don't adjust it wet enough it will be shooting dry and of course when it hits the surface won't be able to lay out and then you will have orange peel for a finish.

I shoot at about 1 foot away, closer sometimes but if I'm closer then I have to increase the speed of the sweep across what I'm painting.
The other thing that's important is lighting so you can see what your doing and how the paint is laying out, cause only the best painters can do it in the dark !

Dan

I'm sure the doors will come out much better, they're just flat parts and much easier to get an even coverage.