GonzoBernelli
05-01-2019, 02:37 PM
And wet sanded the factory installed orange peel of my 2016 Audi A5. Here is what I did, as described to my son earlier today:
I wet sanded by hand the paint on the car using 2000 grit using a hard rubber block, and kept at it until I could see the “peaks” comprising the orange peel were reduced to nothing (analogy would be bulldozing mountains until they were reduced to the level of the valleys). Then I went over the area again using 2500 grit to remove the 2000 grit scratches. Once a body panel had been done with
2500, I used a powered polisher with 5000 grit to level any remaining irregularities.
After that I used power polisher with coarse pad and liquid polish to remove the 5000 grit scratches, then medium and finally fine. After doing the entire car excluding the front (too many stone bruises, tight curves, difficult to reach areas) and roof ( no orange peel) I applied the CQUARTZ protective glass (SiO2 and TiO2) shiney stuff.
Yes, I had polished the paint before, but it only reduced the orange peel, not eliminated it. Then used the glass coating. Internet research told me that the only way to eliminate orange peel from “mature” paint was to wet sand. Professional detailers have access to 75 gallon or larger air compressors to run air tools for fast turn around. My compressor is only 25 gallon, which is only good for 1-2 minutes of sanding. My option was to do it by hand, besides I could better control working the convex and concave profiles in the body work without cutting through the clear coat.
All told, it took 5-6 weeks to remove orange peel, weather permitting (some days rainy, others too cold). I had to redo a couple of spots because of residual scratch visibility after final polishing or incomplete orange peel removal.
All that made the car paint look like a mirror, which was my intended result. I’m lucky to have the time to do it and Audi clear coat is one of the toughest and thickest in the whole automotive industry, so there was little risk to remove too much, which would have resulted in a visit to a body shop to repair the color layer and respraying the clear coat layers.
Pix to follow, once I get instruction from admins about posting pix that don`t say "Upload failed"
I wet sanded by hand the paint on the car using 2000 grit using a hard rubber block, and kept at it until I could see the “peaks” comprising the orange peel were reduced to nothing (analogy would be bulldozing mountains until they were reduced to the level of the valleys). Then I went over the area again using 2500 grit to remove the 2000 grit scratches. Once a body panel had been done with
2500, I used a powered polisher with 5000 grit to level any remaining irregularities.
After that I used power polisher with coarse pad and liquid polish to remove the 5000 grit scratches, then medium and finally fine. After doing the entire car excluding the front (too many stone bruises, tight curves, difficult to reach areas) and roof ( no orange peel) I applied the CQUARTZ protective glass (SiO2 and TiO2) shiney stuff.
Yes, I had polished the paint before, but it only reduced the orange peel, not eliminated it. Then used the glass coating. Internet research told me that the only way to eliminate orange peel from “mature” paint was to wet sand. Professional detailers have access to 75 gallon or larger air compressors to run air tools for fast turn around. My compressor is only 25 gallon, which is only good for 1-2 minutes of sanding. My option was to do it by hand, besides I could better control working the convex and concave profiles in the body work without cutting through the clear coat.
All told, it took 5-6 weeks to remove orange peel, weather permitting (some days rainy, others too cold). I had to redo a couple of spots because of residual scratch visibility after final polishing or incomplete orange peel removal.
All that made the car paint look like a mirror, which was my intended result. I’m lucky to have the time to do it and Audi clear coat is one of the toughest and thickest in the whole automotive industry, so there was little risk to remove too much, which would have resulted in a visit to a body shop to repair the color layer and respraying the clear coat layers.
Pix to follow, once I get instruction from admins about posting pix that don`t say "Upload failed"