Can you have your car re-clear coated to add thickness and get swirl marks out? Or do you have to repaint the car and then clear coat?

 

See, now these are the one of a kind threads I like to see!!!

 

You could do it. Wet sand the entire car and shoot more clear on it. It would be just as much work as painting the whole car itself though. Really the best way to do it would be to take all the panels off and do them one at a time then reassemble the car. Hell at that point you could paint your car any color you want.

You could do it with everything together but you will see some tape lines and will get some over spray in the jams no matter how hard you try to hide it.

I understand where you are coming from. I would love to wet sand my whole car just to get the orange peel out since GM leaves a lot of orange peel in these cars but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of clear to work with.

 

man!!! i was just thinking this right now... I am looking at buying a Porter cable right now! like literally.

 

You can wet sand and re-clear if you wanted to, without bothering the base color coat. Dismiss the more is better thing though, as a thicker paint coat tend's to crack easier. Also, paint supply house's carry foam backer's to stuff panel seam's to lessen overspray in door jamb's and such.

 

Could be done. Worth it? not in my opinion. Why? Because it would be just about as costly as a normal repaint.

 

If it's DIY .. One very important thing is make sure you remove all wax before you start to sand. You will push the wax into the top coat and your problems will only begin.

Merry Christmas

 

The first thing to understand is what your working with. The target film builds on the OEM system is 0.8 to ~ 1.2 mils on the basecoat. (This is color dependent.) The clearcoat target is ~ 1.5 - 1.8 mils. A mil is .001 inches. As you can see, not very much material.

For this reason I would not wet sand to remove the peel, but would wet sand to improve adhesion. Then have a bunch of clear put over it, and then take it down smooth. The reason is you do not want to break thru the clear while sanding and hit the base color. Especially with metallics.

I would also not recommend removing panels and spraying BC/CC independently. It might be best for reducing over spray or tape lines, but color matching between panels becomes a really big issue. The basecoat color is very much effected by the spray technique and application direction. Film build can have a major impact as well. By spraying them independently, no two panels will be the same because there are just to many variables for a human sprayer to control. In terms of difficulty, straight shades would be the least, followed by metallics, and then tinted clear systems being the hardest. If you have been to BG, you would see that they actually try to put the body panels in the correct position by mounting them on a jig. This is to facilitate color matching between them so that body panels that butt up to each other have been applied similarly, and have equal film builds.

As for GM "leaving" orange peel on the car, the peel is a result of the limitations of the current paint technology being used, and the equipment/process to apply it. You will find peel on darn near every mass produced vehicle because the technologies and processes are all very similar between the OEM's. Some colors are more prone to it, some colors show it more. But in reality, it is on every vehicle made. The ones that don't have it, have been specially prepared.

 

TJL, you are correct in what you are saying. In this case the OP is not looking to add any more base coat to the car, just clear so color matching won't be an issue.

I have used the foam tape for the door jams and that does help out a lot with over spray in the jams and tap lines.

Normally for something like this I would recommend taking the entire car apart since it would be such a headache in itself. With the Corvette though all the panels bolt right on you could take the bumpers, fenders and 1/4" off without to much head ache.

If the OP is only concerned with swirl marks and not orange peel then I would recommend a really good buff job. If they are not confident with a buffer bring it to body shop or car detailer.

I also agree that every car is going to have orange peel unless special care has been take to ensure it does not. Its just not going to happen on any production out there. I don't hate the corvette paint but it is definitely sub par IMO and could be better for what the car is. Then again these aren't show cars by any means so I live with it. The only reason I live with it is I know the headache it will cause to fix and knowing I am not the only one.

 

It you have swirl marks, just use a swirl remover polish to remove the swirl marks. Meguiars has a polish that can be used by hand or with a dual action polisher and also a polish that can be used with a rotary buffer. There is no need to repaint to remove swirl marks.

 

I had my car wet sanded,because I had some custom paint work done. The entire car was recleared and polished. The finish is perfect compared to the factory finish. It it expensive to do. Make sure you check out custom paint shops and get feedback from customers who used the shop you decide upon. Also be prepared to have the car tied up for awhile. My car was in the shop for 7 weeks. I did this in November and got the car back a week ago.

 

It's not necesssary to re-clear the car to remove swirl marks. It sounds to me like someone used a buffer on the car and they didn't know what they were doing. If you have the car buffed by a professional they can make the paint look brand new. Or if you know what your doing this can be a DIY job as well.

 

My 2008 VW Jetta in Black has no orange peel!

 

As others pointed out, if you only care about swirl marks or orange peel, you don't need a repaint. Find a good detailer and have him polish the vehicle - you won't believe your eyes. The REALLY good ones even have a tool for measuting paint thickness, so they won't burn through your clearcoat. Try asking folks at autopia forum, they know their stuff. A full paint correction detail is about $300, a lot less that the cost of a repaint.

 

Some very good info above about paint, buffing, etc.

Regarding the OE paint, I recall being with an out of town, Porsche-aficionado. We went to look at some 30 new Corvettes, then crossed the streets to the Porsche dealer. We could easily SEE both inside and outside the showroom paint "issues" on the cars. When pointed out to him, he was surprised, to say the least.

 

He was surprised at the paint on the porsche having some blemishes, swirls, orange peel, or whatever it might have been? If your saying what I think you are you bring up a good point. All factory paint has imperfections to one degree or another. The difference really is in the person. Most people just don't see the imperfections until someone with a trained eye points it out to them. Even then some people still might not see it.

 

Have been looking into options for cleaning up the paint for some time now. I was able to remove all the swirl marks from the dealer, but the paint just doesn't feel as smooth. Some paint areas are very slick, and some are not. I did the work myself with a porter cable, which is easy to use and safer than an orbital buffer ( which means pretty much anyone can do it)

You may want to look at David Fermani's post, as he had some very unique techiniques.

http://www.autopia.org/forum/pro-det...orrection.html

I'm sure he isn't cheap, but his results are quite impressive. Probably much less expensive than redoing the clear coat.

If you are think of doing it yourself, I have had a lot of success with menzerna's Super Intensive Polish PO83. Use a medium(orange pad) with the porter cable, and move through the black and red polishing pads. This got rid of the swirls and left the finish almost perfect. I finished up the process with Wolgangs finishing glaze (make sure its 3.0), and a top coat of quality carnuba (Ps21). I have also used zaino for years, but it seems to work better after the car is perfect.

Kevin

 

Yes, that is what I was saying. As you mention, once you see it and know what it looks like, suddenly it becomes quite obvious. But when you're not looking for it, or don't even know what it looks like, you don't notice it. I could almost guarantee you that now, my friend sees it all the time on just about every car! Prior to this, he was fairly well convinced that Porsches did not suffer from this paint problem.