Orange Peel & the new C-7
 

OK this might be a sore point, but I thought it needed to be asked: How bad was the “Orange Peel” effect on the (read your) C-6 and is there any reason to believe that the C-7 will be free of this paint defect? Is there any indication that GM has changed their approach and / or technology to minimize this problem on the new C-7?

Well, they made over $131 million in plant improvements...maybe the paint area got some of that.

BTW, my LMB '05 is fine with no OP.

No noticable orange peel on my 09 CG Z06.

There are improvements and modifications being made to the paint shop here in Bowling Green. With that said, there will likely be orange peel present. Short of the very high end model cars such as Ferrari where significant post processing (by hand) of the panels is conducted you will find orange peel everywhere else.

The bottom line is that with today's paints and composite materials to be painted virtually EVERY manufacturer (including Porsche) has it.

The paints are required to meet considerable environmental laws which drive up the solids content and makes flow more of a challenge. The panels will continue to be painted as they are on the C6 in the orientation that they will assemble on to the car.

The panels are composite, the paint process is an electrostatic process and you must concern yourself with grounding, gravity and paint viscosity. The paint technician must find the right balance of a thick enough paint that won't run off the panel vs a paint that will flow out smooth as it is dried. The panels are painted in the orientation that they hang on the car, horizontal panels painted horizontally and vertical panels painted vertically. Horizontal panels minimize orange peel because they have gravity acting in their favor. Vertical panels show more because as soon as you lay down the paint, gravity is acting to pull it down and off the surface so it doesn't have time to self level and flow.

The paint shop must do all of this fast enough to keep the assembly line moving while slow enough to get the best finish they can. The painted panels take 10 hours in the paint shop on the current model. They also have to balance all of this for a primer coat, a color coat and a clear coat. Same process for all colors.

Where some colors can help is the size and level of pigmentation or solids content vs. the amount of liquid (surfactants, cleaners and water)

The process has some variation in it. At the end of the day if you look long enough and close enough you will find the orange peel condition in every Corvette (and current production vehicle from GM or other marques) that you see.

My '12 coupe (torch red) is pretty good also. Hardly very little of it.

My 2013 white 427 has very good paint on it! I mentioned this in the other thread regarding the C7 that the paint at 1:27 in the video looks horrible. Of course no one responded for we can't criticize the C7 w/out getting lambasted on here! Check it out, looks like lots of orange peel to me!

My 09 has very little OP. The OP it has isn't that noticeable, better then my 98. But, I've seen some(primarily black) that was horrible.

I was at a Porsche dealership a few months back and couldn't believe how much OP there was on a 911-997 Turbo Black/Black. All for 160K. I've seen flatter paint on C6 Corvettes.

Very few cars are not subject to orange peel to some degree...even Ferrari (looked one over carefully and was next to a Lambo...both new and in for clear bras... the Ferrari had noticeable orange peel compared to the Lambo and looking (was in the same area as the Ferrari and Lambo) at my LMB C6 the paint was actually better (OP wise) than the Ferrari, but neither was up to the quality of the Lambo paint.

C7's seen at the shows.... are they not being built at Bowling Green and if so the painting is done is the same shop/equipment as the C6. Could be wrong of course

My JSB looks pretty good considering what I've seen on other production cars. A manager here at work has a 100K+ Tesla Model S and my Vette has better paint.

I'm surprised at Big Dan's observation of the red C7 having bad paint. I thought it looked remarkably good.

I am just guessing here, but i would imagine the show cars have been given some special hand finishing attention to their paint because they are SHOW cars.

Also, does anyone know if there is enough material on a Vette to allow wet sanding to get that perfect finish? I would guess the finish is too thin for this.

The two cars at the reveal and subsequently seen at Barrett Jackson, Jay Leno's garage and then the Detroit Auto show were assembled fully in Bowling Green. While some changes are in play for the next generation car in the plant, more will be done in the months to come once the build out for the C6 is complete. It is still a current generation assembly plant.

I've got an 08 Atomic Orange and it's slick and clean.

My 07 Yukon, on the other hand, looks like it was painted by Sunkist.

The view at 1:27 is oblique and is a little difficult to discern from a video. I took my first Corvette (86) and immediately had it wet sanded and buffed out. Looked amazing. I've seen some black C6's with very little OP and wondered how they could improve that much. A few years back I was considering a Aston Martin DB9. I toured the state of the art Gaydon, England factory and they wet sand and buff out every single car. All in all, I'll bet they will get the painting right. Just hope they put enough product on to buff out if necessary.

I went back and looked in HD full screen and he is just wrong, IMO.

Thanks for your info. Great stuff. I wonder why they wouldn't paint all the parts in a more horizontal position since the paint will lay flatter. In the Nat Geo video of the C6 ZO6 being built a few years ago they show the front and rear fascias being painted in a angled position. There has got to be a optimum position for these parts to painted at so the paint doesn't run. The jigs which hold these panels should be designed to hold the part at the optimum angle.

They have to balance lay down with a condition known as color flop. Basically an angular offset of the particles in the paint effects how they reflect light. The risk in painting everything in a particular orientation without respect to how the panel mounts to the car is color variation depending upon what angle the panel(s) are viewed at. This would present a more serious issue for owners to have their car or individual panels changing shades depending upon where you stood or viewed the car. It would make photographs of the car a mess in terms of color fastness.

Of course further complicating all of this is orange peel can present as a result of surface finish, electrostatic primer finish, primer finish, color coat finish and or clear coat finish. Any or all of the above can have an affect on the final surface of the paint. Further, in order to ensure bonding of the clear coat to the color coat the final paint applications are effectively a wet on wet where the paint is only flashed before the clear is applied. The subsequent curing allows for the two coats to interact and cross link allowing for a better bond. You don't want to go back to the factory paints of the 70's where the clear can just chip and peel off the surface.

Well, I wish I could say that about my '06 LMB.... Don't get me wrong, I love the car and the color, and from 10 feet or more away it looks absolutely fabulous! But, when you have it real clean and slick and in direct sun light, up close it is obvious that there is mild orange peel, particularly on the horizontal surfaces. OTOH, my after market spoiler is perfect!

That said, I think it is unreasonable to expect any factory paint job in the USA (as opposed to some overseas high end exotics that can still use high volatility paints) to be flat and free of orange peel. You're simply not gonna get that unless you're willing to spend $10k or so for a custom paint job with wet sanding between color and clear coats - and that simply is not viable in a production line scenario.

So - I am happy with the quality of Corvette paint, given the constraints and the cost!

:thumbs:

Good stuff, Paul!:thumbs:

Paul (talon90), are there colors that require more layers of product ? Do certain colors require a different mil thickness (Black vs Silver,etc.) And which colors visually hide orange peel best?

Humm $18K paint option on an F12 ...http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/ff-...paint-job.html

GM needs to offer this option -)........