Clear on my 2011 SS

[Coors9]

I bought a porter cable 7424xp a month ago. Wanted to hit the crappy GM clear and smooth it out. I'm shit baked to do it ...... anyone here ever go at it ????

[Maiden69]

the DA is not strong enough for what you are planning on doing. You need the Flex for that. You can manage paint correction, but to smooth out a clear coat you need so wetsand and polish.

[Nor Cal ZL1]

I consider the clear coat on the 5th gen way to thin for sanding off orange peel. Have your clear measured by a qualified paint or detail shop before you start. Mine was measured on the very thin side of the spectrum.

[Coors9]

Thanks guys....

[Adam's Polishes]

Originally Posted by Coors9

I bought a porter cable 7424xp a month ago. Wanted to hit the crappy GM clear and smooth it out. I'm shit baked to do it ...... anyone here ever go at it ????

When you say smooth out are you talking about swirls or orange peel?

[BRZN]

Originally Posted by Coors9

I bought a porter cable 7424xp a month ago. Wanted to hit the crappy GM clear and smooth it out. I'm shit baked to do it ...... anyone here ever go at it ????

Write like you're all grown up. I don't understand what you're asking.

A polisher; rotary or DA will not smooth the paint, sanding will smooth. The Porter Cable will polish the paint, and remove light defects, scratches, swirls, holograms, and marring.

Shit baked? Excited? Pissed off? Uneducated on technique?

Crappy GM clear? Compared to...
anyone ever go at it? What? polish paint?

[Coors9]

Is this better. There's orange peel in certain places on the car. I hate how it looks and I was wondering if anyone here has successfully removed it.

[Adam's Polishes]

No polisher will remove orange peel, you would have to wet sand to remove.

[Nor Cal ZL1]

As I said before you better measure it before you even consider wet sanding the clear. It is very thin. I would just live with it or have the panel painted with some thicker sandable clear.

[BRZN]

Originally Posted by Coors9

Is this better. There's orange peel in certain places on the car. I hate how it looks and I was wondering if anyone here has successfully removed it.

Yup, much better!

I removed some of the orange peel on the rear bumper of my daughter's Camaro while repairing a bit of minor damage, but as other stated above, it took sand paper.
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=457639
I don't know how thick the factory clear is, it would take a paint thickness gauge to know that. I've sanded factory clears as well as resprays before, and have an understanding of what I'm doing. Trial and error can be tough while doing a car. If you want to attempt it, go into it realizing if you make a mistake you'll be needing a respray.
To minimize orange peel on the clear you'll just be removing, or knocking down, the high nibs, as soon as the surface is completely flush you may have gone too far. I'll usually start with (wet sanding specific) paper and a foam block;
1500 grit
and progress through;
2000 grit
2500 grit
and finish with 3000 grit before moving onto compounding/polishing.
Each progressively finer step I'll sand in a different cross hatch direction from the previous so I can see when I've removed the previous steps sanding marks. This helps from removing too much clear at one time.
The Porter Cable you own will remove the 3000 grit sanding marks, but it'll most likely take several passes.
Make sure you have the correct backing plate attached to the machine:
http://adamspolishes.com/adam-s-5-po....html?___SID=U
and use 6" pads, start with this one http://www.autogeek.net/yellow-5-5in...ffing-pad.html then progress with these: http://adamspolishes.com/shop/access...ad-bundle.html
Start with this compound on the Yellow pad: http://www.autogeek.net/meguiars-m10...-compound.html
These are really good polishes to finish with, use the Orange foam pad with the Paint Correcting Polish and the White foam pad with the Paint Finishing Polish:
http://adamspolishes.com/shop/exteri...ish-combo.html
Below are pictures of my own Dodge Magnum I wet sanded after some body and paint work was done on it just a few weeks ago with my above prescribed steps. The only difference to you, I have several more powerful DA machines than your Porter Cable. Oh, and experience.

In the below, notice there's still a bit of gloss showing on the doors? I just wanted to remove the high nibs, not create a show car finish.



Below was after she was all polished back out. Not all of the orange peel was removed, just enough to have the repainted areas match the surrounding original paint's finish.

[Joe M 2012 2SS]

Orange peel is common on most vehicles, varying in amount though.
With your PC, you'll need a paint thickness gauge, a Carpro denim pad, and compound.

I would only do this if you have some experience with wet sanding, as the pad is equivalent to 2000 grit.

Unless your planning on making your car a show car, that you will not drive, your better off leaving the clear coat on the car.

[Adam's Polishes]

Great video, I guess you can always learn something new.

[Maiden69]

Originally Posted by BRZN

Y

Hey!!! I see a Flex on the floor with what appears to be a Adams Orange microfiber pad.

Just like stated above, it takes a lot of work and patience to completely do the entire car. There are plenty of threads online with step by step instructions. Go to Adams, Autopia, Autogeek car forums etc. Read before you commit... I just did a paint correction on my car with no sanding, sealed with Klasse AIO/SG, and between washes I am using Adams H2O Guard and Gloss and the results are very good. Not show quality smooth, but nice depth and gloss on a SIM finish. I can't wait to use Adams paint sealer, but I have a bottle of Klasse that I bought almost 3 years ago, and it is about 3/4 full still.

Joe M 2012 2SS - Going to have to take a look at those pads, I think they will work on straight smooth areas, but not on curves as they appear to have no foam backing at all. Just checked on Autogeek forum and WOW... I will be doing this in the next 2 weeks on the car once my shoulder feels better from my surgery.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...ested-wow.html

[Joe M 2012 2SS]

Originally Posted by Maiden69

Joe M 2012 2SS - Going to have to take a look at those pads, I think they will work on straight smooth areas, but not on curves as they appear to have no foam backing at all. Just checked on Autogeek forum and WOW... I will be doing this in the next 2 weeks on the car once my shoulder feels better from my surgery.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...ested-wow.html

For curved areas where the 5 inch pad is too large, the 3" is used. These pads do have an interface, it's only 3/16 of an inch, to give the pad better cut.

The car in the AG thread was repainted, without use of a paint gauge. The pads remove around 2-3 microns per pass.

I have only measured 4 gen 5 Camaro's and get readings varying from
185 to 210 microns. This is TOTAL amount of paint. Primer, base, and clear.

This is a reading from an area I removed 12-14 microns from getting a scratch out, and there is still some slight orange peel left. I believe some is actually in the base as well.


SAM_0136.jpg


To get an estimate of the amount of clear coat, I take a reading from the doorjamb area.

SAM_0137.jpg

The difference is 96 microns, this isn't a lot of paint, and the actual amount of clear may be less, again this is just an estimate.

I wouldn't do this to my car because it's an un-garaged daily driver.

I have used these pads on a hood of a show car that was re-painted, but I had 5 coats of clear to work with, and the avg. was 340 microns, removed 22-24 microns to eliminate orange peel.

When using these pads, you must, just like wet sanding, stay away from edges and avoid the edge of the pad digging in on concave curves.

Again unless you plan to never drive your car again and only enter it in shows, I would just remove the swirls/light scratches, and live with the orange peel.