How to Remove Orange Peel from Car Paint

Last Updated September 19, 2024

So I used to teach wet sanding and now I teach dry sanding. And the reason why is because it’s cleaner, it’s neater, it’s faster. And look, if you’re looking for something more in depth again get a job at a body shop and learn how to use acrylic blocks and hard block them all but kind of what I teach is what the average guy the average detailer could do for somebody’s custom car and do a good job still make a profit and turn out high quality work and that’s dry sanding with the Eagle Abrasives dry sanding system.

Eagle Abrasives Dry Sanding System

Okay so now their system is for both hand and machine and just real quickly they have these really nice hand blocks and all their sheets are actually, they come in a set of two and there’s a perforation. So you can just tear off a sheet and then it’ll attach right to the Velcro on the interface pad. And they make three or four different interface pads.

Interface Pads Available:

• Super hard one – for doing what’s called hard blocking, if you’ve got a lot of major orange peel and you want to get it down flat.
• Medium interface pad.
• Very soft interface pad.

For our classes, I like to stick with the medium pad. And anyway, so that’s how it works. You put the interface pad onto the block, then you take and you line up the sanding sheet so no part of the interface pad is going to touch the paint. And that hand sanding pad is ready to go. There you go. See, I’ll go ahead and dismantle it and show you again. So three different interface pads, here is hard and look, it’s hard—you can’t even bend this thing and what that is is it keeps all the sanding action on the high points of the orange peel so you just take down the tops not going into the valleys because orange peel is like hills and valleys. Then you’ve got this medium block, then you’ve got the soft block and I’m using the medium block, and then it just attaches to this really nice ergonomic easy to hold backing pad.

Prepping the Paint: The Baggy Test and Claying

Anyway, when you come to our classes, this is the type of thing you get to learn how to use, as I like to say, on some other dude’s street rod. Look at Joe. Okay, so, anyway, so, and then, you know, before you start, and admittedly, this is probably a garage paint job. It is basically clear; it was pretty rough. But I’ve already washed this truck and it absolutely fails the baggy test.

What happens in the baggy test?
When you feel this, it feels like sand is in the paint job. You can sand right over that, but what I like to show people is an option, and that’s to go ahead and clay it first.

• Clay Option: This is a medium-grade clay detailing towel, but you could use a clay bar, a clay pad, or a clay mitt.

Instead of, you know, I’m going to use the word toast. Instead of toasting or wasting your sandpapers, your sand sheets, and this, take all this excess crud off mechanically just using the normal claying process. Sanding sheets from Eagle Abrasives, they’re not cheap. They’re not the most expensive, but they’re not cheap. And it’s just more, to me, it’s more cost effective and even time effective. When you consider switching this, switching this, or switching sheets and switching sanding sheets over and over again, because this is probably dry spray and whatever other pollution was in the air where this thing’s been sitting for the last 10 years.

But might as well just use your clay towel to remove all this stuff. And then you’ll get more use out of your sanding paper. Okay, so this side of the hood is clay. And of course, I’m going to make my class do the rest of this car. Aw, you’re so kind.

Ready to Sand

Okay. And I’m going to be talking fast and going fast because, you know, we’ve got to pack in a lot of different tools, techniques, and products real quick. Okay, so now if I try the baggy test, it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be a heck of a lot better. Boom. I mean, it is so much better. Okay, so that is how you prep—wash, clay. Now you’re ready to start sanding.

The Rule of Thumb

Now, one of the things I always teach and practice myself is called the rule of thumb. If you type into Google “the rule of thumb” and add my name, Mike Phillips, usually you’ll pull my article up and you’ll see my thumb. And what the rule of thumb is—and it’s kind of controversial—but what I do is my thumbnail, and I keep my nails trimmed because I’m a typist and I can’t type with fingernails at all, but it’s about three-quarters of an inch, maybe half an inch in diameter.

So that’s the basic rule of staying away from edges or raised body molding or raised body lines.

Why?
Here’s why: You can sand right up to the edge. Sanding is easy; it’s putting scratches in the paint. The tricky part is getting them out 100%. And that’s the standard I’m held to—not 90% out, but 100% out. And the problem with sanding right up to the edge is then you have to bring something down and buff along that edge to pull those sanding marks out. And a lot of times, if you’re not careful, you’ll burn through the edge or you’ll burn through a raised body line.

• Buffing Edge Solutions:
  There are different ways to skin that cat. For example, you can get the rotary attachment in a Pixie or a Rupes Nano, and put a fiber pad, microfiber, wool, whatever it is, now you can stay right next to it and pull those sand marks off. It’s a lot slower than a big wool pad on a rotary polisher, but it will work. But if you start to look at how many edges you’re gonna have, you’re gonna be on that truck for months, okay?

So it’s fine if it’s your own car, and it’s fine if the owner’s going to pay you by the hour. But if you’re doing this for a set price, you’re going to be working for pennies on the dollar. So stay about a thumbnail distance away. And again, if you want to do perfectionist sanding and buffing, go get a job at a body shop, and they’ll teach you how to do that there. Spend about 10 years, and you’ll get really good at it. Okay yeah, maybe in 10 years you’ll be good at it.

Starting the Sanding Process

Okay, so I’m going to go ahead and start sanding. And when you are sanding, you want to have a cotton or microfiber towel to pull the sanding dust off the face of the sand sheet and also off of the paint. You don’t want to just clean this and then bring this down and load it up with all the paint that you’ve loosened up.

• Tip: Just do a small area, especially if you’re new. This is about a 12-inch by 12-inch microfiber towel. That’s about as big an area you want to tackle. And if you’re brand new, you can even tackle something smaller.

But yeah, just start sanding. And one of the things like when you’re first starting out and you’re kind of scared, that’s understandable. You should be scared. Sanding down a clear-coated paint job is tricky.

Inspecting as You Sand

But just sand for a few strokes and then wipe off like I just did and inspect. Look to see if—what that was like six strokes back and forth—look to see how much of the paint you’re leveling and if you need to stop and go to a new area or continue sanding till it meets your expectations.

Topcoat Hardness

The thing I want to say is I want to quote my good friend Jason Rose. I love this quote: Topcoat hardness is an unknown variable. And it’s true. Topcoat hardness is an unknown variable.

• Soft paint is going to sand easy, just like it buffs easy.
• Hard paint is going to sand really hard. You’re going to have to work longer at it to abrade it, to level it, to get it to where you want it to be.

But you don’t know that until the first time you bring your block down and start sanding.

Dirt in Paint (DIP)

Why don’t you tell them about the little bumps and stuff that you’re seeing in there? Oh, I am happy to say that. This, I think, is really a garage paint job. This is what’s called DIP. See the little dots there? It’s called dirt in paint. When it’s painted, pieces of dirt fill in there. This thing’s never going to look like a million bucks, but again, it’s a great training car.

I’d rather train my students on this than a demo hood any day of the week because they’re going to learn so much about how to sand and how to buff with the wool pad and how to polish with the orbital. It’s just a really great training vehicle.

Sanding Along Edges

Now, when it comes to going along this edge up here, here’s what I teach for that:

• Rule of Thumb: Here’s my thumbnail distance away.
• Sanding Technique: Instead of big long strokes, come up and sand like this. And as I move my sanding block over, I’m going to keep my sanding pattern very tight. That means I’m going to only move over like about 3/8 of an inch at a time. And that way I have a very uniform, flat sanding pattern.

Why use this technique?
It means I can come down and bring my spinning wool pad and I can buff that out and pull those sanding marks out without putting any pressure on this edge or this part of the cab right here and burn through that edge.

Avoiding Burn Through

I mean, I have a quote. It goes like this: Words cannot describe the heart-sinking feeling that overcomes you when you discover you’ve burned through the paint on some other person’s car. I mean, it’s just like, oh, look what I did.

Yancy: Yeah, it’s a gut-check moment for sure.
Mike: Oh, it definitely is. Anyway, look at all the paint that’s coming off. Okay, so let me go back up here, and we’re just going to knock out a little section here because remember, I got to save this for my class. They’re paying big bucks to get down here where I get to work them like a slave master. There’s no chairs, there’s no tables, there’s no PowerPoint, there’s no sitting. I don’t even give breaks in these classes. You get about a 15-minute lunch break and that’s it. You need a break, you take off and go sit for a minute and then you come back. Take your own break.

Showing the Orange Peel

Now, come down here and look at this. Now, can you get all the way over here to see where the orange peel is? Let me come around over there. So, orange peel is basically hills and valleys. All right, let’s break this down. Show us where the orange peel is. Okay, so here where you see like little black spots and then there’s dull spots, those black spots are lower. They’re the valleys. So, orange peel is like hills and valleys.

• Black spots: These are the lower valleys where the paint hasn’t been sanded.
• Dull spots: These are the higher spots or “hills” that have been sanded.

Mike: Hold your finger in one spot.
Yancy: Yeah, the reason they’re so black is they haven’t been sanded yet.
Mike: So I can tell I still need to sand here. If you come out here, this is fairly sanded. This is sanded, this is sanded, but this has still got some peel in it. So let me just come down here and knock this out.

Correcting Orange Peel

I’m going to wipe this off. There, now it’s just as flat as all the areas around them. So, let me go ahead and just finish. Now here’s—this is interesting. See the pigtails in here? So, there’s pigtails. So, when they did the prep work, so that’s before they put down the primer, the base coat, they left—it looks like they left pigtails in their prep work. And now they’ve kind of bled through to the clear coat.

• What are pigtails?
  Pigtails are small curved scratches caused by improper sanding during prep work. When we sand this and then buff it, they should disappear.

Straight-Line Sanding vs. X-Pattern

And if you’re new at this, you want to sand in straight lines. If you get really skilled at this, you can use what’s called the X-pattern.

• X-Pattern: The X-pattern is a technique that I was taught by my longtime friend over at Huntington Beach Bodyworks. And now I can’t think of his name.
  Yancy: Rich Evans.
  Mike: Rich Evans! I always get stuck on his name. We actually—I was in charge of the team that sanded down the Meguiar’s trucks, the big semi-trucks with the flames going down the sides. And that was a hell of a project. We did all the work on the outside in the sun. But I was in charge on black paint with flames and stuff.

Yancy: What time of year were you doing this?
Mike: Rich Evans taught me—if you started out sanding with, I think we were starting out with 1000 grit. Then we went to 12, then to 1500, then to 2000, then we started buffing.

Tight Sanding Patterns

And I want to see—can you see these lines through here, this pattern?
Yancy: Yes.
Mike: Okay, so that’s a fairly tight pattern, but what I want to do is I want to keep it even tighter. Okay, so you don’t even see those lines. That’s by just moving over, just barely moving over, like three-eighths of an inch at a time. Okay. So that is a nice, tight pattern. What you don’t want to do is make what I call W’s or M’s. That would look like this. W’s or M’s are bad.

• Why avoid W’s and M’s?
  You’ll never get it completely flat, and it just won’t look right. It’ll take longer to buff out. So, keep a very tight pattern.

Knowing When to Stop Sanding

Then, after you’ve sanded to the point where you look at the paint and you can go, “You know what? That looks good to me. I’ve leveled the orange peel. I’m not going to get all these dirt nibs out of here.” I don’t know how much clear is on here. I’m hoping it’s got some paint because my students are gonna find out if it doesn’t.

• Good news: The guy that owns this, who’s probably watching, he doesn’t care if we make a mistake. These aren’t high-dollar street rods he buys and sells. Boom, here we go. That is sanded, hand sanded.

Yancy: All right, let me get the finishing shot here.
Mike: All right. I’m winded.

Moving to Machine Sanding

Okay. Now that was 1500 grit. If you want to capture that piece—1500 by Eagle Abrasives by Kovacs. Okay. So the next thing I want to do is I want to machine sand. I’ve already got a—I think this is 2500. This is their Bufflex system. This is also their interface pad. Now, interface pads are very important for both hand sanding and machine sanding. And they offer a couple of different ones. This, again, is their medium.

Why Use an Interface Pad?

Interface Pad Use	Purpose
Medium Interface Pad	Helps keep the face of the sandpaper in full contact with the curve of the panel
Interface Pads (in general)	Smooth out the sanding action and decrease the aggressiveness

Machine Sanding Techniques

So that’s just something to keep in mind. Now, before I hit that with this, I do want to show this little guy. A lot of people have been emailing me and asking me when are the six-millimeter drive units going to get in? This is the original because that’s handwritten number six by me. The engineers of Flex made this for me. I told them the 3 was too small, the 12 was too big. Give me a 5, 6, 7, or 8, and they sent me a 6.

• Fun fact: Now, they are available, and you can tell they’re imprinted. That’s how you can tell the ones from the factory. Chris Metcalf called me, said 500 of them have arrived to the U.S. shore.
  Okay, so these are great for doing thin panels. Look at this thin panel up here. And actually, this will fit up here for the fresh air cowl vent. Make life a lot easier.

Sanding Thin Panels

But I’m going to use this to edge the panel. And usually, what I tell people to do—and all these tools are different—but this one here has a digital speed control here, and you want to put this thing down, and you want to see sanding disc rotation. And I don’t really have any, so I’m going to bring the speed up. I don’t really have any. Here’s speed three. Now I got some pretty good rotation.

• Key technique: I’m going to just come and I’m going to refine my hand 1500 sanding marks with 2500, and that’s going to make the buff-out faster and easier and it’s also going to keep the paint cooler because I’m not going to be creating a lot of heat from extended pressure.

I’m going to go ahead and bump this up to the 6. And then this is a technique I use. See how I’m just kind of running this back and forth? And the reason why is because then I can look and gauge my progress turning 15 into 25.

Refining the Sanding Marks with 2500 Grit

This is something you want to keep a towel handy for, just like when you’re hand sanding. And let me show you all the—look at all the paint this 2500 grit pulled off. I mean, these Eagle Abrasives sanding discs really work good. Then just take and you can either leave it off and just kind of brush it onto the towel, or I usually just turn it on and just do that. Then I come back here, always wipe this off or you’ll take this paint dust and put it right back on here.

• Key tip: Clean both the disc and the panel.
  Then I’m just gonna come back here, bump this up to the 4.

Mike: Okay, I’m going to call that good. And notice I’m still about a thumbnail distance, but I’ve kind of wavered a little bit closer, so that’s going to schmoo that orange peel line over.
Yancy: Schmoo, there’s that technical word.
Mike: That’s a technical term. Now I’m going to kind of finish this line up here, back up to the 4.

Kelly Harris’ Sanding Method

My good friend Kelly Harris, he always teaches people that, you know, you’ll sand a little bit inside of the pattern that you want to sand, and then with your finer grits, move it out a little bit and that’ll give it a uniform appearance but also make the buff-out quicker, faster, and easier.

• Summary of Kelly’s Method:
  1. Sand inside the pattern with coarser grits.
  2. Refine it with finer grits, extending outward for uniformity and easier buffing.

Final Steps in Sanding

Okay, so now I’ve edged this, so all I’ve got to do now is come back with the big boy and just flatten out the rest of this. Now this is the Flex XFE.
Yancy: Hold on, before you keep going now, do you want to explain for some of the new people that are out there that maybe do not know why you have to go through the different levels of sandpaper?

Mike: Oh, sure. And here’s the answer. You don’t have to. You could sand this truck or whatever you’re working on with, say, 1000 grit, and then start in with your compound and pad and start buffing, but you’re going to be pressing really hard and buffing for hours because the sanding marks are really deep.

• Why go through different levels of sandpaper?
  1. Higher grits reduce time: Spending more time sanding and refining the sanding marks to a higher grit makes the buff-out faster.
  2. Keeps paint cooler: It also makes it cooler for the paint. Heat is never good for clear coats, so you want to keep it cool.

Sanding Grit Options

• In today’s modern world, I think in the Eagle Abrasives line, the highest they go up to is 2500 or 3000. They might go to 4000.
• In the 3M line, you can go up to 8000. So I always tell people, let your budget be your guide. If it’s your project and you’ve got unlimited funds, sand out to 8000, start buffing. If you’re on a budget, maybe finish out at 2000.

Another variable for how hard it will be to pull your sanding marks out with any kind of compound and fiber pad or however you want to do it is topcoat hardness. The harder the paint, the harder it’s going to buff. So really hard paints, you do want to try to finish out at higher grit levels to make the buffing quicker, faster, and easier.

Using the Flex XFE 15

Mike: Okay. Okay, so this is the Flex XFE 15. I think they call this the FX 3411. Now this is a 1.6 millimeter wood sander. It’s for wood. It’s what’s called a finishing sander. It’s not for doing rough work; it’s for finishing.

• Why use this tool?
  I know some of you experts out there say, well, Mike, that’s the wrong tool for this. Well, right now, this is all that Flex has that I have access to that’s cordless, and I love the cordless aspect to it. But also, you can say on paper that that’s the wrong way to do it, but I’m telling you, it works in practice. And that’s really all I care about.

Yancy: Well, that’s kind of how the Porter Cable came to be.
Mike: Yeah, the Porter Cable was a wood sander, and someone figured out it’d maintain pad rotation for buffing out car paint. Okay, so same thing, now I’m just going to run this back and forth a few times.

Buffing With the Big Tool

Now I don’t have to worry about getting to the edge because I did all the edge work with a little three-inch disc, which is a lot easier to control. Let me just show you. Look how much paint is coming off with even 2500 grit.

• Cleaning tip: Always clean your pad frequently while buffing.

So again, I’m just going to remove this. And you should be wearing a mask when you do any of this kind of work. And those two passes probably refined it, but I’ll do a couple more just to make sure. And of course, overlap your passes by about 50% or 75%.

Importance of Overlapping Your Passes

Mike: You know, I saw this guy, his business name was “Overlapped by 75%.” I thought, that’s pretty crafty there.
Yancy: Why is overlapping important?
Mike: Overlapping by 75%, not just 50%, ensures that you’re doing better work.

Note: It would take longer to buff out a car doing that, but your work could probably turn out better. Anyway, then that’s how that works. And again, this little on and off button here, and you’ve got multiple speeds, so you can bring this up to turbo speed, is what they call that. That’d probably be good.

Speed and Pressure in Buffing

Yancy: I was going to say, that’d probably be good for wood, but not car paint.
Mike: Yeah, no, you’d go through really quick. That’d be a grinding process.
Yancy: How does one know when their sandpaper is done and when they need to replace?

Mike: Oh, that’s a good question. You know, you just have to be at one with the paper, you know. It’s called the Zen moment. No, just look. If you’re looking and it’s not—you move. If I were to take that disc and move on to new territory and I’m just not seeing no action, it’s probably time to either clean the disc or switch to a fresh disc. And that’s about the only way you can gauge.

Finishing the Sanding Process

Okay, so this is sanded. So now the next thing I need to do is I need to pull my sanding marks out. And someone was asking me the other day about my rotary polisher. I love to show this thing off. This is a prototype. You can see the color red is different. It’s also metric. So this was hand-built in Germany, sent to me to test out before they went public with the cordless rotary.

• Tool performance: I always tell people the biggest mistake I’ve made is I haven’t counted or kept track of how many cars and boats I’ve buffed out with it, but it’s a lot.
  Yancy: Just one or two?
  Mike: Just one or two. And I’ve never serviced it. It just keeps on going.

Using the NSP 150 and Abrasive Technology

So this is the NSP 150. Oh, I should have brought over the abrasive powders. Oh, I got some right here. This is interesting abrasive technology and everybody knows me, I’m all about the abrasive technology.

• What does the abrasive look like?
  It’s this super fine powder, and these are perfectly round spheres with facets on them, little edges on them, but perfectly round so no matter where that abrasive is on the surface, it’s always cutting. And they’re highly concentrated, so you don’t need a whole lot.

Yancy: So where’s my buffing pad?
Mike: This is something that you needed to learn. Yeah, this still has a safety seal, so let me pull that out.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

This is the mistake you always make on TV. You go to spray something and it doesn’t spray. You go to pour, nothing pours. Shake well. It’s like Tom Cruise in “Cocktail.” Not really.
Yancy: See what I got to work with here, people?
Mike: Whoops, got a little too much on there. But when you’re starting out with the wool pad, you need a little extra because the pad is going to absorb some of the product.

Yancy: Good recovery.
Mike: Good recovery, yes.

Breaking in the Wool Pad

Let’s just kind of break this pad in a little bit. Remember, the camera guy doesn’t like wearing it. The camera guy doesn’t like to wear compound splatter. And notice how I’m tipping this up on edge. And what I’m doing is I’m actually getting some product onto the edge.

• Key technique: Tilt the pad up to get product onto the edge, ensuring even coverage.

Rotary Polishing to Remove Sanding Marks

Okay, so let’s go ahead and pull our sanding marks. I like to go up to the 3. I’m going to push on this a little bit. And this is what’s going to really tell me if this is hard paint or soft paint. That’s one section pass. Here’s a second section pass.

• Observations during polishing: Did you see those sanding marks are just melting, just melting out of the paint?
  Yancy: Wow.
  Mike: Okay, so I’m just going to call this on the soft side of medium.

Polishing Edges with the Finger Painting Technique

Okay, so now I need to come and get my edges. So for that, I want to teach a technique called finger painting.

1. Usually, when I’m working on a car, I’ll just apply some product down someplace on the car, doesn’t matter where.
2. Then I’ll take my finger and paint this along the edges I want to buff.

Why do this?
What this is going to do is put two things down there:

• Lubrication.
• Abrasive technology.

You need both when you’re buffing.

Controlling the Rotary Polisher

Now, what I want to do is I want to be cognizant of how this pad’s spinning. It’s spinning clockwise as I look down on it. So what I want to do is I want to actually start up here, and that way it’s going to pull the product into itself, not spray it all over your camera lens.

• Yancy: Ah, thank you.
  Mike: Now, I’m actually pushing, pushing pretty hard, as I pull those sanding marks out right along that edge.

Let me bring my speed up. Boom—they’re gone. Okay, let me—I can grab it from right here. I just don’t want to splatter you.

Making Rotary Polishing Look Easy

Mike: Okay, and the goal of using a rotary, Yancy, is to make it look so easy like anybody can do it. I don’t even have to look at what I’m doing and I’m pulling those sanding marks out. Boom, they are gone.

Now I’ll just grab this. I have some sanding marks on the edges, I’ll grab that, pull it out real quick.

• Pressure tip: I’m pushing down about 10 pounds. I’m doing what I call chopping.
  Yancy: Chopping?
  Mike: I’m chopping on this thing.

Personal Story: The Wood Chopping Analogy

When I was a kid, my mom and my dad used to order three cords of wood to the house every year. Me and my brother had to go out with a maul and a splitting wedge and an axe and split it, chop it up, carry it around the back of the house, and heat the house all winter long with firewood.
Yancy: Yep, been there, done that.
Mike: And good exercise, but I remember chopping.

Finishing the Edge Buffing

Okay, so I pulled out all my sanding marks. This, I think I have. Come down here and look. So, there’s swirls. Here’s a little bit of sanding marks right there. Can you see it’s kind of dull and hazy looking?
Yancy: Across the edge is all good, though.
Mike: Yep.

• Yancy: All I see is your holograms.
  Mike: Okay, let me just pull those out real quickly just to make sure they are gone.

Spur Your Pad

There’s a drop of product. That would be a pea-sized drop, Mike. And always, I did this earlier, but always clean your pad with a spur. Bring this up to high speed, run that across there, go all around the edge, make sure that thing’s clean.

• Pro tip: Clean your pad often. If you could see me on security cameras, you’d see me clean my pad after every panel easily.
  Okay. Okay, they’re gone.

Removing Holograms

So now the next step would be to pull out your holograms. Holograms are—you know, holograms by my definition as I wrote it in three of my how-to books is a specific scratch pattern inflicted by the use of a rotary polisher and usually fiber, so a wool pad. But you could do it with foam, microfiber, and the abrasive technology.

• What is a hologram?
  It’s a pattern that’s specific to a single rotating action of a rotary. If you’re using an orbital, it can’t be holograms. It could be micro-marring, but it’s not holograms.

Using the Rupes Bigfoot 21 DA Polisher

Okay, this is Mr. Rupes, Bigfoot 21. And I’m going to go ahead and try—I have a cutting pad on here, but after seeing how that paint buffed out, I’m going to throw on a soft foam polishing pad. This is where the test box comes in, and we will see a 45 finishing polish. We’ll pull out those holograms.

• Skipping NSP 95: We’re skipping 95. That’s like a medium cut polish. This is a finishing polish—same kind of abrasive technology I showed you in the little jar.

Applying Finishing Polish

I keep telling people I have to retrain myself to put pea-sized drops. It’s hard sometimes to get a pea-sized drop out of the dispenser, but that’s as good as I can get it. This would tackle the entire hood easily.

• Pro tip: Turn the speed down. Break in the pad and let the abrasive technology kind of migrate around.
  Now I’m going to bring this up to about the 5 setting.

Mike: There’s one section pass. We’ll do four and wipe off.
Yancy: Two?
Mike: Two. Low pressure, weight of the tool.

Inspection: The Final Result

That’s the number 16 tool, by the way. I have the 6 and the 16. Oh man, Yancy, look at that. I can see the reflection. Two sanding and two steps and near perfection. It’s not perfect, but that’s good.
Yancy: It’s a lot better than what it started with.
Mike: I would ceramic coat that.

Forgetting the Tape Line

You know what I forgot to do? I forgot to put a tape line down.
Yancy: Do you have a light?
Mike: Yes, I always have a light.
Yancy: Un momento.
Mike: All right. Then just do me a favor, give me a wipe over here.
Yancy: Okay.
Mike: Just so we can get the dust and stuff off.

Yancy: Is that my hold on that where you like it?
Mike: Yeah. I will play like that.

Comparing Before and After

Yancy: Alright, there’s the before. You can see all the orange peel and the—
Mike: Pigtails.
Yancy: Everything. Modeling. And then up here, which my light doesn’t even want to, because it’s like a black hole. If you come over here, you can actually get the overhead fluorescent light tubes. And over here, they’re all modeled. And then where we sanded, they’re very defined.
Mike: There we go. There you go. See how clear the tubes are overhead? And we’re just going to follow that down. And it goes to one big blob.
Yancy: To ugly.

Distinction of Image (DOI)

Mike: Okay, so that’s called DOI, Distinction of Image. It means a mirror is 100% DOI. So anytime you’re sanding to remove orange peel, modeling, dirt in paint, any kind of surface texture, the goal is to make the surface as flat as possible. Then of course, when you buff out your sanding marks, you restore a crystal clear finish and it’ll reflect like a mirror. So you’ve heard the term in the car detailing industry, a mirror finish. That’s what they mean. Get a mirror finish. And then after that, of course, you would coat.

Applying the Coating

• Coating to use: For this, I would use Nano Resin MX.

Yancy: Is that the one you’re going to use on this truck?
Mike: That’s what I’m going to use on this truck, Nano Resin MX.

Yancy: Well, you’ve shown us how to remove orange peel from a garage-painted truck.
Mike: Yeah, garage paint, it’s got a lot of orange peel, but you can still turn it into a mirror finish with the right techniques.