New Paint Cut and Buff

The trick with cutting, not that I have done much, but...you don't know how much clear is on there and how much sanding/cutting will cut through. Orange peel can be wet sanded out, but it is a very touchy thing. If you get into the base coat, your need to respray that area with clear and sand and buff again. As far as dust nibs...some cut out, some don't, but may get less obvious.

I would have expected the common paint shop to finish out the job, but it sounds like you are beyond that. I would expect to wet sand the clear until smooth (through TO the paint or not) and re-spray the whole thing...but, that's just worst case. Just don't cut through the base coat to where primer shows...easier said than done!

These last details is why paint jobs cost sooooo much...a lot of experience to minimize the elbow grease and still a lot of elbow grease.

goatboy1970 said:

Talked with the painter again and we're going to be able to work it out, I think.

Click to expand...

Hope so - keep us posted.

Both can be fixed (provided the clear is thick enough), but see what he's able to do with it first.

Cut and buff won't fix orange peel, that's going to require wet sanding to take out/ flatten the surface and THEN cut and buff to restore the gloss. Easiest way to deal with dust nibs is to use a trick I learned from Kevin Tetz's "Paintucation" videos. Single edge razor blade, "stropped" in one direction across some 400 paper a few times to create a burr along the edge, then bent into a curve so that the burr is on the "outside" radius of the curve. You've just made a tiny plane. Lightly drag the burr over the nib with the top of the blade angled toward you to shave it down (this is why you bent it into a curve - makes the contact area very small and also keeps the blade corners from digging into the paint). After the nib is gone, then wet sand, cut, buff to get the gloss back.
Works like a charm - just take your time and don't get too aggressive with it. The same technique works for taking out runs.

FYI, you can find a bunch of videos about this on youtube, with different variations, however I've not found any of them that include the step of creating a burr along one side of the blade. I believe that to be a key part of the process.

Bear