Orange peel in paint

[youngsyr]

Was just watching a YouTuber's (Ratarossa's) nuts and bolts restoration of a Ferrari BBi in Ferrari White, which has just come back from a fully stripped bare metal respray in the original colour.

He is over the moon with the paint job, but my eyes there is visible orange peel (shadow of bonnet on the light cover, centre bottom of pic).

Is a perfectly reflective finish not possible on a car?

[ingenieur]

I don't think it's orange peel in the backstreet bodyshop sense.

The quality of the finish on car bodywork depends on smoothness. The smoother it is the better it will look.

The trouble with getting to the perfect level of smoothness is that it takes a lot more work.

Most of the time bodyshops will apply paint to a well flatted panel and then add subsequent coats until all required product has been applied and that is job done. They rely on the initial finish being flat enough and the chemicals in the paint to settle well to get an acceptably smooth finish.

You can get paint jobs that cost £5000 and paint jobs that cost £15,000. Hopefully for the higher amount you will get a better finish although paintwork is always subject to quality of workmanship, it's the most important bit.

[SteBrown91]

I would guess they have applied the paint to match as close as possible to the original factory paint finish.

If its too smooth it will get picked up by Ferrari anoraks as being incorrect etc.

[youngsyr]

ingenieur said:

I don't think it's orange peel in the backstreet bodyshop sense.

The quality of the finish on car bodywork depends on smoothness. The smoother it is the better it will look.

The trouble with getting to the perfect level of smoothness is that it takes a lot more work.

Most of the time bodyshops will apply paint to a well flatted panel and then add subsequent coats until all required product has been applied and that is job done. They rely on the initial finish being flat enough and the chemicals in the paint to settle well to get an acceptably smooth finish.

You can get paint jobs that cost £5000 and paint jobs that cost £15,000. Hopefully for the higher amount you will get a better finish although paintwork is always subject to quality of workmanship, it's the most important bit.

Well, they certainly spent a lot of time preppring the bare shell for paint, to my uneducated mind it looked like they did as much as possible to prep the car. It was completely stripped and sanded back to bare metal?

[ingenieur]

youngsyr said:

ingenieur said:

I don't think it's orange peel in the backstreet bodyshop sense.

The quality of the finish on car bodywork depends on smoothness. The smoother it is the better it will look.

The trouble with getting to the perfect level of smoothness is that it takes a lot more work.

Most of the time bodyshops will apply paint to a well flatted panel and then add subsequent coats until all required product has been applied and that is job done. They rely on the initial finish being flat enough and the chemicals in the paint to settle well to get an acceptably smooth finish.

You can get paint jobs that cost £5000 and paint jobs that cost £15,000. Hopefully for the higher amount you will get a better finish although paintwork is always subject to quality of workmanship, it's the most important bit.

Well, they certainly spent a lot of time preppring the bare shell for paint, to my uneducated mind it looked like they did as much as possible to prep the car. It was completely stripped and sanded back to bare metal?

I've not been following this build. I'm by no means an expert but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of people building hot rods and concourse winners and prepping the shell is only half the story if you want the ultimate finish. To get something which looks good you have to wet-flat each individual coat of paint and clear coat and then 'glass' the clear coat at the end of it. You could end up putting on 25 coats of paint and finishing each of them to get the final finish. It is unusual for anybody to specify that level of finish though. For most people what you have in that picture of the Ferrari above is good enough.

[youngsyr]

ingenieur said:

youngsyr said:

ingenieur said:

I don't think it's orange peel in the backstreet bodyshop sense.

The quality of the finish on car bodywork depends on smoothness. The smoother it is the better it will look.

The trouble with getting to the perfect level of smoothness is that it takes a lot more work.

Most of the time bodyshops will apply paint to a well flatted panel and then add subsequent coats until all required product has been applied and that is job done. They rely on the initial finish being flat enough and the chemicals in the paint to settle well to get an acceptably smooth finish.

You can get paint jobs that cost £5000 and paint jobs that cost £15,000. Hopefully for the higher amount you will get a better finish although paintwork is always subject to quality of workmanship, it's the most important bit.

Well, they certainly spent a lot of time preppring the bare shell for paint, to my uneducated mind it looked like they did as much as possible to prep the car. It was completely stripped and sanded back to bare metal?

I've not been following this build. I'm by no means an expert but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of people building hot rods and concourse winners and prepping the shell is only half the story if you want the ultimate finish. To get something which looks good you have to wet-flat each individual coat of paint and clear coat and then 'glass' the clear coat at the end of it. You could end up putting on 25 coats of paint and finishing each of them to get the final finish. It is unusual for anybody to specify that level of finish though. For most people what you have in that picture of the Ferrari above is good enough.

I seem to recall watching some videos on hot rods with ultimate paint jobs and them having many, many coats. I guess it just makes me wonder what people are talking about when they talk about "brilliant" paint jobs, where I can see visible orange peel - and that goes for aftermarket as well as factory finishes.

[ingenieur]

youngsyr said:

ingenieur said:

youngsyr said:

ingenieur said:

I don't think it's orange peel in the backstreet bodyshop sense.

The quality of the finish on car bodywork depends on smoothness. The smoother it is the better it will look.

The trouble with getting to the perfect level of smoothness is that it takes a lot more work.

Most of the time bodyshops will apply paint to a well flatted panel and then add subsequent coats until all required product has been applied and that is job done. They rely on the initial finish being flat enough and the chemicals in the paint to settle well to get an acceptably smooth finish.

You can get paint jobs that cost £5000 and paint jobs that cost £15,000. Hopefully for the higher amount you will get a better finish although paintwork is always subject to quality of workmanship, it's the most important bit.

Well, they certainly spent a lot of time preppring the bare shell for paint, to my uneducated mind it looked like they did as much as possible to prep the car. It was completely stripped and sanded back to bare metal?

I've not been following this build. I'm by no means an expert but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of people building hot rods and concourse winners and prepping the shell is only half the story if you want the ultimate finish. To get something which looks good you have to wet-flat each individual coat of paint and clear coat and then 'glass' the clear coat at the end of it. You could end up putting on 25 coats of paint and finishing each of them to get the final finish. It is unusual for anybody to specify that level of finish though. For most people what you have in that picture of the Ferrari above is good enough.

I seem to recall watching some videos on hot rods with ultimate paint jobs and them having many, many coats. I guess it just makes me wonder what people are talking about when they talk about "brilliant" paint jobs, where I can see visible orange peel - and that goes for aftermarket as well as factory finishes.

It was pointed out to me by someone who works for Tesla that every car of a particular model (can't remember which) has orange peel towards the front of the bonnet over the headlamps (and he showed me this on the car) because the robots in the factory could not properly articulate to be able to finish that part of the bodywork without creating orange peel. I'm sure it's only very subtle, I didn't look hard at it when he was talking about this.

[steveo3002]

ingenieur said:

I've not been following this build. I'm by no means an expert but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of people building hot rods and concourse winners and prepping the shell is only half the story if you want the ultimate finish. To get something which looks good you have to wet-flat each individual coat of paint and clear coat and then 'glass' the clear coat at the end of it. You could end up putting on 25 coats of paint and finishing each of them to get the final finish. It is unusual for anybody to specify that level of finish though. For most people what you have in that picture of the Ferrari above is good enough.

just no

[ingenieur]

steveo3002 said:

ingenieur said:

I've not been following this build. I'm by no means an expert but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of people building hot rods and concourse winners and prepping the shell is only half the story if you want the ultimate finish. To get something which looks good you have to wet-flat each individual coat of paint and clear coat and then 'glass' the clear coat at the end of it. You could end up putting on 25 coats of paint and finishing each of them to get the final finish. It is unusual for anybody to specify that level of finish though. For most people what you have in that picture of the Ferrari above is good enough.

just no

Haha... so from this detailed response are we to gather that my 4 year old is moonlighting as a bodywork specialist using her watercolours overnight to prepare Ferrari GTOs to cross the block at Bonhams?

[Pistom]

Nothing shouts "restored" or "repaired" more than a glass smooth paint finish on a production car.

Getting the right level of peel on a finish is actually quite difficult but is a nice detail if achieved.

I see countless restored cars with paint finishes much better than original would have been and to my eyes it detracts.

Just my opinion.

[youngsyr]

Pistom said:

Nothing shouts "restored" or "repaired" more than a glass smooth paint finish on a production car.

Getting the right level of peel on a finish is actually quite difficult but is a nice detail if achieved.

I see countless restored cars with paint finishes much better than original would have been and to my eyes it detracts.

Just my opinion.

I guess it comes down to whether you want the ideal of a car or the reality. I think if I'm shelling out a lot of money on a classic car restoration, I would want it as perfect as it could be, even if that means coving up some of the blemishes that it would have left the factory with, but each to their own.

[dhutch]

It's also for driving, will get dirty, washed, used.

That's certainly not a bad finish in my eyes.

[youngsyr]

dhutch said:

It's also for driving, will get dirty, washed, used.

That's certainly not a bad finish in my eyes.

Who said it's for driving?

It's a nuts and bolts refurbishment, he has literally stripped it back to the shell and refreshed every single part down to the smallest nut.

I very much doubt it's going to be a daily driver once finished!

[wyson]

Detailers on youtube say no. It’s why you need paint correction. The lacquer can’t dry to a perfect even smoothness. I remember there was a Maybach press release, the official shots showed a car with crazy orange peel, really don’t know why they didn’t put that car through a paint correction detail, or use lighting to hide it in the photos.

[dhutch]

youngsyr said:

dhutch said:

It's also for driving, will get dirty, washed, used.

That's certainly not a bad finish in my eyes.

Who said it's for driving?

It's a nuts and bolts refurbishment, he has literally stripped it back to the shell and refreshed every single part down to the smallest nut.

I very much doubt it's going to be a daily driver once finished!

Well, who knows, most of his cars are more at the 'drive it an enjoy it' end but I must admit I havent been a close follower of late.

That said, as above, even if you are looking for concourse there is argument that the factory finish wouldn't have been perfect. For the above reasons.