I am quite appalled at the number of new cars I see and often prestige ones at that, that seem to suffer from orange peel on the paintwork. I thought that this phenomenon was a thing of the past. My last three new cars, two Rovers and my current Golf don't have any signs of this scourge. Maybe this is because my cars have been finished in metallic Silver or variants of colour thereof.
I pulled alongside a new black BMW 1 series a day or so ago and the orange peel finish down its side was very apparent - I would have been straight back to the dealers with that car, I can tell you.
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I was parked yesterday behind a 53 plate Vyo datk blue and the orange peel on the rear door vas obvious I got out and checked other panels an low and behold, not as bad mind you, ornage peel. Regards Peter
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I'd be back to the dealer with that keyboard, Peter. };---)
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ask a paint shop to show you how to put the water based rubbish on before the lacquer and you will see how orange peel will soon be the law
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New Clio Dynamique in Black had it a couple of weeks ago in the dealer's showroom. Definately still around.
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seen it on all sorts of cars, nothing consistent tho, mostly blacks. They get it right on a proprtion of the same model in black and then one comes along where its all gone pear shaped. (or orange peeled)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I assume that "orange peel" is caused by the individual droplets of paint in the spray and is present to some degree or other on all cars that have not been rubbed down after they have been sprayed. If the droplets pile up on top of one another sufficiently then you get orange peel that is clearly visible. If the droplets are more randomly distributed on the surface then the surface is flatter. Of course I may be wrong, but this is my theory.
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L\'escargot.
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I thought I was the only one who noticed this problem...now I know I am not mad.
I was at the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart a few weeks back. Next door is a Mercedes dealer and I could not help myself and was drooling all over the new S-Class and CL-Class cars there.
But I could not help notice that the c-pillars on the S-Class certainly had an orange peel dimpling effect...was most noticeable in black. Other parts of the car were piano-lacquer glossy.
Now, call me a fuss pot but that is not acceptable on a £20,000 car let alone one cost over £60,000.
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Was in my local Honda dealership and was aghast at the finish on one of their basic Civics, it looked like it had just had a bad respray !. I had a wander around looking at the rest of the range and it seemed to me that the more expensive the car was the better the finish was, the pricier Accords had a finish like glass!.
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One cause of orange peel is too thin an application of paint. The paint has a surface tension, it also has a viscosity. At a microscopic level the solvent in the paint begins to evapourate at random sites across the sprayed area. At these points, the viscosity of the paint increases such that it is no longer mobile and cannot be moved by surface tension. The sites at which this first happens will form the ridges. The less viscous (more fluid) areas inbetween will then tend to be depleted of paint as the surface tension pulls the paint toward the ridges. Hence you get the dimples.
Hey-presto you have the orange peel effect.
The effect can be reduced by spraying on thicker layers of paint or by using a solvent(s) that have a longer flash-off (evapouration time).
Neither of these two options is economically or environmentally friendly. Guess that we are stuck with the effect.
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That's interesting info RB - I had never before given a moments thought to the mechanism behind orange peel formation. I know it's an easy enough effect to create though!
On another note, in these heavily legislated times, what types of paint are there now available for DIY usage? Can you still get cellulose?
Number_Cruncher
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Guess that we are stuck with the effect.
It wouldn't bother me unless it was really bad, and in 40 years I haven't had a car where it was visible without very very close scrutiny.
Incidentally we've got a flat door in our house that was gloss painted with a roller and I rather like the orange peel effect! (Much better than brush marks.)
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L\'escargot.
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>> Guess >> that we are stuck with the effect. >> It wouldn't bother me unless it was really bad and in 40 years I haven't had a car where it was visible without very very close scrutiny. Incidentally we've got a flat door in our house that was gloss painted with a roller and I rather like the orange peel effect! (Much better than brush marks.) -- L\'escargot.
Do you literally mean a flat-surfaced door or a door leading to a flat/apartment.
All my internal doors have flat surfaces and I've got painting them, down to a fine art, such that, for all intents and purposes the finish looks like a melamine finish and that's achieved using a high quality brush and adjusting the viscosity of the paint accordingly before use.
Paint off the shelf has invariably undergone a viscosity increase since manufacture and should be thinned, within reason, before use.
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As mentioned above, the most common cause of orange peel is too thin application and the base carrier of the paint.
We spray many different types of paint (water based) and lacquers (solvent based) which have a overall thickness of approx 50 microns. While we do get orange peel affect on solvent based PU lacquers when first sprayed, this usually falls out overnight compared to spraying water based paints which can remain orange peely even when a top coat of lacquer is applied.
Basically, thin applications of water based paints / lacquers are more likely to orange peel than thicker applications of solvent based products.
Butyl Acetate is a good carrier as it takes longer to flash off than ethyl acetate.
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which can remain orange peely even when a top coat of lacquer is applied
Yes, and I've seen body shops vainly trying to buff or polish their way out of the orange peel effect when the cause of the orange peel is beneath the laquer.
And good old-fashioned xylene - do you still get this in some hammerite paints - takes even longer to flash off. The benefit is that the solvent can escape from within the paint for much longer before the coating skins over.
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