polishing lacquer

[sydduckett]

Have some orange peel going on on some of the parts i have lacquered and have borrowerd my mates prof polishing mop. Have also got a tube of G3 ready to go. Because of having to spray in my garage without any ventilation i have the inevaitable dust spots but im confident they will come out.

Should i use a 2500 wet and dry before the G3 or just go straight in with G3. Next question, what is the best polish for the next stage after the G3 and should that also be done with the mop (compressor driven).

ta
Sef

[Bofs]

Depends how bad the peel is.I use 1500 then 2000, plenty of water with a jab of fairy liquid. Then mop it, again keep it wet, it`ll comes up like glass.

[coaster]

I agree with Bofs, 1500 wet with soap but using a rubber block but be VERY careful on the edges (maybe just use finger tips). Apply the G3 with a wet foam mop and polish with a lambs wool mop but be careful of heat build up. I managed to melt the paint on my car using a professional polisher and was told later that you should only polish my hand...that was with cellelose though. 2K is much tougher so will probably be ok but yours may not be fully hardened yet. For final poilishing I'd go for something like McGuires colour restorer followed by their Carnuba Wax all apppied and polished off by hand

[sean brady scooters]

i agree mostly with the above ,but prefer to use a cork block when using 1500 or 2000 grit as its a bit more forgiving .
but thats just my preference .
the trick is though ,to apply much more laquer than is needed so that when you flat off and polish you still retain adequate laquer coverage ...
as flatting off and polishing can remove the equivalent of one or two coats of laquer
when i used to restore rollers /bentleys i always used to give them at least 5/6 coats of two pack laquer to then enable me to flat off and highly polish up .

[sydduckett]

All good advice which i will follow. I think its a good idea to have a lot of lacquer on as im paranoid of going through to the paint. Am i okay to re-lacquer the parts with the orange peel again again without keying them up?

ta

[sean brady scooters]

no not really ,flat down and re coat with at least 3 more coats ...heavy ones

[sydduckett]

no not really ,flat down and re coat with at least 3 more coats ...heavy ones

When I flat back the mudguard and horncase i take it i just need to get a key on it? What would you reccomend for this 2000 or higher? im not trying to get rid of any orange peel at this stage just get the parts ready to accept more lacquer so i can then flat off again and polish with the G3 to then get rid of the orange peel...right

ta

[GBCS]

2000 is too fine for a mechanical key, I would use 800 between clear coats.

[sydduckett]

2000 is too fine for a mechanical key, I would use 800 between clear coats.

Hold up i wasnt going to flat off between coats, do i need to do this? thats going to be a bit of a pain in the ar*e if i do. will mean the process taking a lot longer as dont have acres of space to do all the parts at once. also means cleaning the gun out after each coat.....had a near miss in the summer waiting on some lacquer in the gun and it started going off. Whole gun had to be stripped and cleaned half a dozen times....

[coaster]

2000 is too fine for a mechanical key, I would use 800 between clear coats.

Hold up i wasnt going to flat off between coats, do i need to do this? thats going to be a bit of a pain in the ar*e if i do. will mean the process taking a lot longer as dont have acres of space to do all the parts at once. also means cleaning the gun out after each coat.....had a near miss in the summer waiting on some lacquer in the gun and it started going off. Whole gun had to be stripped and cleaned half a dozen times....

Don't worry Sid, he means to use 800 to flat off before putting the additional coats on. No flatting required between coats as you are applying onto a wet surface (well not cured anyway).