Hey guys,

I ended up with guite bit of orange peel in my first paint job.

I reluctanly had to go to 800 wet/dry to get the clear flat. I followed that with 1000, 1200,1500, and finally 2000 wet/dry.

I'm buffing with 3M Finese IT II on a white foam pad.

and, just as I was afraid of, the 800 grit left scrathes that will not buff out

At this point it looks like I'm going to have to sand it back down one more time with 600 and re-clear the car.

Does anyone have any suggestions other than the reclear?

Finesse it II is made to use after a compound.. No doubt u are seeing sand scratches as what u are using will not take them all out... If you are a fan of the 3m line you will first need to use Perfect IT III buffing compound, with a different pad followed with finesse on a soft grey pad....

Someone else can finish u up, I'll get u started

If you are experienced with compounds and a buffer you "might" be able to get these scratches out as BondoKing said however for many "newbie" painters it's just easier to re-clear again. When you drop below 1000 grit it's just a lot harder to get over those scratches with compounding and buffing. I'm not saying it can't be done by playing aournd with compounds and pads but it can cause a lot of frustration and take a lot of time. Really you should be getting a level enough coating so you don't drop under 1500 grit for color sanding. Maybe fine tune your spray technique a little more on test panels before you re-clear.

OK, after talkin to the guy at the auto body store, We discovered that I was spinning the buffer to slow.

He said before I bought anything with abrasives in, to try and buff it again with the Finese-it II running the buffer at a higher speed.

It worked like a charm! It took out all of the scratches. It came out with a beautiful shine and no burn throughs.

The paint actually turned out pretty nice for a newbie. Granted, I spend the past 6 nights wetsanding to get the clear flat, but it was worth it.
I'll probably have that much more time in cleaning the compound residue off the car, floor, ceiling, walls....etc. that stuff gets everywhere don't it.

And Darrell, Your right about the test panel. I did use an old hood for getting the gun set up and for a little practice. But, I still managed to do everything wrong once I started spraying. My main mistake was staying up to 4:00 to finish the car. After starting on it at 7:00pm by the time we got to spraying the clear we were tired, the bugs started getting in from the top of the garage door that I forgot to seal and the gun which worked perfectly for the base just refused to be adjusted to spray the clear. At that point I just wanted to get the clear on it, knowing that I would have lots of wetsanding to come.
Needless to say, I ended up with quite a bit of orange peel.

I will ever start a paint job that late in the evening again!

Some other mistakes I did were:
-I put the clear on in med-heavy coats.
-Also, I didn't thin the clear any before spraying (Dupont ChromaClear with the slowest activator). Something I learned after I finished.

I definatly learned how to wetsand and buff on this car. Hopefully I'll learn how to actually "paint" when I start on my truck.

Glad you got it figured out. It's really hard to troubleshoot when you don't have all of the variables right in front of you (buffer speed) here in the forum. Yeah, that spraying into the weee.... hours of the morning can blow your best spray form and intentions to pieces. Our furniture restoration company once got a bid contract to restore all of the built-in furniture in a 12 story college dorm. The 865 pieces of oversize stuff had to be removed, stripped, repaired, and refinished in 90 days. We ran 35 people in 3 shifts round the clock for those 3 months. I took 2 shifts a (1st and 3rd) day myself shooting water based lacquer. Four in the morning is indeed when I thought my head would explode and my arm would drop off.
At least you sound like a guy that learns from his mistakes. Now you've figured out what not to do on that next project.

Yes, I definately learned a few things on this one.

In fact, I wasn't real happy with the spoilers and front air dam on the car so, tonight I scuffed them and reshot them using some of the techniques that I've learned since I sprayed the car and they came out great with no to minimal orange peel.

This time I added 5-10% reducer and sprayed two light coats letting each one tack for 15 mins. then I openned the gun and really laid it to it on the 3rd coat. It really made a difference!
On the car I shot 3 med, wet coats and didn't add any additional reducer to the clear.

The pieces I shot tonight shouldn't need anything except maybe some 2000 wet/dry sanding and then buff. Now, thats the way it should be. Live and learn.