How to Fix Orange Peel and Nibs | Cut & Buff like a Pro

so you uh watched a whole bunch of youtube videos on how to paint your car and you uh sprayed it in your garage and now it's all full of dirt you got runs everywhere uh there's a lot of orange peel and uh you're not really quite sure what you're supposed to do so now you're watching a video on how to wet sand and polish [Music] no but for real uh most of the time pretty much any paying project requires some level of wet sanding and polishing even if you know you're just going for a factory finish and you need to just nib sand um you know just any little bits of dust and stuff that fell in it or you know things like that it's not it's not the best and not every job elicits like leaving dust nibs in it right sometimes you want it to just be a little bit nicer you know or you got you know had some product problems or you know your gun set up wasn't perfect that day and it came out a little dry maybe or whatever right so you just you know gotta polish it up make it look nice um i'm gonna walk you guys through how to do like kind of a quicker method of wet sanding and polishing um throwing a couple tips and things that i've learned throughout the years that kind of make it go a little bit smoother so you don't have as many headaches i'll show you guys some of the products i use that make it go real fast and uh yeah let's just get right into it i guess we got this uh tailgate for this ford lightning that i just sprayed um it doesn't have like any texture in it it's it's a little bit hard to see because it's all dull and stuff because it actually had a coat of dust on it before i started shooting this and i literally just wiped it off with my bare hand so it's all scratched now um but there's really no texture in it it laid out super flat um it just had a few nibs and i went ahead and sanded those smooth but i'll show you guys my process on knocking down the nibs i got like one or two more that i want to file out and then yeah we'll get started with the wet sanding it might be kind of hard to see but i've got one little nib that i i missed right here um that i figured i just kind of you know used for demonstration purposes for the video normally i don't if i'm going to wet sand and polish a whole panel i won't actually file these flat because the sandpaper will normally knock them smooth enough these ones that i did through here were a little bit larger nibs um so but i'll show you the same process that i use on the larger nibs um on this smaller one so this guy is a carbide tungsten d-nibbing tool i've used a lot of the different nib tools um like the ones that have like the little kind of like almost like the saw blade type like file blade i don't like those i've used razor blades i've used a lot of other things these are the best you can pick them up for like 50 60 bucks and that sounds like a lot for a nib tool but it will help save a lot of time because literally all you got to do the little rope on the back works like a guide so it props up the back side of it and then you take and just run the edge of the file up against the nib at a little bit of an angle and you can see it's chiseling that nib flat and that's really all there is to it so that nib is now sanded smooth with the surface around it and you can tell because it was ever so slightly starting to scratch the surface around it um i will say that the only thing that's kind of downfall with these is on fresh paint um sometimes it'll want to teeter-totter a little bit and you got to be really careful that the edge doesn't dig into your fresh clear now that the majority of that is leveled out we got these guys um they're little 1500 grit flat pads they got a little bit of sponginess to them but they're pretty rigid and then just some water i'm going to take and just mist on that a little bit and then just kind of do a few circles and stuff on top of that nib and this is going to get it the last little bit so that you make sure you don't have a little raised spot where that nib used to be and then you know have your microfiber on hand and you can see the nib used to be right there in the center and now it is all nice and leveled out with the surface around it um if you're going for like a factory finish and you just want to kind of chisel the nibs flat but leave the orange peel and the texture um doing that method's really good for not knocking down a lot of the orange peel so you don't wind up with like a weird flat spot um and then the rest of it you know is all like factory orange peel um this is what i'll normally do when i'm just doing like a collision repair job or like something that you know you want to leave the texture and you don't want to cut it perfectly smooth and i'll even most of the time like that one was 1500 grit i'll use a 3000 grit um little square block to level it out instead because that won't knock down any of the orange peel around the nib it'll only knock down the nib depending on what you're doing with your project you know like i said you may or may not sand down you know nibs and everything get it all super perfect on this one i went ahead and just got them all knocked down got them smoothed out you can actually use that carbide tool and you know that little flat block that same technique you can use it on little runs and sags and stuff like that works the same way you just use the nib file to chisel down the majority of it finish it off with a little sanding block and then now we're going to polish it out with the paper and just kind of get everything you know buzzed down and smoothed out i'm using 2000 grit um just hook and loop d a pad this is a 3m one [Music] they're ridiculously overpriced i think a box of these at the store is like a hundred dollars you can order cheaper ones on amazon and stuff and they still work fine just generally with cheaper paper you don't get like the longevity or as much cutting power out of them and sometimes the grits aren't as uniform so you can wind up with a little bit heavier scratch than you were kind of hoping to get that's kind of really the only big downfall with the cheaper paper so whatever kind of finish you're going for is kind of dictate um what grit you start with and then kind of what the procedure is going to be right so on this i'm just going to do a quick like kind of walk through on how i would do like a faster cut and polish if you're going for more like a show finish or something like that you want it really dead flat and smooth there's extra steps before you get to using a da that you have to do by hand in order to get it to really look you know that dead flat super smooth finish for the sake of this video and for the sake of just what i'm doing um i'm just kind of this is gonna be like if someone was doing like a nice paint job on something right this isn't a show car finish but it's kind of in between a show car finish and a factory finish right so 2000 grit is going to cut it flat without you know cutting it too smooth and too flat and it's going to get the job done without putting too heavy of a grid of scratch in it so we can get through it faster the name of the game with wet sanding is clean everything has to be super clean and dust free if even if you're standing by hand if you get a little piece of dust or dirt or something between the sandpaper and the finish you're going to gouge the out of it and you're going to take twice as long to finish the project and it's it's just not going to you're not going to have a good time we're just gonna say that i already wiped this down with a microfiber and some instant detailer a couple times and i made sure that there was nothing on the surface and then i just kind of took my bare hand over it and i like to do that before i get started um it's just kind of like my final check right because with your bare hand you can feel if there's any dust or dirt or debris or anything still just kind of chilling on the surface so any area i'm about to do right before i sand it i just run my bare hand over it and i just make sure that i pick up any last little bit of dust or dirt or anything that's on there just another random tip before you get started i always like to take the air blower and just kind of spray the da off and the paper and everything to make sure that you know no dust or dirt or anything kind of falls because these get dusty i use the same da for doing body work and stuff and i don't want any little chunks of dust or debris or anything to fall off the d.a onto the surface so i'm going to go ahead and just air blower this over there away from this to just make sure that there's nothing contaminating the surface and it's little things like that it takes two seconds man like just do it save yourself the headache don't have some dirt fall on there and then grind it in and then try to chase pigtails out with the buffer for the next three hours so the spray detailer that we're using is by a company called 3d i believe they're out of california all their products made in the usa and stuff super dope this is their uh body shop safe spray detailer and i like using that stuff because a you know we're in like a body shop environment right and i don't want to be atomizing silicone and like nasty things uh in the air that can easily get carried over and land on you know a project that we're working on and i get fish eyes and you know problems like that b when you're in the middle of wet sanding polishing and doing all that i don't like to use anything that has silicones or fillers in it because it can kind of lie to you right so you can spray that stuff on and sometimes it's got like waxy you know residue and stuff like that that kind of artificially fills in like very minor scratches and stuff like that and when you're doing something like this you need the surface to look true it needs to look exactly how it actually looks because there's nothing stopping you from washing the car once and then it's all full of you know sand scratches and swirls and stuff like that because you used a bunch of products that were all full of fillers and silicone and stuff like that and then they just washed off the surface i'm just going to mist down a light coat of water on the surface you can use this paper dry too i don't really like doing that i just use the water because it makes the paper last longer and it cuts a little bit easier that way one thing to consider when you're using a da or hand sanding um pay attention to the shape of the panel and think about just kind of how difficult it's gonna be for you to get into certain areas right so like i said this isn't a show car this doesn't need to be perfect i'm gonna leave areas like this we have a really tiny area right here um i'm gonna leave that alone because you're not gonna be able to tell if the finish is ever so slightly different through an area like this or maybe like ever so slightly away from the emblem here where you're real likely to burn through and have issues i just stay away from stuff like that because it just makes the the polishing process go a lot faster for something like this on a show car something a little bit more in depth i would just sand it you know corner to corner and every last nook and cranny [Music] i always like to pay attention to the edge of the d.a in relation to you know the edge of the panel and where i'm at um just to make sure that i'm not like taking the dna and kind of standing over an edge at all i'm just kind of standing up to it [Music] that's just with the first pass with the paper you can see that definitely not even uh i had a little bit too much water on the surface at first so the pad was kind of wanting to just float a little bit on the surface and not uh cut quite so much that's why it kind of came out a little bit uneven but that's fine because we'll just you know i gotta keep sanding anyway areas like this you can see where it's just smooth and even and flat and there's really no glossiness coming through it's kind of what you want to go for when you want to knock everything kind of even right so i'm going to keep going until i have the whole surface looking like that when it's all dried off [Music] just make sure when you're doing this that you do a little bit of sanding wipe it off check it a little bit of sanding you don't want to rush through it you don't want to just like grind down a whole section and then accidentally wind up going through your clear and line up with a big old spot of base sticking through or burn through an edge or something slower is definitely faster when you're doing this type of stuff i even like to break down the panel like i broke this down into essentially three pieces so i did like this section the middle and then the other section i'll break down panels into smaller chunks and just focus on one area get it good move to the next section it just again slowers faster next step we're gonna throw some 3000 grit on you don't necessarily have to do 3000 grit i like to though because i hate buffing 3000 just kind of refines it a little bit further makes the buffing step go a little bit faster especially for a dark color it really helps with getting the sand scratches and stuff out so that you don't have as much polishing to do and yes sometimes i do use 5000 as well i just don't have any right now [Music] you see this area i have all refined out in 3000 now and generally you don't really have much of a a guide for this step as to like how far to actually sand it and like how long to go aside from just kind of like visually like drying it off and taking a look at it and i sometimes will use the edges as a guide where it feathers into the paint because you know i said i kind of go beyond that edge so normally once i start to see the edge of like the 2000 grit start to disappear and it's all kind of faded you know into that 3000 scratch and you know i maintain a consistent speed and overlap and stuff on the whole thing so i know if one section of it is feathered out like that then there's a good chance that the rest of it is you know pretty much there as well um and you can even kind of see it's the difference in the gloss right so like this area here already has kind of like a dull sheen to it versus over here it looks more kind of matte and not very reflective at all right and even through the transition here going from this to this in this area you can see where the grit starts to step you know up to that 3000 right along this edge here i like to keep the speed on the da a little bit lower than most people do just because i feel like it really gives the paper time to really actually cut and do its job and i have found that it does seem to make the paper last a little bit longer too i feel like the rpms really kind of do mess up the grit on the surface of the paper a little bit faster keeping the speed low and just kind of moving at like a nice steady slow consistent pace does seem to actually cut it faster [Music] normally you know that you're done with your 3000 grit once your hand is like completely numb and tingly and you can't feel it anymore and that's generally how you know that you're ready to start polishing so the first step that i normally do i normally use wool a lot of dudes use foam for their step one i guess i'm just kind of a little old school i like the fact that the wool doesn't get as hot as the foam and i do feel like it definitely cuts a lot faster so i just got a regular you know white wool pad for the compound on this i'm using the 3d aca 510 this stuff is awesome like when they say that it will cut a 1000 grit scratch this stuff will actually cut a 1000 grit scratch um a lot of compounds claim like especially the 3m stuff claims it'll do like a 1200 grit it won't it won't even do like a 2000 grit and that stuff is so full of fillers and you know nasty stuff so i normally just do like four or five dabs on the pad and then i like to use a little bit of water when i'm buffing i i always felt like it makes it go a little bit faster a little bit smoother it does make a mess though so keep that in mind again this is a slower is faster type deal here i'm only using the buffer at around 900 rpm some people prefer to use a little bit higher rpm i find that actually using it like the lowest setting i can while just kind of maintaining like a slower speed on the panel actually sometimes cuts faster than like cranking it way up and trying to just burn everything out real quick i'll just keep going back over it and just doing multiple passes essentially until the compound really starts to dry up on me the edges and the borders on the panel are always going to take a little bit more effort than the flat surfaces just be really aware of where your buffer pad is at when you're hitting the edges and also be sure that you're paying attention to which way the pad is rotating in relation to the edge you don't want to be buffing with the pad going into the corner you want to be buffing off of the corner if that makes sense but you can see already just with the uh you know first pass we already got a lot of that that two thousand and three thousand grit chiseled out we got a little bit of haze around the borders that we're gonna take care of the majority of the time when people are having problems with like their wet sand and polish job like getting the actual like mirror finish that they want generally the problems come from not spending enough time in step number one the only thing that you should be left with when you're done with your first step is swirl marks that's it if there's any sanding scratches d.a marks pigtails anything like that still left you need to spend more time in step one because you're not gonna get it out with the polish and you're not gonna get it out with your final step your glazing polish or anything like that if you're all the way through to you know the final step and it's still looking hazy you need to actually step backwards and you have to start back with the first step again the next pad i'm going to use is still a step one pad but it's foam and normally what i do is do all the cutting with the wool and then i'll just do one pass with the same compound but with a foam pad just to kind of refine out the worst of the swirl marks before i go to step two [Music] so we're going to go ahead and take the uh our instant detailer and just give this a nice spritz and we gotta make sure that we get all of the compound off of it because we don't want this compound contaminating our step two pad and you can see after that step one this thing is for a lot of people they would say this is done already right but at this point now we're just going to be you know refining the surface even further so it would look good like decent in like artificial light like inside right now but if you got it outside it would be all step two we're just using one of these gray foam pads with the uh little raised bits and for step two i like to use the 3d one this stuff you can actually if you're in the market for something that you just need to buy like a single product you can use this as a step one and step two polish and it does actually work well for both i just prefer like the way heavier cut for what i'm doing and this stuff stays nice and like soft on the surface it doesn't want to dry up on you so i'm going to go ahead and just hit the whole gate all at once because i can get away with it not drying up on me make sure that in between each step you're using a fresh microfiber a three pack or like a five pack of microfibers is like peanuts like just do it there's no reason to not last step blue foam with this stuff 505 uh this is like a final step color correcting glaze and it's got a little bit of paint protective stuff in it it's not wax necessarily you don't want to put wax on fresh paint this will kind of get them into that period where they can start waxing it it gives you a little bit of protection when the paint is fresh so we're just getting the last bit of that compound just gently wiped off and this thing is looking pretty fresh so the last step is to bring it outside and take a look at it and make sure it doesn't look like a giant swirly mess panes of glass one might say it took about two hours to get that all cut and polished and everything if you're anticipating doing this on your entire car i definitely recommend breaking it down panel by panel and kind of yeah get everything in step one then everything in step two take your time because it's worth it there's no reason to like waste three quarters of the amount of time doing it like kind of crappy when in reality doing it nice is not going to take that much longer and it's you know totally worth it [Music] you

Channel: U-Wrench TV

Views: 410,932

Keywords: cut and buff, polish, how to polish a car, wet sanding and buffing, wet sanding and polishing a car, wet sanding spray paint, makita buffer polisher, 3d detailing products, 3d 503 spray detailer, 3d 505 correction glaze, 3d 505

Id: ovu5NSTvdek

Length: 25min 39sec (1539 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 19 2022