How To Get Dust Out Of New Painted Clear Coat

Harkless Dampt1969 · Saturday, December 4, 2021

lots of dust in clear coat

Well, I painted my car and had several problems. The primer had to be extensively wet sanded for orange peal, then the base coat had issues with a lot of runs, which I fixed and re-based. I was real happy as the clear went on because I thought it was turning out good. Unfortunately ,there is tons of dust nibs and a few dull spots ,as well as some areas of orange peal. Now, I've only put on one coat of clear. Should i carefully wet sand the dust and dull spots before the next coat of clear or should I put on another clear coat first? Thanks in advance. Don
What kind of primer are you talking about? 2k surfacer always has a lot of orange peal and always needs to be block sanded. Runs in base coat, that shouldn�t happen, it sounds like you�re putting it on too thick. First coat should go down without getting full coverage. In other words you should be able to see some of the primer under it. The second coat of good paint should give you full coverage, If you are using cheap paint then the third or fourth coat should give you complete hiding of the primer but now you will find that the cheap paint isn�t such a good bargain if you need twice as much of it. (I know you didn�t mention that, I just threw it in.)
It may be too late for another coat of clear without sanding. Even if you can still put another coat of clear on maybe you shouldn�t until you find out where the dust is coming from and fix that. Is the car clean, I mean in door jambs, wheel wells and other hidden places that you are not painting but will get disturbed by the air stream from your paint gun? Is the floor clean and damp so the gun doesn�t whip up a dust storm when you spray near the bottom of the car? Are you wearing a paint suit? They aren�t for protecting your cloths; they are to prevent dust from your shirt and pants from falling onto the fresh paint. Do you have sanding dust in your hair that could find it way to the paint? Have you masked part of the car with newspaper? Newspaper is dirty and sheds particles when the air stream hits it. Did you mask with plastic that wasn�t designed for spray painting? Overspray that has dried and landed on the plastic can get dislodged by the air stream and fall onto the new paint.

Do you have enough light? You should be able to see the wet line develop as you move the gun across the car. If it�s too dark you won�t be able to see if you are going too fast or too slow. Too fast and you get dry spray that some people call orange peal but is really dots of clear that dry before enough of them merge together to form a continuous wet surface. If you go too slow you get runs and sags from too much clear being applied. There is a fine line between to much and not enough, and that is where you want to be, right in the middle. You need to be able to see it happen.

So anyway, don�t get upset if I said something to offend you. I don�t mean to do that I am just throwing some things out there to think about. You didn�t provide enough information to drill down to any specific problem you may be having. Believe me there are many other potential culprits out there I didn�t address like quality of gun, air pressure problems, brand of paint, distance from gun to car, proper thinner, amount of thinner, and the list goes on.

Bob K
Bob,
Thanks for the reply. What's done is done. My basic question is: Can I sand the existing clear to remove dust and dull spots,then recoat?
Yes you can. I keep 800 grid discs on hand and I use them on an AirVantage 3/32� sander with an interface pad so I don�t sand flat spots into crowns. I scuff panels that way for clearing. Just be careful not to sand into the base coat. You can watch the shiny spots (the lowest part of the orange peal) disappear as you sand. Once the shiny spots are gone stop sanding because you are getting close to the base coat. Another disc you may want to try is a Trizact clear coat sanding disc. You use them wet and check your progress with a squeegee. They are 1500 grit and are safer to use because they aren�t as aggressive, but I use those before buffing instead of before painting however they could be used if you like.
Bob K
Update:
I went out today and wet sanded the roof with 600, and ended up re-basing it, as well, due to some poor coverage. Then I cleared it again. This time it came out much better. I plan on sanding the rest of the car and adding another clear coat prior to a final cut and buff. I need to read up on buffing.
Back in the day i painted several cars with acrylic enamel and had no problems at all. No dull spots, no runs, no orange peal. I guess 2k urethane requires much more work. Hopefully, the final result and better durability will make it worthwhile. The hood, trunk lid and some small grille pieces are still in primer.
Don
Originally Posted by Ford Fan

Back in the day i painted several cars with acrylic enamel and had no problems at all. No dull spots, no runs, no orange peal. I guess 2k urethane requires much more work. Hopefully, the final result and better durability will make it worthwhile. The hood, trunk lid and some small grille pieces are still in primer.
Don

Actually acrylic enamel should spray quite similarly to urethane except that urethane is much easier to repair and should last a lot longer than an enamel finish. Use "good" paint because cheap urethane isn't much better than enamel.
I'm using Dupont Chromabase. I did a fender repair on my late model daily driver with great outcome using same paint a few years ago.