fixing orange peel on metallic acrylic enamel...

[austinpalibroda]

    i just finished painting a 70 chev truck for a friend and i used a dark red metallic acrylic enamel paint with hardener. this isnt my first paint job but i havent used metallic that much, and he didnt want to clear coat it so its just the acrylic enamel on right now. i just painted it yesterday afternoon and its sitting drying right now. there are no runs at all and it looks good other than some orange peel on a few spots around the truck. my question is, is it possible to fix the orange peel without disturbing the metallic in the paint? as far as i know, you cant wet sand metallic without disturbing the pattern...but can i buff and pollish it to help a bit? the orange peel isnt all that bad, but i want it to look better. also how long should i wait before i do anything to it? its in the sun right now and its hot out, i used hardener and fast dry reducer. any help on this would be greatly appreciated! i'm sure a few of you out there have came across this problem at some time as well! if theres anything else you need to know to help me, please ask, thanks!

[MichaelRW]

There's really not much you can do with a single stage metallic paint. If you start to wet sand it to remove the orange peel the metallic in the paint will start to look blotchy if you go too deep.

Cutting and buffing can be done the day after painting though.

[BlueSS454]

I am in the process of doing this same thing on a 68 Chevelle I painted.  I used a single Stage Urethane on it.  It has some orange peel, not too terrible, but more than I care to see.  I started by doing an inconspicuous are first, then buffed it to see how it looked afterwards.  it came out ok, so I finished the one fender.  I was using 1500 wet to level out the peel so not to cut too much off.

[austinpalibroda]

thats kinda what i was thinking...i heard not to sand it at all but maybey 1500 wet wouldnt be too bad. i think i'll buff it and see how that goes maybe, sounds like your situation too, not much orange peel but more than i wanted haha. my next project is a 70 chevelle, but i'll be using a base and clear for that one. thanks for the help guys!