removing orange peel from single stage 2 coat job & other thoughts

[Zorm]

Got my 71 F250 painted. The young man did a great job on the metal and prep work. The paint, well, got a huge run and several spots of orange peel. He said this was the first time working on a vehicle of this size, and spraying this paint. He said it was like water to so he was working quickly. It's got two coats and was painted about 3 weeks ago.

I have seen a few YouTube vids about using 2000 git then compound and polish, using 1200 and work up to 2000, and a vid of using only a certain 3M compound and a denim polish pad. I have also see a few threads that say to wait a few months, a few weeks, or anytime, if I do any of it, it will be the whole truck.

Another thing, there are two spots that need metal work. This truck had a small side mounted tool box on the bed on the passengers side, I need to either pull out a small area or pound in the lip of the tool box, if I do either, do I run a risk of damaging the paint?

There is also a support bracket that he forgot to spot weld back to the lower bed panel. My first thought was to just drill a hole for a bolt, the bolt will be facing the road so its not really going to be seen. 2nd thought, is there an epoxie that would to the same thing, one that would bond metal to metal?

So, what are the thoughts ?

thanks

[BobbyFord]

We always like to wait 30 days or so depending on the paint but I’ve also added a bit of dishsoap to the bucket of water during the wet sand process in order to make the paint less grabby. Also, depends on how much paint was applied. Generally 2000 grit and then a foam pad with light polishing compound.

[Zorm]

Ok, working on the tailgate, hitting with 2000 grit, do I need to stick the 2000 until this is smooth, no pits, or can I polish this out?

upper tailgate




lower tailgate, you can also see a bit of the insert that I refinished



it feels smooth but when I dry it off, this is what I see. Got a ton of this all over the truck. The guy that painted the truck said this was really thin paint and he put two coats on rather quick, he never worked with this paint before. He had to move quick to stop from making it run, which I do have a few runs that I need to address also. I have a small area on an edge of the gate that I already sanded down to the primer unknowingly about a pencil led wide and 1.5 inches long.

[DuckRyder]

Considering you have already gone through a spot, if the paint is shiny I don’t know that I would try to remove that. Problem being that once the sags are removed they won’t have orange peel. Still even new cars have orange peel sometimes.

Can we get a picture of a spot before sanding.

On the surface 2 coats doesn’t seem like enough to color sand and buff... I don’t suppose you have a mill gauge?

[Zorm]

The orange peel varies from somewhat rough to just visible, other parts of the truck look great, then I have maybe 3 runs, one really heavy.

Here is the bed upper passengers side, that's not rust in the bed seam, mine were pristine, Truck has been in Az most of its life, that's oak tree mating season pod thingies deposited by rain water run off the carport roof, then on to the truck.



this is bed side drivers side above the wheel




I thought I would just see what a semi finished product would look like, this is after McGuire's ultra cut compound.

not to sure if you can really see, but I did half the tailgate.



closer view, top



bottom



I guess I'm ok with the result, maybe. So now, do I get like a finishing polish then wax?