What causes Orange Peel in a finish.

My son is working on a job on a military base in Biloxi, MS. A contractor was finishing some doors and they have an orange peel look. He called me and ask home to get rid of it. He hates sanding to so I told him to sand them down and start over applying the finish.

Anyway it got me to thinking what may have caused the problem in the first place. He said the previous contractor had a fan blowing in the room.

Could the finish have dried too fast?

Any thoughts?

Sounds like they rolled it on John. Our maintenance paint crews at Sea World of San Diego used to roll on clear finishes on the birch slab doors, always had an orange peel finish. Drove me crazy.

You know that may be it. He said something about rollers.

I'll take with him tomorrow and see if that is what they were doing.

I think he is doing a wipe-on after sanding to fix the problem.

He might have to wait quite awhile before he can sand out the clear finish to smooth. If they rolled on even a quick set or quick dry poly, it'll take a week at least before he can sand deep enough to get rid of the orange peel. A lite sand would be okay, but that would not get rid of the texture.

No personal experience, so far I've been lucky and never had a problem yet. The most important thing is he has to know for sure what the problem is. For example some with a lot of experience might mistake excessive over spray as orange peel and so on. Once the problem is correctly identified the answers are easy to find on the internet. For orange peel look at the link. Unfortunately when things go wrong spraying there's more that one possible cause.

http://www.finishwiz.com/orangepeel.htm

I didn't see the other response to you post before I jumped. When you said ''Orange Peel" I assumed they were spraying.

Richard McComas said:

No personal experience, so far I've been lucky and never had a problem yet. The most important thing is he has to know for sure what the problem is. For example some with a lot of experience might mistake excessive over spray as orange peel and so on. Once the problem is correctly identified the answers are easy to find on the internet. For orange peel look at the link. Unfortunately when things go wrong spraying there's more that one possible cause.

http://www.finishwiz.com/orangepeel.htm

To tell you the truth Richard I am not sure what they were doing. The previous contractor was let go because of the mess on 20 doors. My son is working for a contractor that does other work for the military and they were called in to correct it. He sent me a message that said the doors had orange peel on them and they wanted it corrected by the weekend. I didn't get to talk to him yesterday so I am not sure what he did to correct the problem. He had just ask me how to get rid of it. I have not had any real experience with that either so I just suggested lite sanding and wiping on the poly. Take more coats, but should give him a smoother finish.

Richard McComas said:

I didn't see the other response to you post before I jumped. When you said ''Orange Peel" I assumed they were spraying.

Richard McComas said:

John

I didn't get to talk to Andrew until today, but you were correct, it had been rolled on by the previous contractor. They sanded it down and used a wipe on poly.

Thanks

The American Woodworker said:

Sounds like they rolled it on John. Our maintenance paint crews at Sea World of San Diego used to roll on clear finishes on the birch slab doors, always had an orange peel finish. Drove me crazy.

Not enough primer, temperature variation, wrong paint, moisture, wrong primer, all these can cause problems.

Your right John, sand back and use the right stuff, especially tinted primer!!

I know I can look at the paint job on my 07 Charger and see the orange peel on it. It's not enough to notice it, but if you look it's there. Hope that makes it last longer.

Larry Jenkins said:

There are two major reasons why you might experience "orage peel."

Material too thick (viscosity too high) and too much air pressure at the gun if spraying. As a side light, the Ford Motor Company intentionally sprayed enamel on their cars in the 60s that had a little orange peel. They stated it made the paint last longer. ??

Larry

I had my first experience with fixing orange peeled lacquer this afternoon.  I had some small boxes that I sprayed Deft on and I got in a bit of a hurry with the third coat and it had some orange peel on it.  I let it dry a couple of days and wet sanded it with 1000 grit paper and much to my surprise, it all went away.  I'm a believer now.

And in wet sanding what did you use? Water, MS, DNA?

 

That is good to know.

 

Ron Dudelston said:

I had my first experience with fixing orange peeled lacquer this afternoon.  I had some small boxes that I sprayed Deft on and I got in a bit of a hurry with the third coat and it had some orange peel on it.  I let it dry a couple of days and wet sanded it with 1000 grit paper and much to my surprise, it all went away.  I'm a believer now.

Just water and 1000 grit 3M wet/dry paper.  I sprayed a bit of water on it and it buffed right out.  I wiped all of the residue off with a damp cloth and shined it with paste wax.  Handy to know because on some of my items that I sell I use Deft spray.  Its fast, pretty cheap, easy and as a kid of the sixties, I like the smell. 

Here's some ''stuff'' on orange peel.

http://www.finishwiz.com/orangepeel.htm

Ron Dudelston said:

Just water and 1000 grit 3M wet/dry paper.  I sprayed a bit of water on it and it buffed right out.  I wiped all of the residue off with a damp cloth and shined it with paste wax.  Handy to know because on some of my items that I sell I use Deft spray.  Its fast, pretty cheap, easy and as a kid of the sixties, I like the smell. 

Thanks Rich.  I'll check it out.

Richard McComas said:

Here's some ''stuff'' on orange peel.

http://www.finishwiz.com/orangepeel.htm

Ron Dudelston said:

Just water and 1000 grit 3M wet/dry paper.  I sprayed a bit of water on it and it buffed right out.  I wiped all of the residue off with a damp cloth and shined it with paste wax.  Handy to know because on some of my items that I sell I use Deft spray.  Its fast, pretty cheap, easy and as a kid of the sixties, I like the smell. 

That's good stuff Richard. Thanks.

 

I am going to find some time to just spray a bunch with different adjustments to see what I get. I think my settings are pretty close, just need fine tuning.

 

John

 

Richard McComas said:

Here's some ''stuff'' on orange peel.

http://www.finishwiz.com/orangepeel.htm

Ron Dudelston said: