this may be slightly off topic but why do painters purposely orange peel paint?
I know it is known here as a paint defect but I also heard guys talk about putting orange peel into the paint so it looks like factory.
but then if you are doing an accident repair you will have a hood and fender with orange peel, but then the rest of the car is completely smooth.
makes no sense to me and pisses me off because the shit is in the paint on my car. so no getting it without stripping the clear. Luckily when I do other cars I have yet to get somebody who is so sharp enough on the subject to identify where smooth ends and orange peel begins. so thus far nobody has asked me about orange peel repair. but I think I should be ready.
If a painter has told you they did it on "purpose" they are probably full of shit, lol. The only reason i can imagine a painter doing something to result in more peel is in order to hide other imperfections, like dust inclusions.
If normal people (non-detailers) noticed a huge difference in orange peel, that would mean that people would also notice the ridiculous rotary hologram hack jobs that 99% of autobody people do to paint when they repair a car- the REASON they do that is to level the clear to amp gloss and
reduce the peel. In most situations, i would imagine they try to level the clear to match the factory peel level, but im fairly certain the peel generally starts far worse and is reduced to match, not sprayed a certain way to match....if that makes sense.
Peel is caused because the paint (clear) does some shrinking as it dries/cures. Not all factory cars have alot of orange peel, it varies with manufacturer, color, sometimes model. There is usually some, and sometimes alot, just depends.
What you have to remember is that factory paint is sprayed by a robot. The tip of the sprayer statically charges the atomized paint particles to be attracted to the metal substrate (panel/bodypart), subsequently, they only use the exact amount of primer/color/clear that is needed to create the proper coverage and longevity of the paint system in order to minimize cost. This process, depending on the manufacturer of car and paint, causes some variations in orange peel. On your normal cars, the paint is cured and thats it, there is no refinement or polishing, so if there is peel, there is peel.
You will also notice that A LOT of car manufacturers use alot of metallics in their color selections- this is no coincidence as the metal flake in those paints help hide imperfections in the clear coat like orange peel or dust inclusions.
IME, aftermarket paint or paint sprayed by hand usually has WAYY more orange peel than factory paint if left unpolished. Most painters use a rotary polisher with wool and aggressive compound to "buff out" the car, which helps amp up the gloss and reduce the peel. And no- normally just a rotary polisher and wool wouldnt have a huge impact on orange peel but freshly sprayed paint is SUPER soft and they usually use very aggressive, and large wool pads at speeds that, IMO, are WAY to fast for paint. Thats why 99.999% of resprays are covered in holograms/buffer trails, because peel is fairly common with resprays and thats the preferred/cheapest/fastest way for autobody places to get things looking "good".
Itll be very seldom that someone asks you for a full peel reduction job, have had 1 or 2 people ask and most of the time they are like NVM when they find out that the price tag has a comma in it, lol. Properly polished paint with some peel is enough for most people.
My car is gloss black and by god the factory peel is atrocious, lol, so its getting the full stuff. Full peel reduction/paint correction, liquid crystal coating on all paint/glass/trim and plastic. Wheels are getting coated as well.
Anywho, hope that helps put "peel" in perspective for you. Thats not a textbook answer, just the knowledge ive procured from my time working on/detailing cars.
If you google it, there is a really good example of the denim pads being used on a metallic red respray (i think it was a mazda). The review was on autopia. The car was repaired from a collision and the paint difference in peel was drastic (repray had much more) and the reviewer reduced the peel to be similar to the factory paint.
Anyway, thanks for reading my novel, im long winded, youll get used to it lol.