Do you sand the orange peel and dust off before clear coating, or after?

Depends on the paint you use. Please refer to the FAQ :)

Alex

I dont use clears but you would need to sand to have a nice smooth finish

I haven't clear coated yet but when I do I will polish and/or sand the coloured paint until it is as smooth as I want the clear coat to be. Clear coat does not hide orange peel because you can see through the clear coat onto the orange peel.

Au contraire, clear coat does hide the orange peel of the main colour. That's the point of using it! Some greatly respected modellers (Hiroaki, for example) prefer not to sand/rub the base colour, even if it's not metallic, and only polish the clear. And I'm thinkin of doing the same.

Originally posted by ales
Au contraire, clear coat does hide the orange peel of the main colour. That's the point of using it! Some greatly respected modellers (Hiroaki, for example) prefer not to sand/rub the base colour, even if it's not metallic, and only polish the clear. And I'm thinkin of doing the same.

that didn't work all the time.. small orange perl will be removed, but clear dont make miracle and if the pearl is heavyer, it wont work....

btw I hate when english ppl use french expression :D

English people? Yeah, those bastards! :devil: :p LOL!!!!

I will stand by my beliefs that polished clearcoat make the model shiny even if the base coat had some orange peel effect on it. Within reason, of course, not *too* heavy an orange peel!

Mon oeil! :p

I'm still undecided if clear coat hides heavy orange peel, however, it does hide fine scratches (talking about 1500-2000 grit and up) in the paint job. The main reason to use clearcoat in my opinion is to remove all chance of sanding down to the primer - religiously checking your polishing cloth for telltale signs of color will tell you when you've gone too far..

for some reason, Wax didn't work on clear coat for me.. dont know why... work great on paint, but not on clear coat...