Paint Correction: What's Paint Correction? How to do it?

What is Paint Correction?

Paint defects are imperfections on your car paint such as scratches, swirls, orange peel, oxidation etc. Paint correction is a process of removing such defects from the paint surface by polishing the paint using a polishing machine or hand.

Removing scratches, swirls or other visual imperfections from car paint surface needs lots of trials with different combinations before finding a system that truly provides great results with minimal effort. With years of research, testing and experience, we identified a collection of polishes, pads and other paint correction tools that will give you the ability to restore the paint surface and show your car’s true beauty in its purest form.

How to do Paint Correction?

The tools, techniques used will be based on the severity of the defect. Paint correction can be done with an electric polisher or by hand using a buffing pad such as our GreenZ Hybrid White Heavy Cutting Foam Pad along with a cutting compound like our GreenZ XtremeCut Compound 350. We will discuss about the paint polishing process in detail below.

Orange Peel Removal

What’s Orange Peel

The orange peel is a textured imperfection on a car paint surface after an improper paint job and is textured like the skin of an orange. This requires levelling of the surface by wet sanding through the clear coat. The paint surface will appear bumpy and won’t reflect perfectly. Mostly, the orange peel used to appear on panels that have been repainted, but it can also come straight from the car manufacturer in some cases.

The orange peel effect is caused by premature evaporation of thinner, incorrect spray gun setup (ie. low air pressure or incorrect nozzle), spraying at an angle other than perpendicularly, or applying excessive paint. And most of the time orange peel is caused by the substandard paint job.

How to remove Orange Peel

Removing orange peel is a complex process and require special techniques, tools such as better polishing machines. We have these special tools for removing orange peel defect from the paint surface. Easy way to remove orange peel is to use our denim and velvet pad and aggressive compounds. Wet sanding is the widely followed process though it requires experience and expertise.

Wet sanding

Wet sanding can be done using hand or buffing machines, sanding papers are used for hand sanding and sanding discs are used for machine sanding. Sanding papers/discs are identified by grit numbers normally ranging from 400 to 3000, where lower number being most aggressive and higher numbered ones are the less aggressive.

Wet sanding should be followed by compounding which can remove the sanding marks created by the sanding process. This ensures the finish and clarity to the paint work.

Orange Peel Removal Using GreenZ XtremeCut Compound 350

Main drawback of wet sanding is that it’s a very aggressive removal of clearcoat and can lead into removal of more thickness than required. The removal of orange peel can only be confirmed by finishing the surface after the wet sanding.

Orange peel can be easily removed using GreenZ XtremeCut Compound 350 with GreenZ Denim Pad on a rotary polisher.

GreenZ XtremeCut Compound 350 is an extremely high abrasive compound designed to work on the toughest paint defects like orange peel and 1200 or finer sanding marks with low dust and high yield. When using this method, you will be able to see the finish as the polishing progress as this method, unlike wet sanding cuts and finish at the same time. This is available in our GreenZ Orange Peel Removal Kit

Precaution

The main risk in orange peel removal is the aggressive removal of the clearcoat from the paint surface and can lead into the complete removal of the clearcoat. Though the orange peel removal should be done only by a professional, many inexperienced people also venture into this and risk the paint thickness. It’s always suggested to check the paint thickness before starting the orange peel removal and make sure that you have sufficient thickness, so always check the thickness of the paint using a paint thickness gauge such as ETARI ET 111 S Coating Thickness Gauge or GreenZ Coating Thickness Gauge to before starting the orange peel removal.

Paint Correction

Use GreenZ XtremeCut Compound 350 along with our GreenZ Hybrid White Heavy Cutting Foam Pad to remove severe scratches.

Then use GreenZ Heavy Cut Compound 600 with our GreenZ Hybrid Orange Medium Cutting Foam Pad to remove swirls and minor and medium scratches.
Finally use our GreenZ Ultra Finish Polish 4500 and GreenZ Hybrid Black Finishing Foam Pad on a DA polisher which will bring mirror finish for the paint surface.

The excellent combination of our paint correction products (compounds and pads) can help you to use two-step correction in most of the situations and save a lots of clear coat on your cars.

We have paint correction kit available as GreenZ Heavy Correction Kit, GreenZ Medium Correction Kit and GreenZ Polishing Kit.

FAQ

What does a paint correction do?

Paint correction just remove all the imperfections on the paint surface by reducing the thickness of the clear coat and levelling it.

Is paint correction necessary?

Paint correction is required to make the paint surface glossy and is necessary before doing a paint protection such as ceramic coating or wax or PPF. Paint correction and ceramic coating are always done together.

Is paint correction the same as buffing?

Paint correction and buffing means more or less same and used interchangeably by many. Paint buffing is a method to achieve the paint correction.

What is a 3 stage paint correction?

3 stage (or 3-step) paint correction means three steps of paint correction. First step is heavy paint correction (including orange peel removal), second step is medium correction to remove minor marring created during the heavy paint correction and the final step is polishing to achieve the best possible finish using a polish.

Why special polishes are required for ceramic coating?

All ceramic coatings do a chemical bonding with paint molecules on the paint surface, if you use oil-heavy or filler-heavy polishes, that leaves lots of oils and fillers on the paint surface which can get bonded with applied ceramic coating and affects the durability of the coating.

GreenZ compounds are free from fillers and excessive oils hence offer better durability to any ceramic coatings.

What is paint correction and ceramic coating?

Paint correction is the process of removing scratches & imperfections from paint surface, whereas ceramic coating is a method to protect the finish achieved after the paint correction.

Does paint correction fix scratches?

Paint correction cut the clear-coat to the level of the scratches and make it disappear, there are filler-heavy polishes are available which can fill in the scratches and hide it. But these filler-heavy polishes shouldn’t be used when ceramic coating is done.

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