Advice on the Initial Tie Coat

My last example is specific to clear but I've had this happen with the color coats as well. All the painting vids I've seen say to shoot, almost fog , a light tie coat for the first coat. When I do this I get a very pebbled surface which totally hoses up all my hard work on body work and sanding. Anything short of a wet coat doesn't flow properly and leaves texture in my short experience.

Keep in mind I'm using SprayMax 2K shaker can paint products. The Glamour Clear is my most recent example.

Its not necessary but with some paint it helps with runs and sags. Because it is allowed to partially dry the resulting finish has more surface area for subsequent coats to adhere to. I usually will do a tack coat, because its easier to cut and buff an orange peel surface rather than a sag or run and I cut and buff everything i paint. Heating up spray can in warm water can help with the initial tack coat sitting a little flatter. From my experience spray cansalways give orange peel regardless the conditions because the nozzle doesn't atomize the paint as effectively as a paint-gun, not to say you cant get good finishes though.

Thanks for the response. I may need to just need to accept that wet sanding after a few coats needs to be part of the process.

Wet sanded today and picked up another can of SprayMax 2K Glamour. I should be able to shoot tomorrow as 71F is forecast. I'll post some shots. For reference I'm just trying to save the factory paint. It has some scratches and issues but still looks pretty decent.

I was able to shoot the clear today. It came out pretty well. A couple before and some after pics. The clear had dried for an hour when I took the after shots.

if you really want it to look factory just leave the orange peel

DoctoRot wrote: if you really want it to look factory just leave the orange peel

Good thought, I like it.

The first dry layer gives some tooth for the subsequent layer to bite into so you don't get sags. The 2nd coat melts together with the first so it's not like the first coat orange peel remains. A nice full 3rd layer further allows for good flow out. I've not used Spraymax before but using a good spray gun you shouldn't have much orange peel after the last layers. Personally, I don't color sand the final clear other than to remove dirt nibs because there isn't enough orange peel to matter (in my view anyway).