Severe Rail Dust?

[kompressornsc]

Here`s the situation. My gf parks her car right next to a RR track (I mean right next to it-like the front bumper is 20 ft. away). There must be a train every 1/2 hour. So...

Over Thanksgiving, I QEW & then go to polishing her car (Black). Using 3M MG with a yellow LC pad, I get out the majority of the swirls, scratches, bird marks, etc., and it looks 100 times better. Then I got to apply s100 (after a once over with AIO), and it feels like crap! Sandpaper city. I thought it was going to rip my applicator!

I know I should have clayed first, but I figured that the polishing would take the worst of it down, and I didn`t have a lot of time. Am I just feeling rail dust? On my car, I clay before polishing just to make sure I didn`t contaminate the pads, but this car was swirled so badly (4 years of nothing but auto car washes) that I figured me inducing small swirls was not an issue.



Will rail dust imbed so badly that polishing won`t take it out?



Ironically, all the trains that go by are carrying cars.:)

[JasonD]

First, you should always do the plastic baggie test to see if you need to clay before polishing because if there is a lot of contamination on the surface and you start polishing without removing it first, where do you think it`s going to go?? That`s right, the only place it can, in the pad. And if it`s in the pad, its grinding in your paint the whole time you are polishing. Most of the vehicles delivered where I live come off the train, so most of them have rail dust on them and whenever I or a friend of mine gets a new car we immediately clay it. As far as it *embedding* into the paint, I`m not positive but I don`t think so. You should be able to clay it off and if it doesn`t come off with the clay you have, you just probably need a better (more aggressive) clay. There are different grades of clay, yours might be too fine.

[Alfisti]

Originally posted by kompressornsc

I know I should have clayed first, but I figured that the polishing would take the worst of it down, and I didn`t have a lot of time. Am I just feeling rail dust?



I almost guarantee it!




Will rail dust imbed so badly that polishing won`t take it out?



Absolutely!!



The problem is you`re working on a black car and can`t see what the rail-dust is doing to your paint.



When I bought my *white* Alfa, it was covered in tiny reddish-brown spots. They were rough, and yes, embedded into my clearcoat. The previous owner use to park near a railroad, and the surface gathered rail-dust. What happens is that the rail-dust sits on your paint surface and begins to rust immediately. If it rains, the rusting accellerates. The rust (an oxide) eats into the surface of the paint and embeds itself. The longer it`s left, the harder it sticks.



But claying did the trick - it just took alot more elbow grease than it normally would.



Make sure you knead the clay much more frequently than normal, as rail-dust are large particles and can really put some serious marring into your paint (especially black). And don`t push down hard, use lots of lubricant, let the clay do the work slowly and gently.



Finish off with polishing for the swirls and clay marring, and it`ll be as good as new! :bigups

[kompressornsc]

Thanks for the replies. I knew I should have clayed first, but as I said, just didn`t have time. I didn`t think about the rail dust rusting, but I`ll bet that`s what all the tiny little flecks were-it almost looked like metal-flake paint under a 1500 watt halogen.

I guess my biggest surprise was how good I could get it to look, yet it felt so bad. I know that when I have time to clay and repolish, it will look even better.



4 years of automatic swirl inducers, no wax, and parking next to a RR are not kind to a black car! It was the first time I`d worked on a car with `dead` paint-now I understand what people mean by it.

[safetyman2010]

Polishing or claying WILL NOT remove industrial fallout or "rail dust" from your paint. The only proven way to accomplish this is to have the paint "decontaminated" through use of a Alkaline wash to neitralize the acids present in the finish, acid wash to remove the actual ferrous particles embedded in the paint and a final wash with a neutral ph shampoo to return the paint to a neutral ph again. Claying or compounding a finish contaminated with industrial fallout may achieve a smooth finish but will only "knock off" the exposed portion of the particle. This still leaves a portion of the particle embedded in the finish which will continue to rust and react with the acids from acid rain.



The following page contains TSB`s from most of the major manufacturers reagrding the problem.



http://www.fk1usa.com/tsb.htm

[Alfisti]

Originally posted by ShineShop

Polishing or claying WILL NOT remove industrial fallout or "rail dust" from your paint. The only proven way to accomplish this is to have the paint "decontaminated" through use of a Alkaline wash to neitralize the acids present in the finish, acid wash to remove the actual ferrous particles embedded in the paint and a final wash with a neutral ph shampoo to return the paint to a neutral ph again. Claying or compounding a finish contaminated with industrial fallout may achieve a smooth finish but will only "knock off" the exposed portion of the particle. This still leaves a portion of the particle embedded in the finish which will continue to rust and react with the acids from acid rain.



What can I say...it did for me, and on white paint I can see the rust spots disappear and not return.



Maybe it depends on *how deep* they`re embedded. :cool:

[safetyman2010]

Perhaps the fallout on your vehicle was very fresh and had not yet embedded itself very deeply. However, the claying did nothing to address the issue of removing the acids left behind from acid rain. Either way I am glad that claying worked for you in your case.

[Accumulator]

Yeah, both Shineshop and Alfisti are right because it depends on the situation. I`d use a decontamination system (ABC or FinishKare) and clay during the "acidic" step. FWIW, I`m hearing so-so reports about the FK stuff, might be a bit *too* safe/mild but compared to ABC you apparently don`t have to be as careful around glass. But claying while the acid is dwelling will help a lot. Yeah, the clay dissolves so have plenty on hand.



I`ve used the ABC/clay combo without any problems at all and these products aren`t nearly as harsh as you might think.