Thoughts on adding new clear coat after touch ups?

[imported_Picus]

Hey everyone. So this past weekend I did some serious touching up on my car. Lots of wetsanding, lots of polishing. Everything turned out really well, but I`m wondering what your thoughts are on adding more clear on heavily touched up areas? During the wetsand process the front of my hood, about the first 6 inches or so, was totally sanded. There were 12-15 chips, so the sand spots ran right into eachother. Obviously my clear coat in this area is thin or non-existant. I am going to have a clear bra put on the car, but wonder if I should re-clear coat first.



So, comments, thoughts, ideas, recommendations? Thanks!

[imported_truzoom]

If you`re going put a clear bra on, I`d leave it alone. I`ve never had luck repairing rock chips to look like factory paint, so I just touch them up to keep anything from degrading/corroding/rusting. You`ll just get them again, ya know?

[imported_Picus]

Yep, I know. That`s why I want to put the clearbra on. The touchups I did are pretty indistinguishable from the factory paint, but I was leaning towards leaving it and putting the clearbra over anyway. Just trying to figure out if there is any real benefit to adding the clear-coat first. Thanks for the input.

[CaliPhotog]

This is completly just a guess, so with that disclaimer out of the way... I think you should clear coat the spots you that you wet sanded and clear coated. If it is really the whole front end than you might get away without doing it. But if it is only certain spots under the clear bra, then I would do the whole thing. Basically I would think that you want the entire area under the clearcoat to look as much the same as possible. You don`t wan`t to see little diffrances under there cause you won`t be able to fix it once the clear bra is on.

[papi_jay]

If you want to do it , you can achieve pretty durn good results with two products by U-Pol .

~ Problem #1 is you would have to abrade the area further with 600 grit wet/dry 1st to ensure it does not lift off eventually ; so that it adheres properly .

Anyways , you would tape off the section you are spraying approx 8" further than you are spraying and have wetsanded . the areas with the paint chips would receive 600 grit ( Ungrit preferably ) and the " fade-out " areas would get 800 grit unigrit . 800 grit would start approx 3-4" past the reapir area .

You should spray all the way across , but lift the can off of the car before you get to your 8" tape line mark so it blends in and doesn`t leave a prominent line .

Then you would use http://levineautoparts.com/upsys20fadou.html after you remove the tape to fade out without having to wet sand the " overspray " away at the tape line .

Even though you are fading out to that point , there still would be a stopping point visible by the taped off / masked off area of the spray .

The only quality clear that I know of in a can here > http://levineautoparts.com/upclear1uvre.html



Then you could wetsand it with 1000 grit in a few hours and do another coat even if you like or just knock the orange peel out with a leveler and pad and call it a day .

You would then have to wait for it to cure though until you put your clear bra on .

~ problem #2 - it could be up to 60 days if the car sits in the sun daily simply air curing

[imported_Picus]

Papi - thanks for the info. Any idea how long it would take to cure if it was a garaged car? I`m actually considering trying this out.

[papi_jay]

It will dry to the touch in hours , curing is the paint flashing off all of it`s solvents and completely hardening .

If you wax , seal or use anything except new car glaze on it after compounding it it will not cure .

This includes your clear bra .

Curing takes 30-60 days if not UV dried , just air drying approx 60 days or sitting in sun daily about 30-45

[imported_Picus]

OK, gotchya. I`ll look into it, thanks!

[muscleknight]

I have a clear bra on my car and you know just my luck I still have 3 small chips right above where the clear bra ends on my hood. They are small and all I did was use a toothpick and dabbed a small amount of touch-up paint in them and let them go.