Paint fade and oxidation... same thing?

[kpagel]

On some of the truck forums I frequent, the question commonly comes up about debadging/pin stripe removal. People will normally give their answers on how to remove the object and then will warn about "paint fade" saying that on an older vehicle, you will be able to see where the decal/pinstripe was because that portion hasn`t faded. Are these people referring to oxidation, or are these different things? Sorry if this common sense or something, but I`d like to help people out and let them know that a good paint cleaner should help out with their faded/oxidized paint if they have it, but I don`t want to spew out misinformation if these are two differernt things.

[Richt]

Oxidised paint normally occurs on single satge stage paint where the top layer gets weathered. This can be removed as you know by polishing.



Paint fade occurs on clear coated paint where the sun/elements have discoloured the colour paint under the clear. If you remove some Pin striping and find this this cannot be fixed by polishing.

[kpagel]

Thanks for the clarification! I was obviously confused. :)

[Accumulator]

I`m not sure I really know as much as I assume I do about this...but I`ve encountered the "faded paint" thing when debadging/removing pinstripes. I`ve also dealt with oxidation that seemed completely different.



AFAIK, oxidizing is a "drying out" or "weathering" of the paint. The paint undergoes some kind of chemical alteration that compromises it be removing something that the paint needs to stay "healthy". With b/c, the clear can get oxidized while the underlying color coat stays OK. You can usually remove the oxidized paint, uncovering unoxidized paint, and the uncovered "good" paint will look OK. If paint gets *too* oxidized the paint will cease to adhere to the underlying surface; it can literally come off.



I think of "paint fade" as being a UV-caused *bleaching of the pigments* in the paint. This faded paint might still be "healthy" but it`s not the same color as unfaded paint. This is most common with s/s paint but not exclusive to it. Red b/c paint can fade under (usually thinned) clearcoat and there`s no way to fix this. This is the sort of thing I encounter when I debadge not-new vehicles.



I guess what I`m :confused about is whether this fading/bleaching really different from "oxidation" or is some *form* of oxidizing?



I`ve forgotten whatever I might`ve known about this stuff from science class :o

[Richt]

Likewise with debadging ( alwsys on Red cars here too) even with good shape paint I have had ones that have had paint fade, in most cases they have been single stage so a good polish has always fixed these ones. But as Accumulator says faded paint under a clearcoat cant be fixed without a re paint.



We debadged a friends red clearcoated ford and ended up re-applying the badges on the tailgate!