Braille writing on my hood ?! What is this?

[JustJesus]

I`ve never seen this before. It`s so weird.

About 5 years ago, I had the hood of my 1991 Honda CRX painted. This was well before I discovered Autopia and detailing in general. The car mostly sat, being driven on occasion just to keep it going.

Fast forward to recent times.

I`m prepping this car to be sold off some time in the next....hopefully this year. I wanted to spruce her up a bit to make it more desirable. Part of that, actually involved taking that painted hood and doing some damp sanding and multiple step polishing. Figured it`s the best gloss point of the car, so might as well.

I started damp sanding, and even started to compound a section of the hood. Unfortunately, I ran out of time, and had to finish another day. In an effort to keep contaminants off the hood, as well as potential clumsy landscaping guys from damaging my work, I thought I`d cover it up.

I started with two clean cotton towels (yeah, i know. sorry. Should have used MF, right?)

Then, for added protection, I covered it up with a mover`s blanket, folded over to ensure as much coverage as possible.

Lastly, with some of the odd ball rain we`ve been having, I covered that up with a tarp. I also secured the tarp so the wind wouldn`t blow it away.

I came back roughly a week later (?) to do some more work on it. When I removed the mover`s blanket, I noticed some water / moisture on the strip of paint that wasn`t covered by the two towels. Head scratching moment. I proceeded to SLOWLY and carefully remove the two towels, only to find moisture throughout the hood. For real? I`m still baffled by the trapped moisture in there. I must have did something wrong. The towels were slightly damp. The mover`s blanket didn`t feel like it.

Anyway, I went to inspect the paint. And THAT is when I saw it. Some weird "dots" that look like someone decided to use my hood as a canvas for Braille!!!

In the years before this, there was no such thing. During the washing, the claying, the super close inspection....no signs of any of these little bumps. NOTHING.

So what caused it? Im thinking I will proceed with sanding the whole thing down again, and do it all in one shot, and then LSP the heck out of it, and NOT store it like that again. Sheesh.

Any ideas as to what that is, how it`s caused ?????????????????????????

Most of the "damage" was on the part of the hood I hadn`t touched yet. It`s the glossy portion immediately left of center. The far left portion also had some of that damage, but slightly less pronounced.

The sanded section to the right of center had a few minimal spots. That section has been sanded with 1000 grit.

The far right has been sanded with 1000, 2000, and compounded. That section didn`t have much at all. One small spot, or two.

Here are some pics so you can see what I`m talking about.

[Ronkh]

Solvent pops?

[JustJesus]

Solvent pops?

hmm

The thought did cross my mind, but the way they are shaped, the locations to where they`re at on the hood, and the other signs make me think they`re not. Also, the one section of the hood hasn`t been polished or sanded, so it`s odd that THAT part is the worst of it.

And...and.... I thought solvent pop was more likely to occur on fresh paint?

Keep the ideas coming. And I`ll be researching that some more. Maybe talk to some paint guys down the street where I work.

[GearHead_1]

I`m no paint and body man so I`m just spit balling here. I think it might be a bit too long for solvent pops to start showing up, seems like solvent pops would have showed it`s hand by now. I guess stranger things have happened. I`m wondering if you`ve got some condensation (wet, humid) in the pores of the paint while sitting under your protection and it`s started to rust under the paint. I`d think you`d know this in short order if you continue to wet sand. Maybe Xtremekustomz will chime in here.

[EXPDetailing]

I`ve seen that before, I know exactly what that is...hold on, the pizza man is here...

[RaskyR1]

I seen this on several older repaints now. Not sure exactly what it is, but IMO it seems like it`s solvents trapped in the paint/primer, much like solvent pop, yet they never actually pop and they don`t show up until some time later. I`ve improved a few of them in the past with wet sanding but would proceed with caution doing this.

This was just a faint sanding to help show the spots...



After sanding and polishing

[Accumulator]

I seen this on several older repaints now. Not sure exactly what it is, but IMO it seems like it`s solvents trapped in the paint/primer, much like solvent pop, yet they never actually pop and they don`t show up until some time later. I`ve improved a few of them in the past with wet sanding but would proceed with caution doing this...

Same experience here, stuff like that appeared long after paintwork was done. But when I tried to improve it things got *worse*. (FWIW, the latest time was on the top horizontal surfaces of a BMW e36 M3 in Byzanz Metallic. Happened on both the repainted hood *AND* the apparently oe-finish roof too! The hood stuff was obvious when I bought the car, the roof only exhibited the issue *after* I did some aggressive correction on it. Weird, never did figure out what was up with the roof but it showed *zero* signs of being repainted.)

Not to play blame-the-victim, but I too suspect that all the covering up might`ve precipitated the issue; it wasn`t the best approach as evidenced by the condensation. Temp changes + moisture can do weird things when surfaces aren`t allowed to breathe. This happens to people who use the wrong type of carcover/etc. too.

[Poorboy]

It`s contamination during the prep before painting .. stay away from it unless you are ready for a repaint

[JustJesus]

I`ve seen that before, I know exactly what that is...hold on, the pizza man is here...

Hey....I`m still waiting... I want a slice!

I seen this on several older repaints now. Not sure exactly what it is, but IMO it seems like it`s solvents trapped in the paint/primer, much like solvent pop, yet they never actually pop and they don`t show up until some time later. I`ve improved a few of them in the past with wet sanding but would proceed with caution doing this.

Thank you very much, Rasky. Looks very much like the stuff you had in those pics. I`ll proceed with caution!

Same experience here, stuff like that appeared long after paintwork was done. But when I tried to improve it things got *worse*. (FWIW, the latest time was on the top horizontal surfaces of a BMW e36 M3 in Byzanz Metallic. Happened on both the repainted hood *AND* the apparently oe-finish roof too! The hood stuff was obvious when I bought the car, the roof only exhibited the issue *after* I did some aggressive correction on it. Weird, never did figure out what was up with the roof but it showed *zero* signs of being repainted.)

Not to play blame-the-victim, but I too suspect that all the covering up might`ve precipitated the issue; it wasn`t the best approach as evidenced by the condensation. Temp changes + moisture can do weird things when surfaces aren`t allowed to breathe. This happens to people who use the wrong type of carcover/etc. too.

That was interesting, with the roof. So odd.

I totally accept the blame on this! In an attempt to be cautious for the work I`ve put in, I inadvertently made things worse. I prefer to learn from others` mistakes, but I`ll take this as a learning experience nonetheless. And lately, we`ve been having some varying temp changes. Rain. Sun. Dry. During the course of one polishing session, I saw a 20 or so degree difference! Light rain, to full on hot sun on my back while I worked.

It`s contamination during the prep before painting .. stay away from it unless you are ready for a repaint

Let me have some pizza while I think about that one.

[JustJesus]

Thank you all for the responses. I`ll check back in a month or so. Got some "jobs" lined up for the next couple of weekends

[xtremekustomz]

The base is lifting away from the primer probably due to old age honestly. It will need to be stripped and re-painted.

[Accumulator]

xtremekustomz- I bet that *you* know such stuff, so thanks for chiming in.

[JustJesus]

The base is lifting away from the primer probably due to old age honestly. It will need to be stripped and re-painted.

thanks
for chiming in. Not the best news, but it`s always good to know more