Quote Originally Posted by JSFM35X View Post
Great job, I always wonder how much gets taken off the clear when I see a swirlzilla turned into a show car. Any chance you put a gauge on it before and after?



I am not saying you did anything wrong, I am just curious.

It is nearly impossible to measure this as precisely as needed to make accurate statements about how much material is used.

Since we are measuring in microns... Which is an incredibly small unit of measurement, you would have to place your gauge in the 100% exact same spot to trust your before/after readings. Paint thickness is not consistently uniform, therefore missing your measurement spot by even a millimeter or two may give you an entirely different reading. Also, the rather inexpensive gauges that are used may not be accurate enough to be trusted for repeatable measurements when you are hoping to accurately test for the removal of a few microns of material. A proper test would require a good setup and even better instrumentation.

I suppose you could tape off a 2`x2` section, take 50 readings and average them. Then repeat after correction.... However this is an estimate at best.

Mike Phillips did a rather precise test that included measurements while sanding and correcting paint... You can hunt for it on autogeek somewhere, but iirc his process removed around 10-15 microns with a fine grit wet sanding and full correction. Keep in mind this is also dependent on variables like paint hardness, machine used, product used, technique, etc.


All I hope to do with my PTG is to asses the current thickness of the paint to determine if I have a safe amount of material to work with... In this case, I had more than enough to do a very heavy correction (relatively speaking, of course), so I was not concerned at all with this process.