Bird Bomb Paint Etching

L

Lou K

New member
Last weekend my car got bird bombed by what looked like a family of sea gulls. The hood and windshield were the target areas. As soon as I got home I washed the stuff off with plain cold water. I could see some etching of the paint but it did not appear to be too bad. The next morning I polished the entire hood with Menz SIP, followed with Menz 106ff and finally Meg #16. This morning I went out to the garage and I could not believe my eyes; the etching is back.

What did I do wrong and what can I do to cure this?



By the way the car is an SL55 with the ceramiclear black paint.



Thanks.
 
Lou K- Yikes, sorry to hear about this.



I've read about highly acidic bird bombs that continue to do damage after people have thought they fixed things, maybe this is one of those cases.



To neutralize the acids you'd use something highly alkaline, then repolish/wax/etc.



The http://www.autoint.com website used to have info on this.



Otherwise, maybe the etching is just *bad* and you didn't/couldn't correct it was well as you thought you did.



This is a good, if unfortunate, lesson in how even very good/hard paint can get really messed up by bird bombs. FWIW, some LSPs do a *LOT* better than others at resisting such stuff, and the good ones (in this regard) aren't always what you'd expect.
 
Um...I've had that same experience with the "reappearing" etches. Rather than get out my FK1 decon step 1, I rubbed baking soda paste into the etch marks, let that sit for a while, then polished out the etch, then put some #7 over it for a few days to let it breathe, then LSP's after.



I think part of the problem is not neutralizing and/or sealing it with your #16 before it had time to "offgas".
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Um...I've had that same experience with the "reappearing" etches. Rather than get out my FK1 decon step 1, I rubbed baking soda paste into the etch marks, let that sit for a while, then polished out the etch, then put some #7 over it for a few days to let it breathe, then LSP's after.



I think part of the problem is not neutralizing and/or sealing it with your #16 before it had time to "offgas".
Click to expand...





I had a similar problem and I sealed my finish right after the correction.



Setec,

"Offgas" is new to me so I had a question for you: I'm sure the amount of time needed to neutralize or "offgas" depends on the severity of the etching, but do you have any guidelines as to the amount of time that we should wait before applying any sealant or wax over the affected area?

Thx
 
Heck if I know...I read the same thing Accumulator did over at the AI site once upon a time...I'm not sure that I fully agreed with that theory, but there does seem to be some penetration into the paint.



Also, I did both the neutralization and the waiting for outgassing (which is probably the more correct term); it's possible that once you've neutralized you don't need to wait. I guess the reason I don't completely buy the AI story, whether it pertains to acid rain or acid bird stuff, is their system applies a caustic (alkaline) step first to neutralize the acids...then you put an acid on as step 2...so if the paint is porous as they suggest...isn't that putting the acid right back in that you just neutralized? And if the step 3 neutral shampoo will neutralize acids in the porous paint that you put in with step 2, why do you need step 1?
 
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