Is there a chart with various automaker's paint hardness/softness?

[The Enforcer]

I have seen on here before that individuals have taken the time to create charts that rank certain items in detailing....for instance....the chart that has all different types of polishes and their level of "cut". This is very helpful for a non-pro like myself to guess what I want to go to without doin so many test spots.



Well I think it would be VERY helpful to have osmething like this hanging in the garage beside it....a chart that shows the various car types and the hardness of their clearcoats. This ranks right up there in importance with polish/pad selection, and could be VERY helpful to novice detailers like myself who who like a chart to look at to give an "idea" of what we are getting into.



Rank hardness 1-10. Obviously Honda white would be on the lower end....with MB ceramic clears and Vette clearcoat up near the top! What are ya'lls thoughts on this. Does this exist anywhere? I know the list can't be "complete"....but it could be very thorough.

 

[Mike_Phillips]

Is there a chart with various automaker's paint hardness/softness?





Your idea is a good one but keep in mind,

• Paint technology changes
  
• Car manufactures change paint systems
  
• Some cars could be repainted or portions repainted with paint that's harder or softer than the factory paint

I've seen some lists, not sure if I've seen any charts...



Even if there are lists and charts you should still actually test out the paint your working on by doing a Test Spot, that is test out the pads, products and process you're thinking about using over the entire car to just one small area and see if it's working.



For guys that have buffed out hundreds of cars and have lots of experience, just applying a product by hand or machine for a minute or so and then evaluating the results will be pretty good indicator as to whether the paint is hard or soft...



Here's the link to a very a thread where the paint on the same type of car, (factory paint), is completely different. the 2005 model has what I would call soft or polishable paint, while the 2006 model had what I though was hard or un-polishable paint.



I did the sanding and rotary work on both cars so my observations were based on first-hand experience.



Check it out...



Paint Workability - The Hardness or Softness of your car's paint







John aka fatchance, let us do a little wet-sanding on his Chrysler 300 as the hood was hit with an egg and it left some deeper scratches on the hood.

This photo was actually taken after wet-sanding with a backing pad and then using a rotary buffer with a cutting pad and M84 Compound Power Cleaner to remove the sanding marks. We didn't get any pictures of how bad the scratches were before we started but you'll get the idea...

First we would like to thank you for bringing Ella and her car to Meguiar's Garage and allowing us to work on it. As you can see Ella keeps her car in pristine condition!

There were however to very unsightly scratches in the shape of an arc, running from the back of the hood by the windshield all the way to the front of the hood on the passenger's side of the car.



Here's some close-ups of the scratches, while they don't look very deep, they stood out like a sore thumb on an other wise flawless finish.

The paint also had these almost perfect, circular indents throughout the hood as you can see in the below close-up which is actually a section cropped out of the above photo and actual size.

In order to remove these scratches we decided to use a technique called Feather Sanding, where you take a small piece of Meguiar's Nikken Finishing Paper, about the size of a postage stamp, and carefully sand directly over the defect you're trying to remove and feather the edge out until you can no longer see the scratch.



After sanding out the two long arc scratches, we took a photo of the entire hood so you can now see just how long these scratches extended over the passenger's side of the hood and we think most people would agree, that if they owned this car and the finish was otherwise flawless except for two distinct, long scratches in the hood... well you would want them out of the paint also!

More pics in the actual thread...







Here's two other articles I've written on this topic...



Polishable & Polishability - Paint Hardness or Softness





What is the meaning of soft paint?

 

[The Enforcer]

Thanks very much Mike.....that was very helpful. I dind't consider the fact that the simple fact of cars being painted different days, different plants, etc could affect the layers of paint. Also, a car that has repainted would not apply to the chart if there WERE one....so I guess it is always best to just "test." Appreciate the info....everything you post is always very helpful to me.

 

[Leadfootluke]

Very cool of John to let you work on his car. It's a work of art! I've watched the progression of it and it must have been fun, although you mentioned the paints hardness. Could that be due to any custom panels or repaints?



And I didn't know Anita [Ella] had that done to her car as well, but that paint looked in great condition! She's had it for a while and it looks really healthy.