Possible burn through with 106fa????

N

nitsuj

New member
Please bear with me through this long post.



Well I am relatively new to the details of polishing with a rotary. I have owned my makita for over a year, but just recently started to get back into polishing. Since I don't have a ton of experience with polishing I started out working on my car with the finest polish I can get my hands on other than 85rd, which is very tough to find. I recently picked up some 106fa because of its fine cutting ability. Not wanting to start out with an aggressive polish I figured this would be a good "practice" polish for my car so as to not worry about striking through. Well after finding out that using a white LC pad with it and applying a good amount of pressure caused a small portion of my paint to get very hot to the touch in a test spot, I finally found the right speed and pressure to keep the paint from getting blistering hot to the touch. I then used the right technique to the rest of the car to eliminate the fine hazing and spider web scratching that existed in the finish. This still left some RDS's in the paint which I was fine with, knowing that this meant I still had a good amount of clear on the car and wasn't taking too much off. After finishing the car I noticed that my white pad had a very light red color to it. There wasn't very much, just enough to notice it was pink. Being my car is red I immediately considered I may have broke through the clear, even with a very fine polish and pad. I'm not sure if this is possible, but I was looking for some advice on whether you guys think it may have occurred. I also took into consideration that there are lots of chips in the clear on the hood and that polishing over them may have lifted some of the color coat that was exposed under the chips. Is this possible? Has anyone encountered this while polishing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.



And thanks for reading.
 
Strike-through



Speed, kinetic energy (friction), applied pressure, foam pad actual surface contact area, pad and polish / compound abrasive ability, amount of surface lubrication available, area being polished, and material (paint, especially paint edges, plastic, metal, etc) heat conductivity

The above factors using a slow to stationary linier motion will produce excessive ‘friction heat ‘on a paint surface wither it be a rotary or an orbital polisher; the operative word here is excess friction



Basically strikethrough is caused when kinetic energy (friction heat) has compromised the clear coat and exposed the base coat. Paint often looks a slightly lighter colour; it’s usually concentrated on a small area or ‘spot ‘



You will also be able to see a non-glossy patch (base coat) where the clear has been removed with the edges of the remaining clear coat being visible. Since the clear coat contains the UV inhibitors, the colour coat is now exposed and will be subjected to photo degradation (fading)
 
I was told many years ago that a rotary will go thru paint (base, clear, single, tint, tri) very easily if not careful. When I was shown how fast it can happen on a test panel I was convinced. Bought a PC 6 years ago and have never even come close.



Generating excessive heat with a potent machine no matter what pad or polish will do it.
 
You may want to put some Opti-Coat on your vehicle just to be safe (and much cheaper than getting the car sprayed or dealing with fading spots later). We've all had our expensive "life lessons" :)
 
You don't say what car you have but there is a 95% chance it's clear coated. So if you got color on your pad then you did hit color coat. Look at the edges and sharp curves of the panels. This is likely the culprit.
 
Brad B. said:
You don't say what car you have but there is a 95% chance it's clear coated. So if you got color on your pad then you did hit color coat. Look at the edges and sharp curves of the panels. This is likely the culprit.
Click to expand...

This is a strong possibility, however depending on the car, it may have a tinted clearcoat as well. IIRC, some Corvettes and Hondas have tintcoat. Give us a little more info on the year, make and model please.
 
Its a red 2008 gti with plenty of highway stone chipping along the hood and front fenders.



I have used a rotary before although not that much, but I paint as a hobby and if it is strike through that wouldn't be a problem. The thing is I can still see random deep scratches all around the car with gloss, which means the clear has not been compromised. This is why I am confused on the color of the pad.



I never stop moving the buffer and was using LC's white curved edge pad. You guys are aware of how soft it is, just to remove the light marring it required quite a bit of effort so this is really ponder-some.



The thing i'm mostly wondering about is if its possible to get color transfer through chips in the hood onto the pad. Wherever there is a chip there is an absence of clear, which means color coat is exposed. If the color coat is exposed it makes sense to me that there could be transfer, especially when your talking such a large surface area. Does this make sense to anyone, or has this been witnessed?



Thanks again, I appreciate all feedback



Edit: I forgot to mention that orange peel is still very prevalent around the car, even though its minimal on this car.
 
Remember it's also possible that your car has tinted clear... can't say that for sure of course but it is another possibility.



Er, nevermind me... just saw that mikenap already said the same thing :o
 
wascallyrabbit said:
does anyone know the purpose of tinting the clear coat?
Click to expand...



Gives a certain look that's a bit different from a normal clearcoat.



nitsuj said:
The thing i'm mostly wondering about is if its possible to get color transfer through chips in the hood onto the pad. Wherever there is a chip there is an absence of clear, which means color coat is exposed. If the color coat is exposed it makes sense to me that there could be transfer, especially when your talking such a large surface area. Does this make sense to anyone, or has this been witnessed?
Click to expand...







That's possible; you could get a bit of transfer from the chips. If you're inspecting the vehicle properly I'm pretty sure you'd notice any areas of strike-through and FWIW, I sure hope you're not thinning the clear so much that you really need to worry about that (you can take off too much clear *LONG* before you come close to hitting basecoat). Oh, and I'd sure try to avoid applying much pressure when using the rotary, at least until you know exactly what you're doing with "advanced techniques" like that.
 
While a white pad is soft, especially on a PC, you can get some serious cut with it on a rotary. It should be easy enough to take a clean cotton pad (makeup pad) and some more polish and rub in a few places to see if you the pad turns red.
 
That's possible; you could get a bit of transfer from the chips. If you're inspecting the vehicle properly I'm pretty sure you'd notice any areas of strike-through and FWIW, I sure hope you're not thinning the clear so much that you really need to worry about that (you can take off too much clear *LONG* before you come close to hitting basecoat). Oh, and I'd sure try to avoid applying much pressure when using the rotary, at least until you know exactly what you're doing with "advanced techniques" like that.[/QUOTE]



Thanks for the input. I am very detail oriented and find it very very doubtful that I wouldn't notice burn through or that I even caused it. Like I said I can still see random deeps all around the car which I didn't bother taking out, just for the possibility of taking too much clear off. I know that if you can feel a scratch with your finger nail there is no taking that out and don't try. The correction I was doing was mainly removing the typical marring you see when the car is in the sun. Marring that was instilled by improper washing or drying, or something along those lines. So the amount of correction I was looking for was very light and quick.



I'm sure it is just from the chips in the hood and fenders that caused the paint transfer, but I just wanted to know if I was on base with that, or if that is possible, or if any one has seen it happen or done it from personal experience.



Any other advice or to just let me know this can cause it would be greatly appreciated.
 
Have any of your panels been repainted? Maybe the shop used single-stage paint, which easily transfers to the pad during normal polishing.
 
Let me preface this before I ask. I am not trying to be an *** when I ask.



Were you cleaning the pad as you were polishing? How did you not notice the paint transfer until you were done?
 
Another option I will throw out(you guys covered many bases :)) is that perhaps something like the mirrors are single stage?



I haven't seen a Tornado Red GTI this season but I did work on a relatively new(few years old) red Subaru. As soon as I saw the mirrors(that were pink) I knew they were single stage and polishing confirmed it. I have no idea why the little mirrors were single stage on this car either.. perhaps this is it?



I have a feeling you may have nipped a little color polishing over the chips.. You will see this sometimes when you are feather or round down a scratch that is just way too deep to safely remove as well.



Interested to see what you find out.
 
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