Thinning the Clearcoat

lbls1 said:
At least I know now that I wasn't goin crazy for spending MORE than a day on paint correction...
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Oh no, at least not by my standards. I can spend days on end doing it as it takes forever to inspect thoroughly enough to avoid surprises (at least with my metallic paints).





However, if your aim is not to repaint (and I commend you highly on that decision) then unfortunately you'll have to bear with some inherent paint issues...
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Tell me about it...the Jag looked terrible on the showroom floor..I've been looking at some flaws since the day I brought it home. After twenty some years they still bug me. It was a "Monday/Friday" car to begin with...partially repainted at the factory; there's a story there but I dunno what it really is :think:





SwissVax huh..
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Well...I'm just talkin' ;)



Back on-topic, I unpacked the ETG and I'm gonna take some readings on the M3 soon, we'll see if I'm taking off as much as I think I am. I got sidetracked redoing some touchups...and they're not turning out any better than they were :o
 
NickelPlated.45 said:
Just out of curiosity, how many cars do you have right now Acc?
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TOO MANY!! I'm running short of space now that I no longer have the commerical garage.



At present I have (...uhm...counting...) nine :o But the '00 beater-Blazer is basically sold (he's getting it any day now), the '97 M3 might get sold if I find something I like better, and I haven't decided for sure whether to keep the new '00 Audi beater-project or not (getting estimates on what it needs). So I might only have the six "regulars" in the near future:



'00 and '01 Audis (keepers), '85 Jag (keeper), '04 DenaliXL (new dog-hauler), '02 MPV (backup/previous dog-hauler), '84 RX-7 (semi-mothballed timecapsule, potential concours-level project).



And if the *right* person offered something reasonable for the RX-7 I'd sell it with no regrets. It was an impulse-buy; I didn't want the two dealers who were bidding on it to get it leset it fall into unappreciative hands. Yeah, it's *that* nice, and I'm comparing it to my 18K mile Jag.
 
Ahhh I see you have some domestics in that fleet. Thought so! That's a lot of cars to detail!!!! Lol!



And I was thinking of how I would handle my forthcoming dream SUV, a Trailblazer SS, hopefully next year. Vintage would be murder on it. Sure would hate to lower my standards with new material (dreaming while typing), but those vehicles do have some size issues....even with the smallest suvs.



So how are U gonna handle Vintage??? Hmmmm *Heh Heh* Lollll..



Edit: Factory paint flaws............now somehow why does that ring a bell......unfortunately this is a subject that I know fairly well!!!:usa
 
Last summer I went through my collection of polish and pads in an attempt to remove the swirls on my Alfa. Nothing worked so I tried some 4" pads with the PC with only minor success. I bought some much stronger polish and worked on a panel for quite a while, at last the swirls were going. Flushed with success I moved onto the next panel, on the 2nd swipe the paint disappeared and exposed the primer :wall



I do not recall being that angry and frustrated in many years. Since then I have only used SRP EGP to hide the swirls
 
Lowejackson said:
Last summer I ...exposed the primer..
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Sorry to hear that :( I did the same thing on the Volvo wagon I used to have, and I've even done it (just barely) on the ss black window surrounds on the MPV...did those with a PC/4" too.



Was the paint on the Alfa ss? I don't blame you a bit for just Autoglyming it...that's basically what I have to do on the Jag from now on.



I shoulda bought the ETG sooner than I did, but better late than never.



lbls1- Oh yeah, I always seem to have at least one domestic vehicle and there aren't any real import alternatives for my big dog-hauler anyhow.



Heh heh...yeah, a TrailBlazer would sure keep you busy ;) But comparing a pal's TrailBlazer SS to our Audis, I don't think it'd be *that* much harder to do. You're just spoiled by doing that little f-body :chuckle: Back when I was driving those I didn't think twice about being fanatical, but these big ones are a different story.



Yeah, I can hear you already- "so buy the Vintage for the smaller ones", huh?



And yeah, factory paint quality hasn't really impressed me...the A8/S8 were mighty pricey cars to have so much OP...robotic paint systems indeed! :rolleyes:
 
Hey Acc, Just curious on your choice of paint meter. I have been toying with the idea of picking one up myself but I'm not really sure which type to get. I've seen some on the net that aren't too expensive $250-$350 which seems reasonable but will they measure precisely enough for detailing purposes? I can understand auto buyers needing them at an auction to see if panels have been repainted but I don't guess those meters need to be super accurate?? ANyone?
 
That one looks pretty good. It also looks like some I've seen on Ebay for $250 but they don't show the accuracy down to Mils like the one you bought does. Hurry up and try it out so you can review it for us! ha..ha..!
 
Accumulator said:
lbls1- Oh yeah, I always seem to have at least one domestic vehicle and there aren't any real import alternatives for my big dog-hauler anyhow.



Heh heh...yeah, a TrailBlazer would sure keep you busy ;) But comparing a pal's TrailBlazer SS to our Audis, I don't think it'd be *that* much harder to do. You're just spoiled by doing that little f-body :chuckle: Back when I was driving those I didn't think twice about being fanatical, but these big ones are a different story.



Yeah, I can hear you already- "so buy the Vintage for the smaller ones", huh?



And yeah, factory paint quality hasn't really impressed me...the A8/S8 were mighty pricey cars to have so much OP...robotic paint systems indeed! :rolleyes:
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My little fbody huh............U just know how to keep me in my place huh pal?????? Lolllllll I get a kick out the little sneaky punches here and there. Yup I suppose I'm in for a whalloping when and if I decide to get bigger with the TBSS. Well maybe you can give me some pointers on dealing with more flab.....yuk yuk yuk...you had it coming. :rofl :rofl sorry for laughing at my own jokes...but sometimes its all in the timing.



It seems that factory paint is what it is...no matter what you buy. I've seen oatmeal on 200K ferraris.....of all cars!!!!!! I have seen some well done aftermarket jobs that would make any car lover cry however. But............aftermarket does have its ups and downs too. It seems that appearance and quality is a fleeting bond that's hard to master lol!!!!
 
lbls1 said:
My little fbody huh..
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Heh heh, well, I guess it's not so little compared to my RX-7 :think:



Having owned (and enjoyed) three (black lacquer) f-bodies, I figure I've *earned* the right to tease you :D At least with most of my other vehicles being so big.



For some reason, when I checked out my buddy's TBSS as a potential Blazer replacement, I thought "eh, it's so big that I'd rather just go ahead and get a Suburban and *really* have plenty of dog-room".



Conan777- Yeah, I need to find time for this and I do plan to do it this weekend. Rather than do some quick get-acquainted playing around with it, I want to have enough time to do the M3 properly. And yeah, without good accuracy down to a pretty precise level, it wouldn't be of much use for detailing.
 
Accumulator said:
Heh heh, well, I guess it's not so little compared to my RX-7 :think:



Having owned (and enjoyed) three (black lacquer) f-bodies, I figure I've *earned* the right to tease you :D At least with most of my other vehicles being so big.



For some reason, when I checked out my buddy's TBSS as a potential Blazer replacement, I thought "eh, it's so big that I'd rather just go ahead and get a Suburban and *really* have plenty of dog-room".



Conan777- Yeah, I need to find time for this and I do plan to do it this weekend. Rather than do some quick get-acquainted playing around with it, I want to have enough time to do the M3 properly. And yeah, without good accuracy down to a pretty precise level, it wouldn't be of much use for detailing.
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Hah!!! Ok I guess you right! I should respect my elders huh...yukyukyuk...:getdown



I've loved the suburbans ever since, but sizewise right now its not do-able for me. They're built like tanks, and if you take care of them they just keep on goin'. My interest in the tb stems a bit from my love of gmsuv's in general, but specifically bc of its powertrain and overall appearance as a possible new car in a year or so (provided they are still making them).



But......paint correction and the tedious EG application..............nightmare!
 
I don't remember exactly when I did those measurements, but I can usually sand lightly with 2000 and then buff out the sanding scratches with only removing 5-10 microns of clear...I'd say the average is closer to 7...of course it depends on how much you sand.



Accumulator said:
This topic comes up from time to time and I *usually* tell people not to worry about it. But OTOH I leave marring in my "keepers" because I'd usually rather have imperfect looks than risk a repaint.



Having recently purchased an ETG (which I haven't used yet) and having a *really* pitted/etched/scratched car to do when if finish the M3 (which I'm just rotarying to *death* in an effort to fix scratches), I've been pondering the "taking off too much clear" issue. If I kill the M3 I'll get over it as I'll either sell it anyhow (likely) or get it repainted if I keep it (less likely). But I sure don't want to over-correct anything I'm keeping, so a few thoughts follow and I'd appreciate any comments:



I ran across a thread where RAG did some ETG testing with various combos. He found that to completely remove 2K sanding scratches he had to do two passes with rotary/black Edge wool/HTEC-OPmix. Tested independently of the 2K sanding, said combo removed ~7 microns of clear with *one* pass. (each "pass" was about four strokes back/forth, enough to properly work the product.) That means he removed ~14 microns of clear to remove those sanding scratches.



14 microns = ~.34 mil which is right around ~1/3 mil that's recommended as the max clear you can remove before you precipitate clearcoat failure. Some people think you can take off up to 1/2 mil, but even then that's over the entire life of the paintjob. And all this is leaving out the clear removed prior to the correction by the wetsanding and any subsequent final polishing with milder combos.



So how to do serious correction (uh-oh...like what I'm doing on the M3 :nervous: ) without long-term consequences?
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RAG said:
I don't remember exactly when I did those measurements, but I can usually sand lightly with 2000 and then buff out the sanding scratches with only removing 5-10 microns of clear...I'd say the average is closer to 7...of course it depends on how much you sand.
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I didn't mean to put you on the spot by mentioning that thread, I was just pointing out how your experiences got me thinking. I'm still optimistic that the "rotaried to death" panels on my M3 won't be *nearly* as thin as I was expecting and, well, there are just *so* many variables to this stuff...



And I guess I'm thinking very long-term; what'll happen when I have to polish out a RIDS next year, what if it sits in the AZ sun with a new owner, stuff like that.



I can't help but think how my painter, who knows more about this stuff than I do, said to use the 1500 :think:



I was sure amazed when I cut through the ss black doorwindow surrounds on the MPV and since then I've been pretty :nervous: about this subject.
 
RAG said:
I don't remember exactly when I did those measurements, but I can usually sand lightly with 2000 and then buff out the sanding scratches with only removing 5-10 microns of clear...I'd say the average is closer to 7...of course it depends on how much you sand.
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Well, for 5 microns then the conversion to mils removed would be 0.196....



Microns to mils: divide by 25.4
 
fredbear said:
Lowejackson,

I searched the decoder but don't see it- what is SRP ERG?
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Well I'm not Lowejackson, but I can answer your question :) It's Autoglym Super Resin Polish and Extra Gloss Protection (EGP, not ERG).
 
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