Confession thread & WARNING to newbies

[spinz]

Today my friend sent his new car (just two weeks old) to me and asked if i could remove the defect found near the trunk lid:

I inspected the surface, it was smooth to the touch, and i decided to start with the least aggressive method - clay, but it didn't work.

Next i used XC3401 + 3 inch CCS orange pad + Optimum Compound, but it still didn't work.

Then i decided to use another method - feather sanding, to sand that area. At first it seemed to remove a little bit of the defect with 2000 grit sand paper, but after 9/10 passes with light pressure, i noticed the surface became dull, but that's too late...paint was totally removed...

I got panicked and to make it even worse, i polished that area again and more paint removed...

After my friend left i found this on my garage floor, look how much paint i removed...

This is my chastening experience for trying to be everything to everyone, and i am hoping that anyone who read this will not repeat the same mistake i made...

:awman:

 

[mg6045]

yikes, props to you sir for posting this. Threads like this are really good to see for most of us enthusiast (non professional) detailers. It keeps us honest and lets us know that we need to put a limit on what we can/will do. Wetsanding without a lot of experience is always risky, especially when doing so on a vertical plastic body panel. Those looked like chemical stains or something. nasty looking.

I would like to hear what a professional would do to assess a situation like this. and if polishing/compounding did not work, what would be the next best step ??

 

[Evan.J]

Sorry to hear that this happened to you and you can now take it and learn from it.

When it comes to OEM paint and sanding they just do not go together. With the average thickness of OEM paint (Total amount of paint not just the clear coat) being anywhere from 3.0 mils - 4.0 mils sometime just a lithe more you have very very little room to work with. With OEM clear you are looking at a thickness of a piece of sticky note paper.

That being said Mike has posted to that you safely remove up to a half mil (0.5mils or 12.7 micros) with out going through but with OEM paint that small amount can be the difference between having a small amount of clear or the dreaded burn though and the sinking feeling that you just made a costly mistake.

This is one reason why when the topic comes up of sanding or removing orange peel on and OEM finish you will find more often then not most people will say to live with it. Well why though? Its just too risky to burn through the clear.

Another thing that I can say its always nice to have a PTG on hand when doing any work on paint.

I posted a thread yesterday on this very topic and how a PTG helped me with a car and I was also able to display my findings to a customer.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...3-why-paint-thickness-readings-important.html

Here are some articles Mike has done on the topic that everyone should read:

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...-wetsanding-fresh-paint-vs-factory-paint.html

Paint Thickness Gauge - Optional but a good idea

A good quality PTG or Paint Thickness Gauge will tell you how thick the paint is on the car you are contemplating sanding. The strongest benefit of a PTG is to provide to you a reading which will be your indicator as to whether to proceed with sanding the paint.

Most PTG's measure total film build, this means you are not going to get an accurate measurement as to the actual thickness of the topcoat of paint whether it's a basecoat/clearcoat finish or a single stage finish, thus the use of the word indicator.

Most factory basecoat/clearcoat finishes have a clearcoat layer that measures 2.0 mils and it is suggested that you need a minimum of 1.5 mils of clear to provide enough material and enough UV protection to enable the basecoat to endure over the service life of the car with good, regular maintenance. This means you can safely remove approximately .5 mils off a factory finish and still have the minimum amount of clear paint left on the car for extended longevity.

Caution
While sanding factory finishes can be done, I personally don't recommend it because there's just too much room for error during the sanding and buffing process to make a mistake and accidentally remove too much material.



If sanding factory paint is risky, why write an article explaining how to do it?
The purpose of this article is not to endorse or promote the sanding of factory finishes but to provide an outline as to how to damp-sand paint be it a factory finish or a customer paint job should a person choose to undertake such a project.

My experience from years of detailing cars and now years of posting to detailing discussion forums on the topic of detailing cars has shown me that if it can be done, it will be done and for those that will be undertaking this procedure this is an outline to help you do the job right and avoid some of the risks involved. Also keep in mind while the topic of wet-sanding a car or damp-sanding a car conjures up mental pictures of sanding down and entire car, there are plenty of instances where a person is only going to sand a specific panel, for example the hood and just by reason of reducing total areas sanded you reduce risk to the car at the same time.

Liability
Anyone sanding any paint job after reading this article will be responsible on their own for any problems or mistakes made. This how-to article is for reference only, it is not any kind of guarantee or insurance that another person can safely sand and then buff out any paint job successfully.

I personally only accept projects that include custom paint jobs and I don't and won't accept projects where the customer wants a factory finish sanded and buffed. I know of Pro Detailers that will accept projects that include sanding factory paint and can put you in contact with these individuals if you're looking for this kind of work for your car projects.


For more information on sanding factory finishes, click the below link to read the below article in its entirety...

Wet-sanding - Fresh Paint vs Factory Paint

 

[rwright]

Looks like a chemical stain. If you don't have a lot of experience in the field, never be too "proud" to refer out a job to a professional or body shop. It's a lot cheaper to swallow your pride than foot the bill for body/paint repair.

Try the following on situations like this:

1) Wash the area with Dawn (Still present, proceed)
2) Check for texture - rough, gritty, bumpy, smooth
3) Clay (Still present, proceed)
4) Use a chemical paint cleanser - Iron X, dedicated paint cleaner (Still present, proceed)
5) Use a mild polish and polish pad (Still present, proceed)
6) Use a compound and polish or cutting pad

If the staining is still present after this step, stop and refer out unless you have experience sanding paint. If you still have staining after sanding then stop, clean up the area and refer out.

 

[MarkD51]

To the original poster, and others here, does anyone have any further ideas of what this might have been, and been caused by?

I'm pretty sure a new vehicle doesn't leave a dealership, or factory with such paint defects. I'm guessing that the vehicle was parked under something, something maybe like a carport, or some overhang, or canopy, where it appears something dripped onto the unprotected paint and stained it.

It actually looks like rust to me?

Wondering that if it was rust, what about something like Carpro Iron-X? Would such a product maybe work in such an instance? Rather than trying some crazy product like CLR, which is acidic, at least Iron-X is Ph neutral.
Mark

 

[FUNX650]

I agree that it takes a lot of moxy to 'fess-up and post an error...
an error in judgement---of one form, or another.

After your friend drove away (hope he's an understanding chap) you mentioned you noticed this (almost inordinate, IMO) amount of paint on your garage floor.

Not trying to discount the damage, but it almost appears, to me, that this light-colored vehicle has a single-stage (SS) paint system.

If so: A paint repair to the affected section would be quite responsive to a blending repair'...
more so than would be a BC/CC paint system.

Of course, being that I'm only going on what I see in the photos:
I may be guilty of a misdiagnosis.

Bob

After my friend left i found this on my garage floor, look how much paint i removed...

 

[mg6045]

To the original poster, and others here, does anyone have any further ideas of what this might have been, and been caused by?

I'm pretty sure a new vehicle doesn't leave a dealership, or factory with such paint defects. I'm guessing that the vehicle was parked under something, something maybe like a carport, or some overhang, or canopy, where it appears something dripped onto the unprotected paint and stained it.

It actually looks like rust to me?

Wondering that if it was rust, what about something like Carpro Iron-X? Would such a product maybe work in such an instance? Rather than trying some crazy product like CLR, which is acidic, at least Iron-X is Ph neutral.
Mark

IronX is also an acid based product, Its an acidic salt (although neutralized) if I understand the technology correctly. once it starts reacting I do not believe it is PH neutral any longer.

 

[HateSwirls]

Man I'm sorry to hear of this.

This may sound like a silly question but are you sure it was 2k grit?
I ask this because I always double check to make sure I'm working with the grit I think is needed.
9-10 passes with light pressure, man that just goes to show you how thin the paint was on this car.

We can all say well you should have done this or that after the fact but right now it's too late, only thing I can tell you is I'm sorry this happend to a fellow detailer here at AG.

I do thank you for posting it, it sure will help others who may try something like this without experience , not saying you don't , just in general I say this.

One thing I don't understand....
I've never seen that much paint on a floor from sanding with 2k, in fact I've never seen that much on the floor period.
Could it have been a paint defect?, meaning a factory issue?

 

[tuscarora dave]

Those looked like chemical stains or something. nasty looking.

I would like to hear what a professional would do to assess a situation like this. and if polishing/compounding did not work, what would be the next best step ??

My first step with that would have been to soak and dwell the area with an acid wheel cleaner, keeping it wet and localized to the affected area. After a few minutes of wet dwell time I would have used a soft horse hair brush to lightly agitate, though the spots would have probably been liquefied by the time I put the brush to it.

After that I would have soaked up the acid with a disposable towel and applied an alkaline cleaner to neutralize the acid and followed that with a thorough water rinse and a coat of wax.

If that wouldn't have worked, I'd have told the customer to consult with a paint shop to have the spoiler repainted. [edit] Or offered to remove it and repaint it myself...<<<this..

 

[swanicyouth]

My first step - ship that 2 week old car back to the dealer and make it their problem. Too late now though.

 

[Two3zz]

Sense we are doing Sunday Confessional / growing pains DOH

"Touched it tooo much" :doh: My vehicle though

 

[tuscarora dave]

My first step - ship that 2 week old car back to the dealer and make it their problem. Too late now though.

I like that idea even better...:dblthumb2:

 

[KillaCam]

What kind of car was that?

 

[BrutalNoodle]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that!

As soon as I scroll down, the very first thought that popped in my head was, "How thick of a surface are we looking at here?"

Being a newbie myself, I wouldn't dare going with a heavy approach without knowing how much I have to work with. You're way braver than I am, that's for sure.

Thanks for the warning, and I hope this isn't going to sour things between you and your friend.

 

[Rod]

Good of you to stand up and share it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Nth Degree]

Man I'm sorry to hear of this.

This may sound like a silly question but are you sure it was 2k grit?
I ask this because I always double check to make sure I'm working with the grit I think is needed.
9-10 passes with light pressure, man that just goes to show you how thin the paint was on this car.

This is a good warning. I once made a mistake on my own car when I accidentally grabbed a piece of 1000 grit when I thought it was 2000. Result: quickly struck through.


Sometimes a little information can be worse than no information.

I see, too often, people who read how to do something and, thinking they could handle it themselves, wind up doing more harm than good. One of my customers has a quote that should be made a mantra in detailing: "Everything looks easy when someone else is doing it." Many things about this job are easy... until it isn't. It is the ability to understand what is going wrong and how to fix it that separates the boys from the men. Being able to make one car look perfect doesn't mean you can do the same to any vehicle. Even the best will sometimes find themselves in a situation that has them scratching their head. If you aren't experienced with something like defect removal it would be wise to not gamble unless you are prepared to pay for a repaint. If not, then paying a pro will prove to be far less expensive in the long run.

 

[CowboyTruckn]

Thanks for the post. Just reaffirms the reason why sand paper and myself will remain apart. If my buffer can't do it it doesn't need done

 

[spinz]

The stain was a left-over from car Puja/Pooja - A ceremony to bless a new car in the Lord's name and keep it safe from bad influences, which is commonly seen in my country, Malaysia, not sure if this can be seen in other countries. During this ceremony, the car was drawn with turmeric powder mixed with water.

Sorry to hear that this happened to you and you can now take it and learn from it.

When it comes to OEM paint and sanding they just do not go together. With the average thickness of OEM paint (Total amount of paint not just the clear coat) being anywhere from 3.0 mils - 4.0 mils sometime just a lithe more you have very very little room to work with. With OEM clear you are looking at a thickness of a piece of sticky note paper.

That being said Mike has posted to that you safely remove up to a half mil (0.5mils or 12.7 micros) with out going through but with OEM paint that small amount can be the difference between having a small amount of clear or the dreaded burn though and the sinking feeling that you just made a costly mistake.

This is one reason why when the topic comes up of sanding or removing orange peel on and OEM finish you will find more often then not most people will say to live with it. Well why though? Its just too risky to burn through the clear.

Another thing that I can say its always nice to have a PTG on hand when doing any work on paint.

I posted a thread yesterday on this very topic and how a PTG helped me with a car and I was also able to display my findings to a customer.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...3-why-paint-thickness-readings-important.html

Here are some articles Mike has done on the topic that everyone should read:

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...-wetsanding-fresh-paint-vs-factory-paint.html

Thanks Evan! I will read your thread. Actually i had read the articles from Mike before this, but still i made a mistake...

Looks like a chemical stain. If you don't have a lot of experience in the field, never be too "proud" to refer out a job to a professional or body shop. It's a lot cheaper to swallow your pride than foot the bill for body/paint repair.

Try the following on situations like this:

1) Wash the area with Dawn (Still present, proceed)
2) Check for texture - rough, gritty, bumpy, smooth
3) Clay (Still present, proceed)
4) Use a chemical paint cleanser - Iron X, dedicated paint cleaner (Still present, proceed)
5) Use a mild polish and polish pad (Still present, proceed)
6) Use a compound and polish or cutting pad

If the staining is still present after this step, stop and refer out unless you have experience sanding paint. If you still have staining after sanding then stop, clean up the area and refer out.

Thanks for the advice. Actually i have done step 1-6 above, but at step 4 i used OPC 1:1 instead of Iron X.

To the original poster, and others here, does anyone have any further ideas of what this might have been, and been caused by?

I'm pretty sure a new vehicle doesn't leave a dealership, or factory with such paint defects. I'm guessing that the vehicle was parked under something, something maybe like a carport, or some overhang, or canopy, where it appears something dripped onto the unprotected paint and stained it.

It actually looks like rust to me?

Wondering that if it was rust, what about something like Carpro Iron-X? Would such a product maybe work in such an instance? Rather than trying some crazy product like CLR, which is acidic, at least Iron-X is Ph neutral.
Mark

That's not rust, and yes you are right, the vehicle didn't leave the dealership with such stain.

Man I'm sorry to hear of this.

This may sound like a silly question but are you sure it was 2k grit?
I ask this because I always double check to make sure I'm working with the grit I think is needed.
9-10 passes with light pressure, man that just goes to show you how thin the paint was on this car.

We can all say well you should have done this or that after the fact but right now it's too late, only thing I can tell you is I'm sorry this happend to a fellow detailer here at AG.

I do thank you for posting it, it sure will help others who may try something like this without experience , not saying you don't , just in general I say this.

One thing I don't understand....
I've never seen that much paint on a floor from sanding with 2k, in fact I've never seen that much on the floor period.
Could it have been a paint defect?, meaning a factory issue?

You got sharp eyes...i started the sanding with 3000 grit (few passes, can't recall how many) before switching to 2000 grit...
Nope, i'm sure it is not factory issue.

My first step - ship that 2 week old car back to the dealer and make it their problem. Too late now though.

Good idea but it is not possible to make it their problem.

My first step with that would have been to soak and dwell the area with an acid wheel cleaner, keeping it wet and localized to the affected area. After a few minutes of wet dwell time I would have used a soft horse hair brush to lightly agitate, though the spots would have probably been liquefied by the time I put the brush to it.

After that I would have soaked up the acid with a disposable towel and applied an alkaline cleaner to neutralize the acid and followed that with a thorough water rinse and a coat of wax.

If that wouldn't have worked, I'd have told the customer to consult with a paint shop to have the spoiler repainted. [edit] Or offered to remove it and repaint it myself...<<<this..

Have you tried this method before? Did it work?

Sense we are doing Sunday Confessional / growing pains DOH

"Touched it tooo much" :doh: My vehicle though

What did you do on the paint? It seems like clear coat failure to me.

What kind of car was that?

Brand new Honda Civic.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that!

As soon as I scroll down, the very first thought that popped in my head was, "How thick of a surface are we looking at here?"

Being a newbie myself, I wouldn't dare going with a heavy approach without knowing how much I have to work with. You're way braver than I am, that's for sure.

Thanks for the warning, and I hope this isn't going to sour things between you and your friend.

Lesson learned from my "bravery". :laughing:

This is a good warning. I once made a mistake on my own car when I accidentally grabbed a piece of 1000 grit when I thought it was 2000. Result: quickly struck through.


Sometimes a little information can be worse than no information.

I see, too often, people who read how to do something and, thinking they could handle it themselves, wind up doing more harm than good. One of my customers has a quote that should be made a mantra in detailing: "Everything looks easy when someone else is doing it." Many things about this job are easy... until it isn't. It is the ability to understand what is going wrong and how to fix it that separates the boys from the men. Being able to make one car look perfect doesn't mean you can do the same to any vehicle. Even the best will sometimes find themselves in a situation that has them scratching their head. If you aren't experienced with something like defect removal it would be wise to not gamble unless you are prepared to pay for a repaint. If not, then paying a pro will prove to be far less expensive in the long run.

"Everything looks easy when someone else is doing it." <--- This.
Now i fully understood the meaning of this.

Thanks for the post. Just reaffirms the reason why sand paper and myself will remain apart. If my buffer can't do it it doesn't need done

Agree! All part time detailer should have this in their mind - "If the buffer can't do it, then it simply means cannot be done."

 

[GreatAvalon]

Thanks for posting this thread! I recently got door dinged and have some scratches on my paint from it. I am going to attempt to correct it, but its going to be my first time using my new PC. Seeing this is a reminder for me to accept if some of the marks will not come out and to be sure to be careful when I try to correct it. I will error on the side of not not correcting enough rather than risk a strike through, especially now that I see what one actually looks like.

I'm always learning something here, so thank you very much!

 

[cmanningjr]

Thanks for sharing. Now I'm having doubts again about doing my cars..


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