Did I sand through the clear?

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SlvrDragon50

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I was trying to do a touch up paint repair on a scratch, and unfortunately I think I sanded through the clear. It didn't seem that way while I was sanding the paint, but it looks pretty obvious after I polished.

I'm confused though because the part in question still seems to reflect a little whereas the part where I touched up has zero reflection (as expected). Did I just not sand properly? Or do I still need to polish some more?

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I was using M105 on an orange pad and M205 on a white pad w/ my GG6.

Thanks
 
I can't tell from the pictures if you've gone through the clear or not and I'm not even sure about this, but it looks like you put too much paint 'around' the scratch. Paint around the scratch, or in other words, paint exceeding the margins of the scratch makes the sanding and polishing steps much more difficult and increases the risk of sanding/polishing through the surrounding area.

I know this doesn't help you this go-around, but if you or anyone else reading this has to do a similar touch-up in the future, remember this one thing... The more precisely you can apply the touch-up paint to the defect, and the defect ONLY, the more successful your repair will be. Ideally you would have no paint outside of the defect, but more realistically you definitely want to minimize any excess of paint surrounding the defect. And one other piece of advice, polishing a repair such as this is done much more effectively by hand than using a polisher. The polisher covers way too much area whereas by hand you can better isolate your polishing to the immediate defect area.
 
2black1s said:
I can't tell from the pictures if you've gone through the clear or not and I'm not even sure about this, but it looks like you put too much paint 'around' the scratch. Paint around the scratch, or in other words, paint exceeding the margins of the scratch makes the sanding and polishing steps much more difficult and increases the risk of sanding/polishing through the surrounding area.

I know this doesn't help you this go-around, but if you or anyone else reading this has to do a similar touch-up in the future, remember this one thing... The more precisely you can apply the touch-up paint to the defect, and the defect ONLY, the more successful your repair will be. Ideally you would have no paint outside of the defect, but more realistically you definitely want to minimize any excess of paint surrounding the defect. And one other piece of advice, polishing a repair such as this is done much more effectively by hand than using a polisher. The polisher covers way too much area whereas by hand you can better isolate your polishing to the immediate defect area.
Click to expand...

^^^This^^^
I usually fill the scratch with color and then apply multiple coats of clear until the repair area is slightly higher than the factory paint. Then I'll give it a few days in the sun to harden up, double up painters tape around the scratch so as to isolate the repaired area, and then go to town with wetsanding to level out the repair. Then I'll knock it down further with compound and polish to blend the repair. You have to be patient as it will take a few days to make the repair blend. Your also better off using color and then clear. Those combo color / clear "touch up" paints from the dealership never seem to cure fast enough to be worked and blended without getting gummy and pulled out of the scratch.
 
Well, that's the weird thing! I don't remember putting paint there at all since that's so far away from the scratch! I understand seeing the blemish around the edges of the scratch, but I'm just confused by seeing the lighter color blemish below the actual scratch.

There was maybe 2 weeks in between the touch up paint job and polishing, and like 3 days between the sanding and touch up paint. The only problem was that it ended up raining a bit at night after I did the touch up paint (it was supposed to be dry for a few days but the weather is so hard to predict :()
 
I'll venture to guess the light area below the scratch maybe a strike through or dangerously thin clear.
 
Bummer, I can't believe I sanded through the clear so fast. The factory clear must have been insanely thin.
 
It's honestly very hard to tell if you did or did not sand through. However, if you notice in Richy's post for repairing the key scratch he took paint thickness measurements to make sure he had enough to work with. Without having a tool such as Defelsko I would recommend in the future purchasing a Dr. Colorchip kit. While clearly not as amazing as Richy's work, it takes the guessing out of whether or not you've sanded through the clear. :-) But don't feel bad, it's all a learning experience and I learned the hard way too about 6 years back. As I think all of us have at one point or another.
 
Vue to a kill said:
It's honestly very hard to tell if you did or did not sand through. However, if you notice in Richy's post for repairing the key scratch he took paint thickness measurements to make sure he had enough to work with. Without having a tool such as Defelsko I would recommend in the future purchasing a Dr. Colorchip kit. While clearly not as amazing as Richy's work, it takes the guessing out of whether or not you've sanded through the clear. :-) But don't feel bad, it's all a learning experience and I learned the hard way too about 6 years back. As I think all of us have at one point or another.
Click to expand...

Yea, I definitely should have just bought a Dr. Colorchip kit. For some reason, I was reading about other paint chip kits, and the reviews were not so positive so I shied away from the kits. I'll keep it in mind for the future though.

Richy just made it look so friggin easy!!!
 
Nice read. I had no clue it was that thin. I thought it was more like 5mm.

If it's that thin, it seems like you could get away with only 2500+ grit sandpaper.

Has anyone measured how much polishing with say M205 takes off of the clear layer?
 
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