Does this look like I burned through the clear?

[darkangelism]

I was trying to sand down my touch up paint, I think it is ok between the paint and polish but I am worried that I burned through the clear. The dark black in the middle is the touch up paint

 

[loudog2]

Have you tried to polish it out yet? Maybe 105/SIP followed by 205/106FA? If there is anything left then definitely yes. I can't really tell by the picture. It's definitely hazed from the sanding.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Take a white cloth and a white colored polish and rub on the clear coated surface where you think you may have burned through.

If you pull color that means the clear is missing.

 

[loudog2]

Make sure its not the touchup paint that is showing on the cloth if anything shows.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Make sure its not the touch-up paint that is showing on the cloth if anything shows.

I was kind of thinking that would go without saying but you said it well...


:laughing:

 

[darkangelism]

Thanks, I have not polished yet, I am waiting on CG V36 and V38 to arrive, will use V38 first as it is less aggressive. All I have right now is an AIO which has a sealant that I can't put on the fresh paint. I will update later, so at the very least somebody else can learn from my mistakes.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

The key thing with touch-up paint like you show in your picture is to make sure it's fully dried and hardened.

Here's the issues to overcome,

Removing all the scratches in the surrounding clear coat
The touch-up paint will tend to be softer than the factory clear coat finish, what this means is sanding marks will buff out of the touch-up paint quickly and easily. Not so with the factory clear.


Careful not to heat up the touch-up paint and pull or yank it out of the scratch
This normally happens when using a rotary buffer but it could happen with another tool too. Here's what happens with a rotary buffer, you start buffing out your sanding marks and the remove quickly out of the touch-up paint. The don't remove quickly out of the surrounding factory clear so a person continues to buff, maybe even start pushing harder on the buffer to try to get the sanding marks out.

The panel heats up and with it the touch-up paint and the buffing pad will literally grab or yank out the touch up paint or most of it.

Now you'll be back where you started only now you'll still have the sanding marks in the surrounding paint and because you've sanded this area it will now be thinner.

I think I added this little tidbit of information to Richy's excellent write-up on this exact topic,

Key Repair-Step by Step Procedure


See my post #28


Another option is to take one or two fingers and rub "most" of the sanding marks out along the side of the scratch by hand. That way you're not running the buffing pad over the touch-up paint while trying to work out the more stubborn scratches in the surrounding clear coat paint.


One thing I've been typing about rock chip repair and scratch repair projects like this is,

You can make touch-up repairs as simple or as complicated as you like. Sometimes doing more and more steps won't equal better and better results.

 

[darkangelism]

Thanks Mike, I will do the area right around the scratch by hand first and see if that works, with either a white or black lake country pad, I also will have CG microfiber pads, which hopefully do not generate much heat.

 

[darkangelism]

I added three coats of clear to the new paint, so when I polish the basecoat wont be exposed

 

[darkangelism]

Well I finished fixing my big scratch, still noticeable in the right light but much better, though i tried to sand down some of the other spots on the hood and pull away the new paint and had to repaint, so still a few spots for tomorrow.

First scratch

After painting and sanding

After polishing

The flash makes it look worse than in natural light

 

[BobbyG]

Sometimes simply improving a situation makes a big difference in how tolerable or acceptable the repair looks when finish. Keep poking at it and I'll bet you end up with a repair that looks pretty good....rops:

 

[darkangelism]

For what I did to get rid of the sanding marks,I tried to use CG V38 and lake country white pad by hand, did not make any difference, moved to CG MF finishing pad and V36, got rid of 3000 grit sanding marks, but 1000 grit remained, V36 and CG MF cutting pad got rid of the rest of the marks.

 

[andyo]

even though the scratch is white meaning the clearcoat got scratched. next time get some clear touch up, then do what you are doing and it will be alot faster.

 

[Rival]

at first i was going to say its done for, but it cleaned up pretty good. nice work

 

[FraziersEVO]

Good job man, maybe a little more time and it shouldn't be noticeable at all!

 

[darkangelism]

Good job man, maybe a little more time and it shouldn't be noticeable at all!

Yeah it has started to look a lot better now.