My first clearcoat burn

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mcpp66

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I don't have a camera so no pictures yet, but I'll get some and post them later. My passenger-side rear fender had a RID that I was wanted to make less noticeable so I grabbed my Griot's 3", a 4" Surbuf, and some Meg's UC to do a spot buff. I used my Defelsko to measure the area prior to buffing and I'd say the area average around the mid 170's in microns. I buff the area and I did about 4-5 passes in that small area and to my surprise I see silver paint on my pad. I wipe the area and low and behold I see the dull spot. I use my paint gauge again and the area was down to the lower to mid 160s in microns. I can't believe that area had only 10-20 microns of clearcoat. I also can't believe that this happened with the Griot's 3" DA........I thought it would have been all but impossible to do this with that tool. Lastly, I noticed another area of this panel that looked like the spot that I burned that I didn't even touch. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I'm thinking this panel had some previous work done on it in the past. I'm going to a friend's house and this guy has a nice camera, I'm going to post pictures later to get your thoughts. I'm upset about the way it looks, but I'm more bummed about the fact that I actually burned my way through the clear. I wonder how much body shops charge for fixing this sort of thing.
 
Another reason I think my car had some body work done on it in the past is because on the driver-side fender there's an area who's paint is significantly thinner than the rest of the car. This area also has a good bit of orange peel too. I'd say my car's paint thickness averages in the mid 160-170 microns in thickness but this thin area is around 100 microns. I don't think it would have left the factory like that but I guess anything's possible. This sucks.
 
Wow the wimpy 3" and Surbuf did that?!?!?
It prob is a respray and what happened was the paint was probably laid on pretty thick but the clear coat prob was laid on with one pass and no more. In the body shops I fill in for the painters typically shoot 3 or 4 layers of paint and clear ... You prob just got a very light mist of clear
Now that you've exposed paint ( I know this sounds stupid) but smell the burnt part and see if smells enamely - painty, if so you could attack this spot as if it was SS Paint and use with some glaze or 205 to try to blend it... If not repaint
 
Bummer, sucks cutting through clearcoat. That sort of reinforces my belief that a paint thickness gauge is not useful enough to warrant a $700 price tag. Sorry to hear that this happened to you.
 
tuscarora dave said:
Bummer, sucks cutting through clearcoat. That sort of reinforces my belief that a paint thickness gauge is not useful enough to warrant a $700 price tag. Sorry to hear that this happened to you.
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I'm with you 237% on this one! :props:

While paint thickness gages can sometimes measure the thickness from the surface to the metal substrate, or total thickness, they can not tell you what the thickness of just the clear, or color coats are individually.

Since most of the work we do in on the clear or finish coat it's critically important to know what "its" thickness is, not the rust inhibitor coat + the primer coat + the color coat + the clear coat..

Now, are there instruments that can measure just the clear coat and measure it accurately? There could be but I've never seen one and if it does exist respraying an ocassional panel is probably allot cheaper.. :laughing:
 
That sucks! Sounds like you had some impossibly thin clear over a previously repaired section. Good luck and keep us posted.

BobbyG said:
Since most of the work we do in on the clear or finish coat it's critically important to know what "its" thickness is, not the rust inhibitor coat + the primer coat + the color coat + the clear coat..
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True, but what I've been doing with the PTG I just got is to compare the cleared paint with that in door jambs/under hood, etc. I don't think it's an exact science, but you can get a range of paint thicknesses with and without clear which can be useful to give you a ballpark of what kind of clear you may have to work with.
 
arenared said:
That sucks! Sounds like you had some impossibly thin clear over a previously repaired section. Good luck and keep us posted.



True, but what I've been doing with the PTG I just got is to compare the cleared paint with that in door jambs/under hood, etc. I don't think it's an exact science, but you can get a range of paint thicknesses with and without clear which can be useful to give you a ballpark of what kind of clear you may have to work with.
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thx for the good idea. I will remember this. :xyxthumbs:
 
I took the car over to a body man and he said that my assessment was correct. He opened the door and said he saw overspray in my door jamb which I never noticed so apparently some shoddy body work as done on that panel. He said it'll cost about $300-$400 to fix it so it's not that bad. I do feel better in knowing that this mishap happened because of the previous work done and not stupidity on my part.

However, what does make this a bit of a bummer is that I was going to do a couple of cars for some relatives and friends just to get a bit more experience. I was either going to charge a modest fee or none at all (depending on the person) and do it as a favor, again, so that I can gain experience. But now I don't want to do that because I don't have insurance for that sort of thing. It just goes to show how possible it is for you to be left holding the bag for someone else's poor work.

Anyhow, my friend took pictures of it so once he e-mails them to me I'll post them in this thread.
 
BobbyG said:
Now, are there instruments that can measure just the clear coat and measure it accurately? There could be but I've never seen one and if it does exist respraying an ocassional panel is probably allot cheaper.. :laughing:
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Yeah, I've seen them sold on other detailing sites but they're well into the 4-digit price range. I have a decent job with nice pay, but not that nice to where I can spend the money on one of those.
 
arenared said:
That sucks! Sounds like you had some impossibly thin clear over a previously repaired section. Good luck and keep us posted.
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Yeah, when I looked at my Surbuf and saw silver paint I just couldn't believe it. I thought it was all but impossible to burn through clear with the 3" Griots but when others leave crappy work behind anything's possible I guess. Oh well, better my daily driver than my 2010 Camaro.
 
Man, I'm so sorry to see this. When you first posted I was hoping for an update that said false alarm. I am SHOCKED that little griots could do that even being that thin. Anyway, just wanted to say sorry for your trouble and I hope your week gets better my friend.
 
CEE DOG said:
Man, I'm so sorry to see this. When you first posted I was hoping for an update that said false alarm. I am SHOCKED that little griots could do that even being that thin. Anyway, just wanted to say sorry for your trouble and I hope your week gets better my friend.
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Thanks man, but it's not killing me that this happened (if it were my Camaro, then it would be killing me). It serves as a little lesson to me though.....that being that even with the little Griot's DA you need to be careful when you don't know the history of the work done on a vehicle.

Again, I wanted to buff the cars of some friends and relatives not only as a favor to them but as an experience-building endeavor for myself. Now I don't want to do that for obvious reasons. For those that wanted me to polish their cars, I wonder if I could make them sign a disclaimer not holding me responsible for something like this since I don't have insurance. I mean, if I legitimately screw up then I'll make it right, but I don't want to have to pay for someone else's poor bodywork or abusive detailing.
 
WTH that sucks... Is the 3 inch Griots a DA??

I thought those were very safe on paint like a DA.
 
The Griot's 3" DA as I've used it many times on my Camaro and even on this car in which I've burned through the paint. The problem was that there was bodywork that was done in which the clear was way too thin or possibly way too soft. I did not hold the DA in one spot and made only 4-6 passes yet it was enough to cut through what was there. I don't think I should have been able to cut through 10-15 microns of paint that effortlessly and the area of burn through still has over 160 microns of coating over it. It was stated earlier in this thread that what probably happened is that someone put a few coats of base and just lightly sprayed some clear and that was it. I don't know what the deal is for sure, but the auto-body tech that looked at it confirmed that prior work on this panel had been done. Getting back to the point, I still feel that the Griot's 3" is a very safe unit. However, when you don't know all the history of the work done on a car it pays to be careful even with those devices considered very safe.
 
Okay, here's the first photo. It's hard to see, look to the immediate left of my pinky and you'll see the burn.

P5062096.JPG


Now, the photo below is the bottom of that same fender. You'll see what appears to be the same type of paint burn, except I didn't buff over that area at all.

P5062098.JPG


That bottom photo is what tells me that someone else had some shoddy work done on this panel. So I think I burned through the clear in that spot in the first photo because of that work. What do you guys think?
 
That sucks man. Crazy. Like you said, it just shows you have to be careful. Especially on repaints. You never know what you are gonna get.
 
Guys, is it possible that this isn't a burn through? I asked another guy who's an amateur automotive painter and he seemed to think it wasn't a burn through. The spots you see in the picture don't feel any different than the surrounding paint and that's his rationale. I noticed that too but I've never worked with base coat paint so I wouldn't know. Anyhow, if that were a burn through, would I feel a difference between the surrounding clear coat and the exposed base coat?
 
Any thoughts guys? Does exposed base coat feel different than clear coat? Since those spots in the pictures don't feel any different than the surrounding areas is that an indicator that I did not burn through those areas and that something else is wrong?
 
mcpp66 said:
Any thoughts guys? Does exposed base coat feel different than clear coat? Since those spots in the pictures don't feel any different than the surrounding areas is that an indicator that I did not burn through those areas and that something else is wrong?
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Hi Mike,

Feeling the surface can be misleading, here's 3 steps you can use to test and find out for sure what's going on in this spot...


  1. Get some "white" polish or a white paint cleaner.
  2. Apply a little to some white material, like a piece of clean t-shirt.
  3. Rub the affected area for a few seconds and then turn your cloth over and see if you're getting any color on the cloth which would be the pigment in the basecoat.
If you see the color of the paint then the clear layer is missing

If you see no color, just the white polish and white t-shirt then the clear is intact.


Looks like what burn-through looks like to me...


:)
 
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