Lasting Finish

[Len]

If you apply materials that are not meant to be used together you could greatly shorten the life of your finish. We recently had a Mercedes come in with clear peeling off the front bumper and we were able to strip most of the rest of the clear off by pressing packing tape on top then pulling it off slowly. This is a lot easier and yields a more consistent surface than trying to sand off the clear.

If you use a base and a clear in the manor that the paint manfacturer recommends you have a much better chance that you won't face this problem down the road on cars that you've refinished. Almost all painting looks good as soon as it's completed but better paint products (and methods) tend to make the finish last a lot longer.

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[limenuke]

How cheap/bad does the job have to be to enable this to happen? I look at the stuff I've painted and that has not yet happened. But I'm not even any good at painting (I'm an amateur) whereas those shops are pros. Does this imply that I'm definitely going to see my clear peeling over the next few months/years?

[Len]

How cheap/bad does the job have to be to enable this to happen? I look at the stuff I've painted and that has not yet happened. But I'm not even any good at painting (I'm an amateur) whereas those shops are pros. Does this imply that I'm definitely going to see my clear peeling over the next few months/years?

That's impossible to say. However if you use materials that are compatible and you prep your parts correctly and apply your paint properly you'll give your work the best chance of a long life.

[limenuke]

What in general could cause something like this to happen? I would think that since the clear is peeling, there's some problem between the clear and the paint. Now, if I'm not mistaken, when you spray clear onto base (is there such as thing as activated base coat?), the clear's solvents tend to dissovle the base slightly. I would imagine that this would allow a basecoat-clearcoat adhesion effect due to surface mixing. Seeing as how this persons clear is peeling right off, would it imply that contaminants caused poor adhesion or poor application or just incompatible products?

[Len]

What in general could cause something like this to happen? I would think that since the clear is peeling, there's some problem between the clear and the paint. Now, if I'm not mistaken, when you spray clear onto base (is there such as thing as activated base coat?), the clear's solvents tend to dissovle the base slightly. I would imagine that this would allow a basecoat-clearcoat adhesion effect due to surface mixing. Seeing as how this persons clear is peeling right off, would it imply that contaminants caused poor adhesion or poor application or just incompatible products?

The base may not like the clear or the base may have been out of the recoat window when the clear was applied. This is why you need to use the right products in the right way.