I take the above factors into consideration. If it's a daily driver, do they understand the factory clearcoat is thinner than a Post-it Note? If not, can I educate them on this fact? If the car is a Special Interest Vehicle, for example a body-off, rotisserie restoration or resto-rod 1969 Chevelle with a custom paint job? If it is, does the owner have confidence the painter sprayed plenty of paint on the car?
BASE COAT EDGE BLENDING BY BUFFING DRIVER
Is this a daily driver with the factory clear coat? Or is this a custom car with a custom paint job? (usually thicker paint) My normal practice is to,įirst, evaluate the car. Me? When I'm trying to remove a deeper defect like an isolated scratch, water spots, sanding marks, gouges, etc. A Paint Thickness Gauge can be helpful but in most cases you're going to need to rely on experience and your gut instinct. You have to look close to see it and without the right light and without being at the right angle it can be very difficult to see.Īnytime you're working on your own car or a customer's car, trying to remove any type of below surface paint defect, you need to know when to stop buffing. A blend line is the line you can see where the new clearcoat layer of paint ends on the original paint. But, this leaves what is called a blend line. When done correctly it cost less money then repainting the entire panel. Sort of a stepped application of the three different types of paint. After the color coat or basecoat has been sprayed, next they will spray the clearcoat over the affected area and spray a little past the end of the basecoat they sprayed.
![base coat edge blending by buffing base coat edge blending by buffing](https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/attachments/2224067/original/Damage.png)
![base coat edge blending by buffing base coat edge blending by buffing](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FoyvGqrL3mM/maxresdefault.jpg)
This means they will spray the primer and the basecoat to the affected area and then spray a little further out onto the original paint. Less costly option - Spot repair or blending paintĪ less costly repair is to for a painter to only re-spray a portion of the panel. When the entire panel is repainted, the painter is able to spray new paint from edge-to-edge, i.e., re-spray the entire panel. By the word panel, I mean the entire hood, or the entire door, or the entire fender, etc. The best option for repair is to have the entire panel re-painted. If you're new to the car detailing world, here's the bad news, this type of paint defect cannot be fixed without re-painting the affected area or the entire panel. Use whatever term you like as as long as it works for you and your audience. But in reality, a person can burn-through or buff-through the top layer of paint using any tool and even by hand. I'm not a fan of the term burn-through because it's most commonly used to describe buffing through the top layer of paint via the use of a rotary buffer. Here in America, we tend to use the term burn-though.
![base coat edge blending by buffing base coat edge blending by buffing](https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/attachments/2224058/original/Untitled.png)
I'm pretty confident the term strike-through is the commonly used term in Europe. In detailing lingo - this is referred to by different names but they all mean the same thing and that is someone buffed for too long and removed all the clearcoat in an area and has exposed the basecoat also called color coat. If you buff away too much of the primer coat you'll see shiny metal or whatever the substrate the car body panel is made from. If you buff too much of the basecoat off the panel you will expose the primer coat. If a person were to buff on this area some more - the circular area you see and the perimeter line you see - will grow and grow as you buff away more of the clear layer of paint and expose more of the basecoat. The faded looking area beyond the perimeter is VERY THIN clearcoat. The perimeter you see is the edge of the clearcoat. The darker center section is the BASECOAT. Here's the car - a 1949 Mercury ConvertibleĪnd here's the area where the someone buffed through the clearcoat and exposed the basecoat. Recently, we held a ceramic coating class and upon our walk-around inspection, one of the cars, a custom streetrod, we discovered an area on the top half of the driver's door where the previous owner, or the previous detailer, buffed through the clearcoat and exposed the basecoat.
![base coat edge blending by buffing base coat edge blending by buffing](http://www.jpchrome.com/Tools/Portfolio/Upload/Project484/framemounted.jpg)
What it looks like when you buff through the clearcoat - Burn Through - Strike Through - Mike Phillips