Burnt Through Clear Coat
 

So I figured I would do a test spot with some 3000 grit sand paper. I wet sanded a small section on my drivers side fender. No bigger than a business card. BAD IDEA. I burnt through the clear coat, the damage is about the size of a quarter. Yes I am a noob, so flame on. I did watch tons of vids, and read crazy amounts of articles about wet sanding and detailing before attempting this. I will never touch the paint of Nissan again with sand paper.

So here is my dilemma, even through the damage is small, barely noticeable, I still know it is there. My OCD tells me it is there. After reading more articles I found out that the entire panel will need to be resprayed and recleared.

The clear coat on the 370z is EXTREMELY soft, the car has been polished before with no problems. Wet sanding is a big No No for the inexperienced like myself.

What are my options as far as cost goes, and if cost is high (meaning above $200) to have this repaired should I just get aftermarket fenders?

Anyway thanks ahead for your input, lesson learned on my part. :tiphat:

Sucks man... You need to contact JUNKMAN... and see what he says... Good Luck...

Replacement fenders are going to cost more than repairing your fender.

I would assume that if you were to buy some automotive clear paint?

You could just mask off the surrounding area and re-clear it followed by polish it

Strictly my noob opinion here :ugh2:


gl

Why?

I could see using sandpaper for a deep scratch or some major clear coat damage, but as part of anything like routine paint maintenance, sandpaper seems like a bizarre approach. Why would you do that?

yea won't ask why you decided to use 3000 grit... i'd probably have gone higher had you wanted to do it.

I'm with TRIPs... go get some clear coat spray paint, clay the area down, apply a masking/protection clear coat the area (a bit around the actual burn area) and then buff around it with some compound and polish

hopefully the Detailing God himself will come around and chime in as well.

The Junkman (Junkman2008) may have an (relatively) easy fix for you. Very knowledgeable about paint maintenance and seems to really like helping others with their paint problems. If he doesn't reply here soon, I'd try PMing him.

I'm with Trips that you should be able to fix the affected area. If that doesn't work out, maybe you can get a local shop to reshoot the whole bumper cover.

Wet sanding factory clear coat is dangerous if your new to it.

Because the clear coat is very thin vs a custom job that would add a ton of clear coat for you to play with.

Just because you had one bad experience doesn't mean you should give up. You need to invest in a paint thickness gauge. This will tell you how much you have left before you burn.

Thank you all for the awesome responses. I will wait for the Junkman to hear his response as well, hope he chimes in. If not I will take the advice and PM him. I do have some automotive clear coat from touchup, but after reading about burning through the clear coat, from what I gather it is more of a PIA to blend the clear coat then to have it resprayed again.

A few asked why, well I did not know any better about using a higher grit (again noob mistake). I was looking to see if I could get the factory orange peel smooth and remove the imperfections in the clear coat. I clay barred and polished still the paint was not perfect (maybe it's because I am an OCD/perfectionist), so I tested an area on the fender and the result was not good.

I called around 2 shops this morning, first shop quoted me $350 with a one day turn around, second shop quoted me $150 with a 3 day turn around. That's why I was asking about going aftermarket for fenders. Either way this is an expensive lesson learned on my part. I will not give up on wet sanding, but I will make sure I have the right tools, and equipment-supplies before I do, higher grade grit paper, and paint thickness meter to match.

ask your dealer if they have a contractor that does touchups on used cars. they can clear that section for an economical price vs getting it done at a bodyshop...and you can drive the car home the same day.

btw, 3000grit is not a bad choice for wetsanding nissan paint. i use it for deep scratch repair. might be the pressure you used?

Im having a hard time with this.... with 3000 grit, you would have had to rub yourself silly to get through the clear.. I also noticed that you never mentioned that you tried to buff the affected area after sanding....(out on a limb here) How about a few pics.
also, clear can be blended with a little patience and know-how, but you will always know it is there.

Exactly what I thought about 3000 grit,that it would be safe to use, I only used a small piece as well, about 1inch by 2 inch, I put a little pressure and passed over the section maybe 30 times (ok maybe more I honestly don't remember), I didn't use a sanding block because too big for what I wanted to do, I took a few pics, after I attempted to blend the clear, and I think I made it worse, I did use rubbing compound and polish, but still does not look that good.

After some more thorough reading I think there are a few reasons why I burnt through so easily, the first is that the car was repainted and the clear was put on thin, the second reason was I put too much pressure, the third was since claying and polishing like crazy I wore the clear coat really thin and there is not much left to spare. My educated guess is a combination of all three, the car has definitely been ressprayed, I have seen some overspray on the HL's is why I am thinking there was a respray.

I will post pics as soon as I upload for you guys to review. Thanks again

After I attempted to put on touch up and clear coat, dried for about 8 hours and tried to smooth it out (wet sand again, rubbing compound, polish) because the clear was bumpy, FAIL! but it looks better than it was before. Still needs work. Here are the pics.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/z...waii/burn1.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/z...waii/burn4.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/z...waii/burn3.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/z...waii/burn2.jpg

Sorry for the crappy pics, best I could get with the light conditions on the iphone:tiphat:

I understand the way you're thinking but nope, it doesn't quite work that way. http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...leys/nonod.gif

I would pull him close to me, in a not so loving way and commence to slapping him silly. :D

It's not a PIA, it's impossible to do it the way you're trying to do it. That panel has to be resprayed in order to fix it right. Clear coat is like water in a swimming pool. The more water you see, the more blue the water looks. In order to replace the clear coat where you have sanded it off and make it look exactly like it did before MUST be done with a spray gun. Problem is, you just can't spray one spot on the car and make it match. That's why you have to spray the entire fender. There is no way around that unless your name is Chip Foose.

The question I have is who's videos did you watch? You say that you were trying to see if you could remove some orange peel. In my videos I STRONGLY state that you can NOT do that with factory paint so surely you didn't watch my wet sanding videos!

Yes I do. The nearest body shop that does excellent body work is in your future. All you have to do is show them what you did, tell them to fix it and then go home. They will call you when it's fixed. It gets no easier than that.

When my bumper gets enough rock chips on it, I don't bother with touch-up paint. I do one thing:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...s/ffascia1.jpg

Problem solved. ;)

Thanks Junkman. Yes I did watch your videos (extremely informative and entertaining), I marathon-ed most of them, some watched twice (i.surf808 youtube). Might have been the sleep deprivation is why I can not remember not to wet sand factory clear coat. So to the shop she goes this Saturday. Expensive lesson learned on my part. Hopefully this serves as a reminder to others like myself of what not do to:tiphat: