Silverstone
08-04-2010, 01:00 AM
I found this somewhere and am trying to vet it for accuracy. Particularly the bold. Thanks.
Most cars (http://g35driver.com/forums/#) come from the factory with between 12 and 15 microns of paint (that's 12-15 one thousands of a mm, btw), about half of that is clear coat. How much of that you remove when polishing depends on a couple things. First, the compound you're using. Second, the machine and pad.
Now with a rotary clear coat life is definitely always on my mind. A rotary removes paint (clear coat is clear paint with acrylic enamels in it) much more quickly than a PC even with lighter compounds. That's why rotary work on a car should be limited only to times when it is absolutely needed. I still use my PC on most cars I do. In fact, on I think 12/15 of the G's I've done I've used PC only.
Now that said, to give you an idea of how much a rotary generally removes - I've buffed newly painted cars after color-sanding with a wool pad and diamond cut 2. These cars came out of the booth with around 30 microns of paint, and when we were done color sanding (600, 1000, 1500, 2000 grit) and buffing (wool/dc, white foam/farclet) we were around 26 and a half microns of paint, so 3.5 microns for a color sand. That's why on modern facotry painted cars I usually recommend not color sanding, but it gives you an idea about how much paint we're taking off with pretty much the heaviest procedue we have.
With normal rotary use I've never seen more than half a micron removed if properly done. In fact I would say that skilled rotary users like Sean (g35stilez) etc... remove well under half a micron per rotary session.
Now the PC. As you can guess by now the PC generally removes paint much slower. It *can* remove as much, but it would take a lot of time, pressure, and heavy compounds/pads. For the most part a moderate PC use (say, menzerna ip/orange, fpii/white) will remove less than a tenth of a micron of paint. A real world example; on my car as a lot of you know I've compounded quite heavily with the PC, probably 6 polishing sessions, I started with 13.1 microns of paint and I'm down to 12.8 now, so under .3 microns.
So, bottom line is that using a PC for maintenance (say FPII/white or SSR2/white) once or twice a year odds are good you'll have sufficient paint for 20 years of polishing.
Most cars (http://g35driver.com/forums/#) come from the factory with between 12 and 15 microns of paint (that's 12-15 one thousands of a mm, btw), about half of that is clear coat. How much of that you remove when polishing depends on a couple things. First, the compound you're using. Second, the machine and pad.
Now with a rotary clear coat life is definitely always on my mind. A rotary removes paint (clear coat is clear paint with acrylic enamels in it) much more quickly than a PC even with lighter compounds. That's why rotary work on a car should be limited only to times when it is absolutely needed. I still use my PC on most cars I do. In fact, on I think 12/15 of the G's I've done I've used PC only.
Now that said, to give you an idea of how much a rotary generally removes - I've buffed newly painted cars after color-sanding with a wool pad and diamond cut 2. These cars came out of the booth with around 30 microns of paint, and when we were done color sanding (600, 1000, 1500, 2000 grit) and buffing (wool/dc, white foam/farclet) we were around 26 and a half microns of paint, so 3.5 microns for a color sand. That's why on modern facotry painted cars I usually recommend not color sanding, but it gives you an idea about how much paint we're taking off with pretty much the heaviest procedue we have.
With normal rotary use I've never seen more than half a micron removed if properly done. In fact I would say that skilled rotary users like Sean (g35stilez) etc... remove well under half a micron per rotary session.
Now the PC. As you can guess by now the PC generally removes paint much slower. It *can* remove as much, but it would take a lot of time, pressure, and heavy compounds/pads. For the most part a moderate PC use (say, menzerna ip/orange, fpii/white) will remove less than a tenth of a micron of paint. A real world example; on my car as a lot of you know I've compounded quite heavily with the PC, probably 6 polishing sessions, I started with 13.1 microns of paint and I'm down to 12.8 now, so under .3 microns.
So, bottom line is that using a PC for maintenance (say FPII/white or SSR2/white) once or twice a year odds are good you'll have sufficient paint for 20 years of polishing.