Cast Iron Foundry Fallout

[Tector]

I work for a company with a large cast iron foundry. The fallout settles on vehicles and sticks leaving a sandy texture to the paint. Clay barring removes the little particles, but the little pits remain and can be seen if you look close. Do any of the coatings protect against this? I just bought a new car, and I'd like to keep it from getting pitted.

[Evan.J]

You would benefit from IronX, a spray iron dissolver that you use after you wash the car of non-bonded surface contaminants. Once you have washed the car and dried off the surface you apply the Ironx to the surface and allow the product to dwell and dissolve the fallout.

With the iron fallout it will imbed itself into the clear coat rather than stick. When you clay the Iron you're only breaking off the exposed part and the rest will remain in the clear and this is where IronX does the job

[Tector]

Thank you fro the reply. You are correct the iron particles embed themselves, "stick" was the wrong word. I'll give IronX a try.

[Meghan]

I think you need to ask Santa for a car cover for Christmas! Tell him to send it early so your new baby will be protected.

[tuscarora dave]

You'd kind of have to understand how the fallout effects the paint, or at what rate does the fallout cause the pitting in the paint of the cars parked at your place of work.

I am far from a chemist, and a complete understanding of what is actually going on at a chemical level concerning those fallouts versus automotive paints is well beyond my scope of knowledge and understanding.

I would think that this page Definitions of oxidation and reduction (redox) could be a place to start in understanding how these pits are caused.

Having said that, and putting that thought aside, I think a coating like Opti-Coat 2.0 could be applied as a sacrificial barrier to take the beating instead of your car's clear coat taking the beating by itself, as we've already established that this would in fact be the case.

I don't believe for a second that Opti-Coat 2.0 or any other coating would be completely impervious to damage from the fallout you are dealing with, but... It has not been yet established at what rate the fallout is in fact causing the pitting currently, and I do believe that Opti-Coat might be effected at a slower rate that your typical clear coat.

The film build (thickness) of the applied coating, once applied, would have to be inspected and followed very closely perhaps using a lighted pocket microscope on a weekly basis. The use of something like Iron-X (once the coating is fully cured) will not diminish the film build of the Optimum coating, and could be used periodically as a fallout remover, as claying would likely scratch the heck out of and even possibly abrade off the applied coating.

It could be an expensive solution to Iron-X regularly, and apply Opti-Coat 2.0 semi annually, or more frequently depending on what rate the fallout diminishes the coating in the way of pitting...who knows...your expectations may be exceeded by the performance of the coating.

Sounds like you are in a unique situation to do some extreme testing of whatever coating you might try if you did choose to try one.

One thing for certain is, that if you have a coating applied, and the coating gradually becomes effected by the fallout, and is Iron-X'd free of gritty fallout, abraded off with a lightly abrasive polish then re-applied, this should preserve your underlying clear coat.

Certainly no definitive answer to your question, perhaps only you can answer your own question through application and follow up, then come back and post your findings here.

[tuscarora dave]

I think you need to ask Santa for a car cover for Christmas! Tell him to send it early so your new baby will be protected.

This is probably the simplest solution.

[Audios S6]

Honesty, that battle wouldn't be worth fighting for me. I'd get a beater to drive to work.

However, my personal vehicle spends a lot of time at industrial and construction sites. I wash the car weekly and in the summer months I may do a rinseless wash or waterless wash almost daily. Although the environment isn't as severe as a foundry, I find that there is very little bonded contamination when I clay twice per year. Not allowing the contamination time to bond is key.

Consider doing 2 test panels on your old vehicle. Get your test panels smooth as glass and then wash the car once per week and try rinseless or waterless wash every couple days on one panel, then you can see if you have less contamination compared to a control panel that did not get rinseless washed more frequently. You may find that the rinseless wash causes some scratches or marring due to the iron, but better to find out on your old car than your new one.