Paint / Clearcoat problem I need your input

[DAVINCI]

So my paint job is 8 seasons old. It was a stellar finish for a rattle-can job. I used GM lacquer cans and Duplicolor high heat clear coat (for it's fuel resistance). It held up great, looked like glass for 8 years. Of course i kept it clean and waxed regularly.

Now the clearcoat is showing some slight checking. I call it checking cause it looks like what lumber does when it's too dry, or like mud does when it dries out and cracks.

It's very slight not deep enough to feel and only shows in bright sun, so i can't get a photo to show it. I'm concerned that it's going to get worse and I'll have to re-shoot it. At the very least, I'll have to re-shoot the clear coat. i could try to wet sand it a bit and then compound it and see where that gets me, but I wanted to put it out here for ideas before i do anything.

Anyone ever encounter this and what do you guys think the cause / fix is?

[crazy steve]

I've got a car sitting in my driveway with the same problem...

I've been told by pros that that's usually the result of age and a too-thick clear coat, although one said you can get that problem from mixing brands. One guy remarked that red seemed to do it more often than other colors, theorizing that red reflected different wavelengths of light causing the breakdown in the paint.

One thing they all agreed on, there's no 'easy' fix for it. You can wet sand and repolish it, but it will keep coming back. Putting more paint over the top won't help. The only cure is to completely remove the paint down to the primer and reshoot it all....

That's why my car is a '25 footer'... once a year I rebuff the paint to get the worst of the checking, then it looks great at distances of more than 25 feet...

[DAVINCI]

Oh, crap, Steve,

Couldn't you just this once tell me something good?

[crazy steve]

Sorry Randy!!!

I was told this by every paint shop when I took my car around to see about new paint... The car isn't worth a ton of money and I wanted to get a inexpensive paint job shot on it, one of those $4-500 deals. Nobody would touch it without basically stripping all the existing paint off and wanted to charge a $1K+ premium to do only that...

You can wet-sand and rebuff to extend the paint's life for a while, but at some point you'll run out of paint.... I'll also guess that the problem is worst on the 'top' surfaces...

[Schming]

Good Info...

...on this site that may help out. HTH

http://autobodystore.com/forum/index.php