Burn through on my hood./ Need some advice.

M

Mando

Promoted Users
Houston, I have a problem. I started wet sanding the hood yesterday with 1200 grit. I did tape all the edges and body lines. However, when I got to the very front area of the hood where it slopes down, I can see 2 areas that have burn through . The hood slopes down about 2 inches at the very front and thats where I made a boo-boo.
Like I said, I started with 1200 and very light pressure. I was doing all this by hand with a soft pad. I can't believe this happened since I had 3 coats of universal clear on it.
Anyway, the damage is done and now I have to correct it. In which way do you guys think I should approach this problem. Will I have to re-shoot the complete hood with base and than clear again? Need some advice please. If I do have to shoot the hood again, do I sand it with 400 or what grit? Need some help with this please.
Thank you kindly.
 
I would just reshoot the whole hood base and clear. Try to duplicate your gun settings from the first time.

600 is what I would use.

Don
 
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I thought for sure I had burned through on a spot. Turns out I had not.
Here is a simple test; try polishing the spot and a few inches around it with the cutting and polishing compound.
If it really is a burn through, you will see a big difference between the clear and the base.
It won't hurt anything since you'll be repainting the hood anyway.
And, you might just get lucky like I did.
 
When did you switch to Universal? I remember you saying you bought clear locally, and I thought you applied 4 coats? Three coats of Universal could easily be sanded flat with 1200 without going through.This is 4 coats, blocked with 320 dry without going through, and 3 more coats applied.
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Thanks guys for all your reply's. yes, I did shoot 3 coats of clear that I bought here at the local jobber. Maybe not all universal clears are the same. The gallon of clear in the front says high gloss universal clear and its brand is High Teck. I think the problem is that I sprayed it too light in that area cause the rest of the hood held up ok, even after I sanded all the way trough with 2500. I did all the sanding by hand with a soft pad. I do have a DA but did not want to take a chance in burning through since I am not well experience sanding clear with a da. So, if I have to re-do the hood again, do I sand it with 600 as Don says here? I think I can use the DA to do the sanding since its faster and less tiring. Trying to get rid of orange peel by hand is no fun at all. Is there any good way to spray the clear so that I don't have too much orange peel? Or is it normal to have orange peel. Just wondering. Before I started any wet sanding, I thought that there wasn't too much orange peel but once I started sanding, I could see the flat surface where the sanding had been done and all the orange peel just ahead of it.
 
Cheap clears are thin and easy to sand through. One technique that can help is to do two sessions of clear with wetsanding in between. You can practice this technique on the hood. Spray 3-4 coats, let it cure, sand with 600, then apply 3-4 more coats. Then you will have some material to work with when you sand and polish.
 
As crash said above, cheap clears are thin. I would guess that clear has half of the film build that SPI Universal has per coat. Just because you didn't go through the rest of the hood doesn't mean it is fine. There needs to be 2 mils left after sanding and buffing, or the clear will fail within a couple years, especially one with limited UV protection like that clear probably has. On top of the clear being thin, it sounds like it was sprayed too dry, which is where the orange peel comes from.
 
Thanks to all for your help and suggestions. I think my problem was that I sprayed it to dry. I did not want to spray to close because of having to many runs. I guess that didn't help at all. Right now, I have the hood completely sanded down 1200,1500,2000, and finally 2500. There is no more orange peel at all now, its nice and flat waiting for buffing. Since the front of the hood is the only one with the problem, do I have to start all over and shoot the base and than clear again? Also, even though the rest of the hood does not show any burn through, do you think that after I start buffing, I might see some more burn trough if the clear that I bought is not strong enough. I still have some clear left over from when I was practicing on the hood that I bought from the wrecking yard. I am going to shoot the clear more wet and if it comes out with just a little orange peel, I will just live with it. As the saying goes, Live and learn. On my next project I will make sure I buy good quality products like the ones from SPI.
Like I said on an earlier post, the reason I bought the material from this jobber was because the sales person wanted to help me, since I had done a job for him at his house. Oh well, I still appreciate his effort.
 
You need to spot in the area that rubbed through with some basecoat. Sometimes that is easier said than done. Sometimes the edge of the clear will wrinkle around the burn through. If your job is recoat sensitive you'll need to primer that area before proceeding. It's tough to say whether it is sensitive or not over the Internet. If the job is pretty fresh and the basecoat wasn't activated, there's a good chance you will get wrinkling if you hit it with base.
 
Thank you crashtech for your suggestions. Its been 15 days since I painted the complete truck. I removed the hood because it was easier for me to spray at a lower level. The burn trough is in the very front portion of the hood, the area that curves down. The burn trough is about 2 to 2.5 inches long by 3/4" high. After reading all the comments here, I am trying to decide the best way to approach it.
 
Primering the spot is safest. But a lot of painters will try to put a light coat or two directly on the burn through to see if it's possible to just move on without the extra step. If it wrinkles, though, there is a cost, as it will have to dry and be feathered out and primed, making the job bigger than it was before. To get perfect advice, you'd need to talk to someone that uses those products and has done this repair. I doubt you will find that here. Also you didn't say whether you activated the basecoat. I bet not.
 
Well, I decided to sand the complete hood with 600. Do I have to sand anymore with a finer grit or is this good enough to shoot the base and the clear again?
There is plenty of high build primer under there so I don't think I need to spray any more primer. What do the experts say is my next step.
 
You still have to deal with the potential issue that Crash flagged where you sanded through to the base. Did you activate your base? If you didn’t you should prime where you broke through to base. It will likely wrinkle if you didn’t activate the base.

One of the things that separates the pros from us backyard hacks is they know how to fix problems.

Don
 
Thanks Don and crash. I myself am a backyard hack but I think of you as more of a pro along with crash and a lot of the guys here. No, I did not add any activator to my base when I sprayed it. I understand that I need to add 1oz of activator to one quart of sprayable base. However ,I don't need a qt to spray the hood. I am using a mixing cup and my base is a 2.1 mixture, base and reducer. How would I know how much activator to add if the mixture is less than a qt. Excuse my ignorance but i am trying to understand the process and yes,I will prime the area's where I can see burn through. By the way, can I use the same activator on the base that I used on my clear?
 
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