Began the painting early last week, base coat/clear coat. The guy whose doing the painting said to let the clear harden for a few days, then wet sand and spray a second coat of clear.
sanded yesterday, and he sprayed the second clear this morning, within 45 minutes hundreds of fisheyes appeared. what is the best approach now, and why would this happen.
this was painted in a bodyshops paint booth under what I would consider professional conditions, not just sprayed in a garage or barn.:eek:
Any help oe suggestions are appreciated.

what did he clean it with between clearcoats?

If they were happening later at forty five minutes,. they are not fisheyes. Either dirt, or solvent pop would be my guess.

Did he really pour on the clear to "make it flow"? In other words was the clear real smooth when done without any or very little orange peel? If you look real close (maybe with a magnifying glass) you can sometimes see a little raised area around the "hole" like a little volcano.

Was there any bondo work being done or could dust have been in the air? The fine polyester dust from "bondo" will look just like fish eye in high solids clears.

If you can get a mag glass take a good close look at these "fish eyes" and see if you see a little speck of something at the bottom. Let us know what you find.

Fish eye usually happens RIGHT NOW as you spray, the contaminant is on the surface and the new paint/clear what ever you are spraying simply doesn't stick to that small area because of the comtaminant. So it happens right as it is sprayed.

Hey Sean, what's with the name change?

I'll get more info tomorrow and let you know friday evening...they said it happened in the booth before they took them out.

Well, it would have to happen before they took it out. It would still be wet when any of this could happen. The dust problem happens just as the surface is "filming". The dust sets on top of the surface then falls thru and the "filming" doesn't allow it to flow over the top again.

Find out exactly where they are too. If they are mostly on top surfaces, they are likely solvent pop.

my vote is for solvent pop too.....as MARTINSR said...fisheyes are immediate...If you ever encounter fisheyes while painting, and you spot them immediately, then one trick i've learned that sometimes works for covering fisheyes is to lessen the material knob...and essentially spray a very dry, thin coat to try to get the layer of paint to "stick" in the fisheye. If the fisheye reappears, then shoot another dry thin coat and see if it can be covered...once the fisheye holds paint...go back to regualar coating..

Solvent pop happens when solvents from one coat of paint are still escaping that layer of film when another coat is added on top...these escaping solvents essentially "gas" there way out of the new layer by making these small little holes...and pop through the surface of the new layer of paint.

rigo

So is this solvent pop what happens if you dont allow the correct amount of "flash" time?

MARTINSR Hey Sean, what's with the name change?

thats our business name, our Employee id is in the mail and we are getting our business license soon so we can set up site and start selling parts online. right now we are concentratng on bedliners, suspension (lifts, bags, static) exhaust, shaved stuff, repairs, about everything except complete paintjobs since we dont have a booth yet. me and my partner are trying to find a house near LSU that we can rent and use that money for a shop, then when we both get out of college in 4 years sell it all and use that to help start the shop. our symbol is an X with flames and two C's, and that is the closest thing that i could find on the keyboard

Well, I had to work late and the guys had already left the shop, so I didn't get a chance to ask any more questions today, however, I did ask one of the other guys who was there, and based on what he told me I might have misunderstood yesterday, I don't think it happened 45 mins. later, but almost immediately (still not sure on this 'cause I didn't talk to the guy that actually did the spraying, the spots appeared to be equally spread on both vertical and horizontal surfaces, and I looked as close as my eyes could see last night and didn't see any evidence of anything in the "hole".
They did spend a lot of time wet sanding today, and one thing I did notice is after the wet sanding, there still appears to be a few
pinpoint size specks that are glossy compared to the duller areas, almost as if you took a straight pin and dipped it in clear and then touched it on the dull surface, not nearly as many as the fish eyes, those were spaced very regularly at 1" intervals, these are spaced about 3" apart. Is this something that I need to worry about before we re-clear?

Dave, solvent pop can be caused by a number o f things. Anything that could mean there is too much solvent in the film. Causes could include: Too much solvent added (over reducing), too "wet" of solvent (for higher temps than you have when the car is shot), Not enough atomization from poor gun "tuning" too big of tip on the gun etc., too slow gun travel, not enough flash time, not enough air movment to aid in flashing.
Or a combination of more than one/

Resin, it sounds as if it is good old fisheye. The shiny spots are the unsanded bottoms of the fisheyes. If they are going to re-clear, it may fisheye in the same place again because the contaminant is still there. You can put a tiny drip of catylized clear in the fisheye and then sand it flat. In fact, you can even do that and then color sand and buff and saye a bad job sometimes.

That your guys are going to do, I don't know. If you trust them, let them to their job I guess.

Cool Sean, good luck with your endever.