Sometimes automobile owners get imperfections in their vehicle’s clear coat. Once this happens, car paint correction is the procedure that can be used to remove it. This is accomplished via various products, tools, and techniques which are highlighted below.
What Makes Paint Correction so Advantageous?
There are numerous imperfections that can ruin your vehicle’s finish. They are often called spider webbing or swirl marks and result from improper washing or drying, tree sap, deep scratches, bird droppings, or water spots. There are also abrasive scratches called buffer trails or holograms that can result from a detailer that doesn’t know how to properly do their job.
They might use an aggressive compound or pad with an incorrect technique that harms the finish. There are also waxes and glazes which contain fillers that may be applied on top of a finish, concealing the scratches and holograms or filling them in. The trouble is that they will not actually get rid of the imperfections, and as time passes the fillers or glazes might actually start to wear off, revealing the imperfections underneath.
How Paint Correction is Applied
The initial step in proper paint correcting is washing the vehicle prior to applying a clay bar. Once the vehicle is clean and all the free-moving debris and dirt have been removed, there is probably still dirt contamination. The reason is that vehicle paint contains pores similar to human skin. As time passes environmental debris and dirt will accumulate in the vehicle’s coat, which results in an appearance that is dull and rough feeling. Clay bar consists of a procedure where small dirt particulates are extracted from pores.
This is a crucial stage of proper paint correcting that many amateurs miss. If you start using the machine polisher on an automobile surface that wasn’t correctly clay barred and cleaned, some of this debris may lift from its pores and then get lodged into the pad, which will create micro scratches inside the paint because of the contaminated work spot. In extreme cases, this could cause permanent damage to the paint. When you rid the vehicle surface of all lodged debris and dirt using a clay bar, the surface will then be prepped for the paint correcting or wet sanding that follows.
Wet Sanding
This is the second step and may or may not be applicable. If a blemish or scratch doesn’t respond to standard paint correcting, wet sanding is an alternative that is performed using auto sandpaper.
Polishing and Compounding
If sanding or sand abrasion removal was done in step two, then the paint will be ready for polishing and compounding. Several polishing stages will often be needed to acquire complete correction.
Vehicle Protection
Once the correction has taken place, it is essential to add an extra protective layer on the vehicle’s clear coat to shield it from UV damage. This is the point where professional detailers should apply glaze to mask imperfections, and such products typically consist of polymer-style synthetic sealants which have greater longevity than a standard wax or ceramic pro.