I recently purchased a Cadillac that had been painted with Epoxy. It is full of fisheyes,and needs a dented fender repaired and repainted. I had never heard of anyone (Earl Scheib?) using Epoxy and have no ideas what can be done to repaint a damaged area,or sand/or whatever, the rest of the poor paint. Can anyone offer any suggestions? Mike Simmons #938
MIke,
Who told you or why are you so sure it was painted with epoxy paint ?
I use epoxy primer on bare steel, then my topcoat paint.
At any rate , whatever it is , Im sure it can be sanded down and painted over.
Fish eyes are caused by contaminates prior to painting, like some old wax or silicone polish that wasnt completed removed.
Porter
It is very common to use an epoxy primer because it is UV stable and somewhat waterproof. Also, it provides a good bonding surface to pretty much any top coat. Epoxy paint is very forgiving with repair, but I dont know if conventional chemical strippers would remove it. You may have to sand it off. My bigger concern is your statement that it is "full of fisheyes". By that, I assume you mean little rings in the surface, which probably indicate oil under the paint. If so, short of completely removing all the paint, cleaning all the metal and repainting, I dont think you will get rid of them. Of course, if you just mean drips, runs or orange-peel, you should be able to wet sand those out.
Thanks Bill and Porter- To rephrase and get more specific:a) the former owner told me it was Centari epoxy-the gloss seems to bear this out, plus neither laquer thinner nor enamel reducer affects it; b) local painters in northern California use only urethanes and state they will not paint over any old acrylic lacquer or acrylic enamel surface-they want everything taken to bare metal. I was hoping to wet sand the fish eyes away and either polish the surface, or shoot acrylic enamel, either clear,if I can bring back any surface gloss, or Centari acrylic enamel black,of which I have a gallon . Is sanded Epoxy hard enough to shoot enamel over it without a reaction later??Mike
Bill,
Centari is acrylic enamel,not epoxy.
The typical test is lacquer thinner,it will disolve lacquer but not enamel.
How old is the paint ? If the hardener additive was used it can certainly be re-topcoated, enamel without the hardener can take years to really cure, and it will never really cure very hard anyway.
Wetsanding will not remove the fisheyes, it will only level the paint down to the fish eyes, at that point you will be removing most of the paint. You already know what causes fisheyes.
Epoxy primer is recommended on bare steel, and also used as a sealer reduced for a cheap insurance policy to prevent fisheyes.
AFAIK you can shoot urethane on top of well cured enamel. You can go to the PPG data sheets and they will tell you.
You can either live with the fisheyes or the entire car will need to be sanded down, sprayed with reduced epoxy primer to seal it up and eliminate/prevent fisheyes and then shoot the new topcoat, enamel or urethane IMO.
All the repair shops shoot urethane now, it the most durable finish and it matches the new car paint.
Any more questions fire away, they dont want to shoot enamel because they dont use it day in/day out but money talks and nobody walks, I still use acrylic enamel on my work truck but urethane on my Cadillac repaints.
Porter
Hi Mike,
Lets start at the beginning. There is no such thing as an Epoxy Centari finish. Centari is a Acrylic enamel. At one time there was a cross link polyurethane catalyst available for Centari. It was called Centari Pak 2000,it was discontinued in the early 90s.
If you truly have fish eyes in the finish. Then Im going to side with the painters on this one and tell you its time to strip it. If you must gamble, then sand the car smooth and apply a quality sealer. Then you could apply the 99A black. Make sure you use 793S catalyst with the black Centari. Good luck.
Lou
Lou,
Bill hasnt mentioned how bad the fisheyes are: a few here and there, or everywhere in an extreme state. If it is that extreme then stripping would be required.
Also I have no idea how many coats of paint are on the coat.
Typically two paint jobs on top of factory is the limit, then stripping is required.
Stripping to bare metal is a necessary extreme required at some point in the lifetime of a car, or depending on what the condition of the existing paint is.
All of which you already know.
Porter
Hey Porter,
Yeah it sure is difficult to offer advise on a paint job when you cant see the car. Mike did say in his first post that he had fish eyes all over. The fact that the previous owner used Centari(a fairly easy to use finish) and effectively screwed it up tells me that whats underneath that topcoat is very suspect. It would be a shame to go through all the trouble of sanding,sealing and repainting only to have the sub-layer of paint haunt you down the road.
Lou
Lou,
No doubt, whoever prepped that car for paint was a non professional, at the first sign of fisheyes they should have stopped spraying, they show up immediately. I would have to assume they sprayed the new topcoat on the old paint without any sealer and there was a residue of some type of car polish.
Many questions here require a lot of fact finding to get to the gist of the matter.
In this case the desired end product and available funds are a HUGE factor, stripping a car is an expensive necessary evil sometimes.
Porter
Thanks to all of you for your advice-especially Lou. Anyway- there is no quick and dirty cure, which I guessed would be the case. Sand it off and be done with it. A lot of work, but you do what you have to do, and move on. It does look nice from 20 feet, though-and in the eBay pictures!