Can you polish "clear-coated" underlying paint?

[e9999]

I'm losing the clear coat in places on my DD. I tried to polish the underlying paint where it showed, to try and make it look better but it doesn't get very shiny. It's clean but still pretty dull. Admittedly the paint is very oxidized and I don't have a good buffer. But is it because it's the "supposed to be clear-coated kind" of paint with the clear coat doing all the shiny bit, as I suspect, or is there maybe a trick to this?

 

[NikP]

Usually with a clear coated surface the underlying paint has a dull or satin type finish. The clear coat gives it the shine. I doubt you can polish it.

 

[PAToyota]

Yep. Base coat clear coat ALL of the "shine" is in the clear coat.

You may be able to buff things out and then spray a new layer (or layers) of clear on top, but since the clear has already been fading I'd worry that any clear left may fail in the future.

 

[e9999]

yes, was just curious. probably not the kind of paint that one can polish. No matter. Wonder what it is that makes an ordinary paint glossy vs flat...

 

[PAToyota]

For single coat paints, they actually put a flattening agent into the mix to take away the shine.

 

[JCruse]

yes, was just curious. probably not the kind of paint that one can polish. No matter. Wonder what it is that makes an ordinary paint glossy vs flat...

Smoothness. Polishing down to a mirror like perfectly smooth surface (or nearly so) is what gives old style single stage paints their shine. This also applies to the clear coat, but the latter starts off with a little shine by virtue of it's clarity.
"Orange peel" is an example of the one extreme and a mirror smooth high reflectivity of a show car would be the other. Whether it be SS or CC paint the principle is the same.


The roof of my newly acquired 80, just behind the sun roof, is near total failure, and the crown of the hood wasn't too far off. I managed to polish the hood down to a pretty good shine, not counting bird bombs that stained through the CC due to acidity - and the heavier scratches that go through the CC. It looks almost as good as the sides which were pretty good to begin with. Overall the truck looks great now. People say it looks like new! (Pics to come)

The roof was another story however. The polish, a very aggressive one, appeared to be lifting off the oxidized CC paint and swirling it around in the polish. When it wasn't getting any better I just stopped and put a heavy coat of a good sealant wax on it to provide some UV protection until I decide what to do about it, if anything. Maybe I can spray a CC on it after sanding off the old.













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