Hurry patina along? (1 Viewer)

[MyCruiserisaHogBeast]

Hey all.

I'm deciding what to do with the new ride's paint. It has a two stage paint that was done during a restoration 15 years ago. The clear coast is blasted off of the upper surfaces of the truck by the sun. It has a neglected look. Currently it looks like crap, but I came to the conclusion that if I could strip the rest of the clear coat and give the whole truck an aged patina look to match the hood, roof and upper body it would really kick ass next to some of the shiny stuff I have planned.

Is there a way to burn the clear coat off without hitting the color stage?

 

[GLTHFJ60]

 

[MyCruiserisaHogBeast]

Meh, I don't want to fake the look, just get the rest of the clearcoat off and let Mother Nature do her thing

 

[mattressking]

Wash it with dawn dish soap, that will strip all the wax and you will have a better surface to work with.

Stripping clearcoat isn't really easy as the items that strip clear will strip paint as well so if there are low spots without clear, it will eat through paint. Best option is to wash with degreaser/dawn dish soap and drive. Otherwise you're stuck with sanding.

 

[Freewheel]

The clear coat has been peeling off my hood for a while, seems that it tends to lift on the edges when wet, so after a rain i peel a bit more back...

However if you want to do it in less than the 8 years i've been working at mine, i recall wet sanding the clear coat with fine paper was suggested to me by a paint shop.

I've been regarding the shedding clear coat as part of the nice patina of which you speak...

 

[MyCruiserisaHogBeast]

A buddy of mine owns a hot rod shop, he's into rusty buckets and knows a thing or two about patina. He suggested I take it back to the car wash and scrub it down with that tire and wheel degreaser stuff they have there, let it sit for a minute then hit it with the high pressure nozzle. I sent him pictures, he said more than likely the whole thing is UV damaged and that the clear coat might be really vulnerable to that sort of thing. I might combine that with the dawn dish soap idea and see what happens.

 

[GeologistFelix]

So, without doing *any* research, two ideas come to mind:

1. UV damage. Almost every organic compound (i.e. the paint, clear coat, the die in the upholstery, etc., but not the bare metal) will degrade from high-energy UV. This makes me think you could turn your garage into a 'tanning bed' for your rig with some powerful UV bulbs. Will it work? No idea.

2. Oxidation. People like to refer to clearcoat as being 'oxidized' on the hood etc., which makes me think that exposing the paint to a basic solution (a little bit of lye?) could probably speed the process up. Bonus points for figuring out a way to keep this from rusting away any exposed metal to nothing (I know I couldn't think of a good one).