Dull factory clear paint, dulled by age and minor scratches from washing the car, can be shiny once peeled off!

Even if you wash, wax, and coat your car on a daily basis, have you ever noticed that it looks dull and lack luster ...... lately?　One possible cause of this is "polishing scratches. In order to eliminate polishing scratches, which can damage the surface of the paint, it is effective to scrape off a layer of the clear layer with fine scratches.

Both solid and metallic paint can be polished with a clear topcoat.

Motorcycles and cars used outdoors need to be washed because dust and dirt adhere to them even if they are stored in a garage. The basic maintenance method is to gently remove dirt from the painted surfaces with car wash shampoo and a sponge, then rinse with water. Some riders do not use shampoo because they do not want the water from the hose to remain on the car body, so they wipe the car with a tightly wrung cloth. Water used to wash the car has the effect of moistening dried dust and dirt on the painted surface, promoting the action of the shampoo's surfactant and bringing it to the surface. On the flip side, if dust and dirt are wiped with a cloth while they are still adhering to the painted surface, this alone can cause abrasion scratches to occur. Nevertheless, there are many riders who do not have access to hose water and are forced to wash their cars with a bucket of water and a cloth or towel. In such cases, care should be taken to moisten the painted surface with a wet cloth at first and then wipe off the dirt. Not only when washing the car, but the fuel tank, tail cowl, and side covers can get minor scratches from rubbing when putting on and taking off riding clothes and tank bags, and the entire bodywork can gradually become dull after a certain number of years. Waxes and coatings can help prevent age-related deterioration, but once a scratch has been applied, it cannot be pretended that it never happened. One effective solution in such cases is "peel and polish" of the clear coating. Peeling is a kind of beauty treatment that removes dead skin cells and improves the texture of the skin. However, there are certain conditions that must be met in order to peel off the paint. Most importantly, there must be a clear coating on the surface. Polishing within the thickness of the clear coating, also called the topcoat, will not remove the topcoat color. Generally, metallic colors can be peeled off because they have a clear topcoat, but some solid colors do not have a topcoat, and in this case, the topcoat color cannot be peeled off because it will be removed by polishing. Some painting techniques include applying a topcoat of clear paint to a solid color with minor scratches and then polishing the cured clear paint. If you want to perform peeling without such work, it is essential to check whether or not the part to be polished has a clear paint. In the case of a fuel tank, if the rear end of the tank, which is not visible because it is covered by the front edge of the seat, is sanded with water using the sandpaper described below, and if the sanding liquid is mixed with the topcoat color, it can be judged that there is no topcoat, and therefore the entire polishing should be avoided.

Scratch-removing polishing of clear paint must be done with fine-grit paper.

Once it is determined that there is clear paint on the surface that can be peeled off, the surface is prepared for grinding. Use the finest sandpaper possible here. You may wonder about rubbing with sandpaper to remove minor scratches, but sanding with sandpaper is important because peel-off polishing restores the luster by evenly scraping off the clear layer. Depending on the dullness of the clear paint, luster may be restored with compound alone, so we cannot say that paper polishing is generally essential, but considering the grinding power of compound and paper, it seems that a higher percentage of the finish will be improved if the substrate made with paper is polished with compound. Even though sandpaper is used to create the base coat, it is only within the range of the clear coating to be polished, so it is strictly forbidden to use a coarse grit with a small grit. The larger and deeper the scratches are, the more time and effort it takes to make them less noticeable. Also, it would be a complete waste of time if the topcoat color is also scratched off beyond the clear layer. For polishing clear coats, it is common to use ultra-fine grit papers such as #1500, #2000, and #3000. The larger the number of grit, the less grinding power is required, so the amount that can be removed will be less.

A sponge or other pad is essential to prevent unevenness in grinding.

In addition to using a fine grit sandpaper with a large number of grit for groundwork, a guessing board is also essential to ensure that the paper is evenly applied to the painted surface. When searching for pinpoints, rubbing with fingertips may be used, but holding the paper with fingers or palms of the hands when searching the entire surface of the fuel tank will inevitably result in unevenness on the hit surface. To prevent such uneven polishing, polishing pads for sandpaper are sold on e-commerce sites that sell paint-related materials. There are various types of pads, ranging from hard rubber block-like materials to sponge-based ones, and it is safe to use soft sponge pads when preparing the base for clear painting. If you have extensive experience and technique in painting and polishing, you can control the grinding force with a hard pad that can apply strong pressure, but if you are less experienced, it is better to use a tool with moderate grinding force to avoid overdoing it, even if it takes longer. There are two types of paper polishing: dry polishing and water polishing. In both cases, after polishing the clear coating to some extent, wipe off the shavings with a waste cloth until the entire surface is frosted.

Compound, like sandpaper, should be used from the finest grit.

Once the entire surface of the fuel tank has been polished to a glossy finish, use a compound to remove the paper grit. Similar to sandpaper, paint-finishing compounds are available with different grinding power and are classified as "medium grit," "fine grit," "fine particle," "ultrafine particle," or "ultrafine particle," although the names vary by manufacturer. In general, these compounds are selected in combination with the number of sandpaper used to make the base coat. One manufacturer offers a medium grain size of #1000 for erasing the grain of #1000 to #1500 papers, a fine grain size of #4000 for erasing the grain of #1500 to #2000 papers, and an ultrafine grain size of #8000 for ultrafine grain. This means that if the base polishing paper is #2000, a medium grit compound may remove the scratches deeper than the paper scratches. Conversely, if you polish with an ultra-fine compound with a grain size of #8000 against #2000 paper, the #2000 scratch will be too deep and the polishing operation will not be efficient. In general, starting with a finer grit than sandpaper and working up to finer grits in stages will make the scratches less noticeable and clear the clear coating.

Polishers are effective in improving work efficiency, but they should be handled with care.

When polishing a motorcycle as a DIY project, it is difficult to decide whether to use a polisher or not. If the part is as small as a side cover, you may be able to use compound and hand polish, but if you want to polish the entire fuel tank, using a polisher is recommended in terms of both time savings and a good finish. There are two types of polishers: single action and double action in terms of the way the buff moves, and air-powered and electric (rechargeable) in terms of the drive method. An air compressor is required to use an air polisher, but recently the performance of rechargeable electric polishers has improved very much and their prices are reasonable, so if you want to try using a machine, a rechargeable single-action polisher is affordable and good. There are two types of buffs that can be attached to the tip of the polisher: wool buffs and sponge buffs, and there are several types of sponge buffs as well. These vary in abrasive power depending on the combination with compound, so refer to the product description for each buff to make your selection. Wool buffs are more abrasive than sponge buffs and are suitable for erasing the grain of sandpaper, while softer sponge buffs are less abrasive than each other and are suitable for finishing work such as mirror polishing. The rough combination of compound and buff is as follows: Wool buff + medium grit → sandpaper eraser Soft sponge buff + ultrafine grit → finish polish. You have to try it several times. However, if you polish deeply with a wool buff, it will take more time and effort to remove the grain with a sponge buff.

Just by peeling off the clear coating, the depth of the coating will increase dramatically.

Unlike bolts and nuts, which are tightened to a specified torque, peeling clear paint requires a complex selection and combination of sandpaper, compound, and buffing, and the condition of the parts to be worked on varies widely. It is difficult to know which combination is the right one without actually working on it. Also, because of the great dependence on the operator's technique, the results may not be as expected, even if the combination specified by the material manufacturer is followed. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that polishing clear paint with small and large scratches has the effect of replacing frosted glass with bare transparent glass, and the transparency of the topcoat color under the clear layer is greatly enhanced and the texture is improved. Since clear paint deteriorates gradually, you may notice that your bike had such a deep luster when you peel it off. Riders who wash and wax their bikes on a regular basis should also try clear polishing, which will revive their beauty.

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