blending solvent for universal clear...

W

wca_tim

Member
Can anyone recommend a solvent or solvent mix to use for melting / blending universal clear in small repairs? I'm interested in making occasional minor repairs to the finish on my truck (sometimes abused off road), that aren't large enough to warrant refinishing an entire panel. The truck was finished with a total of 4-5 coats of universal clear, blocked and buffed afterwords. I originally shot thinned black epoxy primer over final repairs, just enough dbc 9700 to cover, then 2 wet coats of 5:1 dbc 9700 : SPI intercoat with some silver crystal / sparkle pearl added. it turned out a nice deep black with bit of sparkle and great depth when in direct sun. I also blacked the taillights, marker lights and dimmed the headlights with a few coats of over reduced 1:9 dbc 9700 : SPI intercoat (followed by 2 coats of universal clear. It all still looks great after a year of sitting in the sun and general outdoor abuse including salt spray and the like. in pics, it just looks like a black truck, but when you get close in the sunlight, it catches the eye...

Barry, If there's a solvent mix or something I can add to one of your reducers, that would be really helpful. I have a access to a wide range of solvents...

Maybe some combination of slow reducer with MIBK with PGMEA or a similar glycol ester?

Thanks very much for any thoughts you have!! (Thanks also for all the help and insights you and others on here have provided as I learned how to do this sort of thing...)
 
Upol fade out spray is one often used.. Its an aerosol spray.. Another I have used is from Dupont. Chroma Blend 7601 S..

You can also just use a very hot reducer if you choose.

PersonallyI think if you start blending clear all over your black truck you may not be happy over time, but that is my opinion..

Happy Spraying
 
Bondoking;20945 said:
Upol fade out spray is one often used.. Its an aerosol spray.. Another I have used is from Dupont. Chroma Blend 7601 S..

You can also just use a very hot reducer if you choose.

Personally I think if you start blending clear all over your black truck you may not be happy over time, but that is my opinion..

Happy Spraying
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Thanks! and I hear you... it was honestly more of an experiment to see if I could repair the body damage and get it all straight enough to look clean in black... It's the first whole vehicle I've done any real repair to and painted the entire thing. It came out looking great. If I keep it longer than any repair tries look good, or if it looks like crap right off the bat, I'll just redo the entire panel. It's a lot more of an experiment than a necessary repair...

I'll take a look at the hotter reducers and maybe add a few increments of more aggressive solvents and see how it does on a test piece I've got laying around.
 
DuPont's chromablender works well, PPG and all the big companies also have good blenders. I haven't had as good results with aresol blenders but I've never tried Upol.
 
I use Spray Max from Sherwin Williams. I think its better than Upol. When doing your blends be sure to use a high speed buffer,wool pad and course compound to create swirls in the areas around the blend. That helps with the blend edge holding up.
 
Lately I have been prepping my open blend areas with white Scotchbrite #7445 and SPI #700. Gives a very light fine scratch, and a squeaky clean surface with no possibility of mess slinging off the buffer. The deglossed outline not covered by the clear polishes up instantly after paint. Some are under the belief that the white pads contain no abrasive, but this is not true. It's just really fine, and highly suitable for this application, imo.

Oh, yeah, and I use Sherwin BS-10 in the spray can for solvent melt-in, but I don't think it's anything special. I've come to believe that the prep might be more critical than the solvent type.
 
crashtech;20966 said:
Lately I have been prepping my open blend areas with white Scotchbrite #7445 and SPI #700. Gives a very light fine scratch, and a squeaky clean surface with no possibility of mess slinging off the buffer. The deglossed outline not covered by the clear polishes up instantly after paint. Some are under the belief that the white pads contain no abrasive, but this is not true. It's just really fine, and highly suitable for this application, imo.

Oh, yeah, and I use Sherwin BS-10 in the spray can for solvent melt-in, but I don't think it's anything special. I've come to believe that the prep might be more critical than the solvent type.
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Crash I agree with your opinion. Here's why: if you don't plan on buffing the blend area then the product and procedure you use to fade out the clear is critical. But i have found that if you are sanding and buffing the blend area you end up sanding off most of the blended clear anyway. The quality of prep applied to the blend area will determine how well the clear bites and resists rolling back. I have personally found that the Euro 2020 clear with the fast activator blends very well and when prepared correctly produces an imperceptible blend.
 
Well, I do think it's important to keep buffing in the blend zone to a bare minimum. It can be a bit of a crap shoot if you buff the blend a lot whether the dividing line between old and new finish will become noticeable.

I think most slow reducers and/or blenders do a good job of melting in and glossing up a blend edge. None of them can do anything to bond the clear any better to the substrate, the adhesion is ALL from the the prep.
 
And the more time to cure before buffing the better. That thin edge is fragile when fresh.
 
in follow up. I did a few spots to test this and first tried it with no blending / melting solvent solvent to see how it works. it seems that the universal clear has a lot of polyol in it and is fairly soft even after a year of aging which makes it more available to adhesion later. I just cleaned and prepped the scratched area by degreasing / dewaxing thoroughly, lightly sanding using 600 grit, then used an air brush to layer on reduced clear, let it sit in the hot sun for a day, wetsanded carefully up to 1500 grit and then hit it with meguires diamond cut on a foam pad. you can't even tell where it was done yet. I did the same thing on a small spot down low on my navy blue metallic 2000 my corvette (done with ppg dbc base and thick coats of 4000 clear a year ago). it came out the same and looks great. Will let you know if it changes over time... We're talking small areas and / or deep but localized scratches that don't really make sense to disassemble and pain the whole panel, but detract from the appearance of the car.

As an aside, i've also now had great luck doing headlight restores as well as a clear plastic top for my vette using the universal clear... the vette tops have a laminated tinted layer on top that looks like shit if you sand through them. I had a deep scratch and instead of trying to sand the scratch out, shot a couple wet coats of clear on the prepped plastic and then sanded the remaining indent out of the clear, buffed it out and it looks perfect.

Hope this is helpful and thanks for all the great info here as well as easy access to inexpensive, quality finishes for backyard "hacks" like me. Cheers!
 
wca_tim;21901 said:
As an aside, i've also now had great luck doing headlight restores as well as a clear plastic top for my vette using the universal clear... the vette tops have a laminated tinted layer on top that looks like shit if you sand through them. I had a deep scratch and instead of trying to sand the scratch out, shot a couple wet coats of clear on the prepped plastic and then sanded the remaining indent out of the clear, buffed it out and it looks perfect
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Hi Tim
Can you tell us about your headlight restore process, using UV Clear? I'd love to hear about what steps you're taking. Thanks.
Pat
 
hijack..lol..lets start a new thread... I have some input on lens prep and clear...
 
LOL! no real secret to doing headlights. wetsand the haze . yellow out of them starting with say 320, then bring them up something like 1200 or 1500 grit smooth, shoot a couple wet coats of clear over them. Works great. lightly tint with little dbc9700 (black) or color of your choice mixed in intercoat first if you like. Taillights look great this way... I used to use ppg 2021 or 2002, same thing. I've got my daughter's 02 camaro all apart and partly painted right now. The headlight lenses are out and going to be done when I clear the mirrors and some other misc parts. If I think of it, I'll take a couple of pictures...
 
I do headlights, tail lights, turn signals, clearance, running lights, you name it. Other than clear lens just go gray scotchbrite if they aren't too grungy and clean then clear. I start with 1000 wet on yellow headlight lens.
 
There are many small tips to getting consistent results over a wide range of headlamp types and conditions, but the most important thing by far is to completely remove the hard optical coating on the surface of the headlamp. It's a no-brainer to remove the oxidation, but the undamaged areas where this coating may be intact often get overlooked. This coating was protecting the polycarbonate (PC) underneath, but it tends to be a bit more solvent resistant than the bare PC, resulting in a loss of transparency during the clear coat process because the solvents in the clear may not be ale to adequately liquify the surface scratches in the coating due to it being designed to be solvent resistant. We have also learned to start with coarse grits as necessary to remove oxidation and the remnants of any coating, then refine in multiple steps to 1200 grit sandpaper. This technique provides maximum clarity under a wide variety of conditions.

Do not use adpro, and do not use intercoat if you are shooting for maximum clarity.
 
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