Tiny spots in 2.1 Production Clear

I

inspectorbob

I'm using the 2.1 Production clear, and had a problem with tiny spots showing up over the entire panel. The spots are like tiny concave fish eyes, but not much bigger than a pin prick. Is this solvent pop? What do I do from here?

I was pushed for time, so I suspected I was going to have a problem. This was on a fiberglass panel of a motorhome. Here is the sequence of what I did:

Several weeks ago, I primed the panel with 2 coats SPI epoxy. Let it sit overnite, then sprayed a coat of Slick Sand. Today, sanded the Slick Sand to 320 dry, used SPI waterborn grease remover, then let it dry for 30 minutes. Outside temp was about 75 degrees. Reduced the epoxy primer about 15-20%, sprayed 1 wet heavy coat, let it sit about an hour and sprayed 3 coats of Chromabase metallic with about 10 minutes flash per coat, using medium basemaker reducer. The epoxy didn't feel totally hard prior to spraying the Chromabase, , so I suspect this is where I screwed up.

After about 30 minutes, sprayed two coats of unreduced 2.1 Production clear using the slow reducer, with 10 minutes flash between coats. The clear looked fine about an hour or two later. Went to dinner, came back a couple of hours later, and the pin pricks were all over the entire surface. What do I do now? Do I hit it with another coat tomorrow while the clear is still soft, or do I let the clear fully cure, and let solvent escape longer? If so, when should I re-coat?

Thanks for your help!

Bob
 
Best guess would be, minor pop coming from first coat of clear-- depending on a lot of other factors like temp at time of spraying.
May have needed another 10-15 minutes before second coat was shop but time frame you gave for the pop to show up and how minor indicates it was solvents in the first coat causing the problem.

They may wet sand and buff out or you can wet-sand out and re-clear.
 
Thanks, Barry. Had some questions...

-Do I need to let it cure more, or can I sand and reshoot today (about 24 hours)?
-Do I need to sand all the way to the base of the craters (which would be the entire 2nd coat), or just open them up?
-Should I reduce the clear?

Thanks!

Bob
 
In a perfect world, wet-sand them out and not break through the clear, then set in sun for a couple of hours and clear.

OR try and wet-sand 90% of them out and give some sun and shoot a few more coats unreduced.

No matter what way you do, just time the flash exactly at 30 minutes between coats, that should bullet proof the job.
 
i got those tiny bubbles when i had the air pressure to high laid it too heavy with a cheap gun...
 
Sanded, recoat, and so far looks pretty good.

Thanks everyone!

Bob
 
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