Ball Park Mils/Microns for Paint Thickness for GM Factory Paint

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Danspeed1

New member
As the title states...





I recently did a car for a friend of my father... charged him relatively nothing, and today a Snap-on Paint Thickness Gauge arrived on my door step... most thoughtful present ever.



I decided to Mil up my hood tonight on my car... 6.8 the gauge shows... one of the panels shows 5.8.



I will use this thing regularly.... I know the type of chaos a question like this is going to cause, so please refrain from posting the obvious. Every car is different..... But generally what would the "BALLPARK" be to look for when polishing a vehicle. What is the lowest reading you would accept before not polishing any further????





DG
 
I don't have an individual coating gauge (like the nicer DeFelskos) I'll begin by measuring jambs and underneath the hood to establish areas of basecoat w/little to no clear coat. This isn't perfect by any means but it gives you a better picture of layer thickness. DaveKG (from detailingworld) recommends this in one of his papers and I think it makes sense.



Numbers can be very arbitrary, so you'll have to know how to interpret them. For example if you're jambs read in the 4.5-5.5 range I'd be more skeptical than if they read in the 3-4 range.
 
A followup question on paint thickness.



Some mfg's are using ceramiclear, some soft/harder clearcoat and some single stage where the cc is mixed in with the base coat.



Is the factory paint thickness approx the same for the above paints or do they vary quite a bit?
 
There is no ballpark. Different colors, different day, different weather all mean for different thickness. I have two A4's, on year aparts, same model range, one is ~110, the other ~130. Neither had been polished. Easiest way I have found is in between emblems or take off them off and measure behind. Wost case under trim panels or body side moldings.
 
Alot of really good info here... I like the Removing the emblem idea because it seems like it would be most accurate....



Now, once I get a reading of lets say 6 mils, (this is an "in theory") how would I calculate the most clear I could remove? Is there any specific specification? Meaning..... ex. 2/3 of the reading is clear while the rest is base coat and primer. So like 2 mils would be the point where I would be polishing paint instead of clear? Again, I know ever car is different, and every manufacturer uses a different amount of BC and CC, but there has to be some general rule you to follow or else people would just be taking a reading, removing clear, and would not have any indication where to stop.



Thanks for the tips guys,



DG
 
There is no set baseline for GM paint or any other car manufacturer. Like yacky said every car can have entirely different paint mapping.
 
^ what he said.



additionally, many cars have hand painted jams and such as it's not something all paint robots are set-up to handle.
 
Danspeed1 said:
Alot of really good info here... I like the Removing the emblem idea because it seems like it would be most accurate....



Now, once I get a reading of lets say 6 mils, (this is an "in theory") how would I calculate the most clear I could remove? Is there any specific specification? Meaning..... ex. 2/3 of the reading is clear while the rest is base coat and primer. So like 2 mils would be the point where I would be polishing paint instead of clear? Again, I know ever car is different, and every manufacturer uses a different amount of BC and CC, but there has to be some general rule you to follow or else people would just be taking a reading, removing clear, and would not have any indication where to stop.



Thanks for the tips guys,



DG
Click to expand...

I would say .5mil is about all you would want to remove MAX, removing 2mils would leave almost no clearcoat
 
I don't think i am asking this question correctly. I understand there is no set amount to remove, every paint is different. I actually posted that in my first and second post...





The best way to ask what I am trying to ask i guess is to say.... how do you know when you should pass on tackling a car? At what point do you say, "I don't want to touch this car because its "reasonably likely" the clear is already too thin."



If there is no way to tell, there is really no reason to have the gauge right? The gauge is supposed to aid in determining how much coating you have to work with.



I wish i could afford the one that separates layers... but I can't... glad I got this one for free.



DG
 
I use microns - to me it is much more detailed. 87microns is the lowest one should go unless of course the car's paint is thin like the evo. Most cars in my experience are between 110microns - 135microns. Hope this helps.
 
I have an old panel in the basement... I am going to test the area first, then burn it up with my rotary, and when I kit the paint I am going to test it again.



DG
 
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