"Drawing out defects with an IR lamp" anyone ever hear of this?

R

Richard Grasa

New member
I was talking with a detail manager at a dealership the other day and he mentioned that a detailer that used to work there started to get them into "drawing out" defects from the paint using the heat from an infrared lamp. He didn't go into much detail, just that the heat somehow did something to the defects. Anyone ever hear of this? I have no idea how it would work, and pretty much dismissed it, but now I want to know more about how it works.
 
Often, as seen on another thread, the detailer will notice "bumps" in the paint finish after washing or using of other water based chemicals.

This is due to the nature of modern paint systems, which are very "porus", and when water goes down into the paint film, meets up with some acids, etc, the paint film will start to "swell", to exhibit small "bumps" that are not normally observed by the detailer until they do the "bag" or "cigarette wrapper" test.

Give the paint film enough time and the water-etc will evaporate and the paint film goes back down.

Ever notice how a red-non clear paint will exhibit "grey spots" until a little time has passed for the moisture to evaporate? This was common on older, non-clears, but should be a lesson to all of just how porus a paint system really is.

Average vehicle, when exposed to rain, a car wash, etc, and with no protective wax/sealant, will absorb over a pint of water into the top surfaces of the vehicle.

Other than that, either this guy has a miracle fix or something, for something that is not specified.

Grumpy
 
I agree with RonK, solvents permeate the clear coat and cause it to swell; the Infrared lamps expedite the solvents evaporation.



But the (bogus) urethane re-flow theory sounds much sexier ;)
 
Deep Gloss Auto Salon said:
Just in case it wasnt obvious, I was speaking tongue in cheek...
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Nah, it was obvious.



That makes sense about speeding up the solvent evaporation. He made it sound like the lamps were actually fixing defects like scratches and swirls.
 
ExplicitDetails said:
I was talking with a detail manager at a dealership the other day and he mentioned that a detailer that used to work there started to get them into "drawing out" defects from the paint using the heat from an infrared lamp. He didn't go into much detail, just that the heat somehow did something to the defects. Anyone ever hear of this? I have no idea how it would work, and pretty much dismissed it, but now I want to know more about how it works.
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That's all I needed to see! :whistle1:
 
Ready for this????

For several years the paint manufacturers experimented with UV cure paint for refinish.

Shoot it, put a UV lamp on it and had a cure in 15 minutes or less.

Didn't work out so well, but they did use what they learned and now there are body fillers that are UV cure, not real popular with the shops, but available.

I have some UV cure spot putting, and no lamp required if you don't have one, just set the part with it applied in the bright sun and in 10 minutes it's cured and ready to sand.

Kinda of handy when doing the small parts of the old motorcycles I restore.

Grumpy
 
RaskyR1 said:
That's all I needed to see! :whistle1:
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Ha! I know right! But this dealership actually has one of the better detail departments around. I actually went there for an interview the other day. (I know, I know, don't worry I'm not going to take the job). I was actually very impressed when he asked me "what would you do if a car came in with buffer trails and holograms all over it, how would you fix it?". This coming from a dealer detail manager was quite unexpected and for them to recognize that's not something acceptable is pretty good, so I told him how I would actually fix the defects and he was like ok you know your stuff. OR maybe he would have taken an answer of oh, just throw some glaze on it and call it good, I dunno lol.
 
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