What caused these swirls? (no pics)

LeMarque

LeMarque

New member
So a customer pulls up to my friends garage in a beautiful blue Porsche Cayenne that just came from the paint shop where he had them, his words, 'color sand and shoot a few coats of clear over it'.

Well, it was a sunny day and I was inspecting (cough) the finish. It had, not swirls, but fine arc like lines approx. 12 to 18 inches long maybe three to four inches apart. Somewhat numerous. On the left front fender that I was looking at anyway.

Of all the before and after pics I've viewed on the many detailing forums, I've not seen anything similar.

Wondering if anyone would hazard a guess.

When it stops snowing here I'll give the guy a call and see if he'll let me take some pics.
 
LeMarque said:
So a customer pulls up to my friends garage in a beautiful blue Porsche Cayenne that just came from the paint shop where he had them, his words, 'color sand and shoot a few coats of clear over it'.

Well, it was a sunny day and I was inspecting (cough) the finish. It had, not swirls, but fine arc like lines approx. 12 to 18 inches long maybe three to four inches apart. Somewhat numerous. On the left front fender that I was looking at anyway.

Of all the before and after pics I've viewed on the many detailing forums, I've not seen anything similar.

Wondering if anyone would hazard a guess.

When it stops snowing here I'll give the guy a call and see if he'll let me take some pics.
Click to expand...


Sounds like pigtails from a Da hand sander or maybe from a wool pad used on a rotary. PIC's would help a lot.
 
I knew I should have shot some pics with my phone but I really didn't want to make to much of it 'cause he was so proud of the car. And I didn't want to get between him and the paint shop.

I don't think it was pigtails from the pics I've seen describing them; no curlycues.

Gonna give him a call and get some pics and see if the forum thinks it's something a newbie could tackle. Honestly, there's no one in town who would even take notice of them. Motivating me to take that training ...
 
Possibly towel or wash media marks from the big sweeping motions many people use when washing and drying?

Honestly, without pics it is just educated guesses, though.
 
Arc lines, either from hand sanding and not compounding everything out or from poor washing technique. If I had to guess it was from sanding.
 
Sounds like deep marring instilled with a rotary from using a dirty wool pad along with with rocks in a bottle compound....typical body shop stuff.
 
From your description I would agree with the dirty wool pad. Many times someone will grab a wool and heavy compound to clean the panel before prep. Grit will embed it's self especially on the leading edge which isn't spurred so easily.
Then a finisher grabs that pad spurs it but not getting the edge. Its a problem all too common. Body shops don't typically wash and clean pads like detailers (time=money). They only get spurred.

I'm just basing it on your description. If they are more well defined arcs this is more likely the culprit. It is also likely this happened in the post paint stage. The marks would have been filled during clear unless it shrunk down. Depending on how much clear was sprayed will determine if they can be safely removed.
 
RaskyR1 said:
Sounds like deep marring instilled with a rotary from using a dirty wool pad along with with rocks in a bottle compound....typical body shop stuff.
Click to expand...

I worked as a body man years ago and every painter I have ever encountered could make a car look just like was described.
 
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