Is it still true you have to wait 30-45 days...

.... to wax after a repaint?

Don't most body shops bake the panels now-a' days? I also thought this had to do with the old lacquer based clear coats?

Can someone shed some light on this for me!

:thumb:

 

Depends on the body shop, and their recommendations. Since there are different paint techniques, and different ways to cure it, there are going to be different rules for each. I would just follow what they say. I know some people use a glaze, or a breathable sealant such as Wizard's until they are able to put a different type of product on it.

 

my body shop bakes all painted panels so when i had my rear bumper repainted they told me they backed it and I could polish and wax the next day if i wanted to. I hope theyre right

 

I'm pretty sure you can polish right away.. Body shops do. It just has something to do with the wax right??

 

I would suggest waiting for approximately ten to fifteen days before any product application, which should be more than sufficient time to enable paint off gassing and aerobic curing.

Professional painters add chemicals; accelerants and compounds to their paint mix prior to painting to improve flexibility, reduce paint imperfections, increase hardness, improve gloss and reduce curing times.

If it just came from a paint / body shop it shouldn't need polishing, but it won't damage the finish, unless you use a very abrasive compound / polish

4. Applied after polishing, a glaze is the make-up that hides flaws and gives paint the sheen it had in the showroom. The common ingredients in a’ fresh paint safe’ glaze are: water, glycerine (to produce a high shine) amino-functional mineral oils, solvent, and mild abrasive Kaolin (China clay) to burnish the surface and produce a gloss, they exclude silicone and wax, some polymers are also formulated as ‘fresh paint safe’

5. The application of a specific ‘fresh paint safe’ or polymer type product, Zanio Z Polishes (exclude the use of either Z1 or ZFX™) Optimum Car Wax is water-based and is safe on fresh paint, or use Presta Fast Wax. Allow an ‘initial gas off’ (evaporate) /cure aerobic process of 7 days before application

These products are completely safe for any fresh paint system as they allow the solvents in a water-based paint to outgas / aerobic cure process and provide some protection for any type of paint surface. After thirty days (30) the paint surface can be protected with a regular polymer sealant and/or Carnauba wax.

 

There was a post on Detailing World that showed the recommended waiting period for all major paint manufactures and it ranged from 30 -60 days.

 

We painted a few panels on a friends beater winter car with rattle cans and it says right on it to wait 30 days depending on climate conditions.

 

As far as I know, it depends on the shop and the nature of the repair. Places like Colors on Parade, for example, who specialize in fast turnaround of stuff like fenders and bumpers, don't bake their finished panels. I've had those guys do the front bumper on my S2000 twice now. Each time, the owner told me to give it 45-60 days before applying any sort of LSP (or clear bra, for that matter).

 

I wait a minimum of 30 days... don't want to be held responsible for damaging fresh paint... The shop that did my Mom's Focus put on Wizards breathable paint sealant mere hours after baking...

 

I honestly don't recommend taking the body shops recommendations. LOL I did that once and ended up with super soft clear than never cured properly. My local body shop painted a car for me that was damaged. They do excellent body and paint work but not so excellent detail work. LOL He told me to wax it right away. I said what about the cure time? He said no cure time and told me to get wax on is asap to protect it. One of the worst mistakes I made. The clear was so soft a cotton ball dropped on the car could scratch it.

Also, even if they bake it it doesn't mean it's cured. The baking process at the shop is different from the assembly line. Basically it's baked at the shop to sort of harden the shell faster, not really cure it completely. I used to work in a shop making custom boat trailers. We baked all of our trailers as soon as they got done being painted. It had nothing to do with curing the paint but more to do with hardening the shell a bit so we could finish them and load them without putting finger prints in them. Just gave us quicker assembly times.

 

Well, if you do follow the shop's recommendations, and something bad happens, then it's on their dime to fix.

 

This is pretty straight on. Even when they bake the finish, it wont completely gas out in a day or two. I would still wait as long as the paint manufacturer recommends.

 

David Ghodoussi, the owner of Optimum Car Care Products, addressed this question on his forum a couple of years ago:

Optimum Car Wax is a water-based wax and is therefore safe to use during the thirty-day curing process.

The body shop that has painted a couple of panels of my S2K insists, however, that I wait a full 30 days before applying a wax; otherwise, their warranty is voided. So I wait ...

 

damn i really hate waiting. I wanted to seal my car as soon as i got it back from the shop. With winter approaching and salt going down on the roads I don't want my paint to be vulnerable.

other than Optimum Car Wax is there any other water based wax that would be harmless to the curing paint?

also is the Optimum Wax were talking about the normal one that looks like this:

 

You can use pure wax with NO CLEANERS after a week, if I remember correctly...But no paintwork correction shall be done within the 30-45 day period after a respray...
Remember, pure WAX, not a sealant...

 

Ok.. so scenario:

Customer (thanks again Ben!!) wants to get his 335 polished. He hit a parking garage pole and it just went to the body shop yesterday. He wants to get the full polish done ASAP because he's tired of looking at the swirls. He said the body shop is really good... he did his homework on it. And that they will be blending the door into the rear quarter (and possibly the front fender).

So I'm hearing mixed comments. Can I, or can't I polish the areas that need to be polished..such as the areas that are blended that aren't getting a full coat of fresh paint. Right now we're looking at the weekend of the 12-13. Obviously, I wouln't wax it.. but what about polishing.

Sorry for the repetative question, but I'm getting mixed comments.

 

If it just came from a paint / body shop fresh paint shouldn’t need polishing, but it won’t necessarily damage the finish. Although using a high sped rotary, an abrasive compound, wool or a dense foam pad and heavy pressure; as this combination can cause paint to ‘twist’; this occurs when dynamic friction (heat) is created along with heavily applied pressure combine to alter the bond between the paint and its substrate, which can cause the paint film (or paint containing flex agent) to ‘twist’ and delaminate.

 

so im still wondering i'm probably getting my car back either this week or next and i need to protect the paint seeing as how its already snowing by me and salt is getting thrown down on the roads.

is dodo juice safe? for what it costs and what it says on the labels, i dont expect it to have any cleaners. so will this be fine on my paint?

 

Jon, be surprised (I wasn't) but I just saw the car on Saturday. Sure enough, eventhough he told them not to polish it out.. wetsanding scratches, holograms, the "works" on all three panels. He decided against doing it right away just to be on the safe side. I will be doing it second wekend in January.

Thanks again for all your help!

 

I agree with what you're saying, but this is my reasoning for not using heavy polishing abrasives on fresh paint.

I would suggest waiting for approximately ten to fifteen days before any abrasive product application, which should be more than sufficient time to enable paint off gassing and aerobic curing (paint cross linking is both time and temperature dependent). If it just came from a paint / body shop fresh paint shouldn’t need polishing. If it does I would strongly advise against the use of heavily applied pressure and overtly abrasive products.

Automotive paint is classified as a semi-permeable membrane; it has both tensile strength and elongation (elasticity) newly painted surfaces are full of out gassing solvents. Kinetic surface friction and applied downward pressure transfers its energy into heat / torque (force to rotate an object about an axis); the heat makes the gasses expand (pV = nRT) which;

(a) Causes the paint film paint to become thinner by elongation and the pad rotation to transmit shear stress (twist), which could result in the alteration of the paint films bond between its substrate, causing it to delaminate or tear?

(b) The expanding gases relive their increased pressure by breaking through the paint film surface, causing small fissures (similar to solvent pop)