Question about blistering/bubbling after bumper cover repair

Discuss anything after that final masking comes off.



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 5:53 pm
I work in a collision center, we did repair in a newer Jetta front bumper cover, Im not entire sure what all was done but it was repaired and primed in the damaged area.. A day or two after paint it came to me in clean up, I sanded out some trash in the paint, nothing terrible but the next day there ended up being a handful of small "blisters" in the area I worked, small bubbles under the base that were probably 1/8th inch across at best, most smaller than that and they seemed to only come up at what I remember as the feathered edge of the primer work, it was taken back to the painter and he blamed the buff work saying it got too hot and bubbled.. I use a Bigfoot 21 and in a year of using this machine have never had it cause that type of issue

My question is, is that something that could happen? My production manager agrees that there had to of been something causing the base bubble as he's also never had any issue with paint damage using the Bigfoot

Also, in a freak turn of evens, due to late timing the customer took the car with the bubbled bumper to bring it in in a week or so for the repair, WELL today the car came in on a roll back, someone had rear ended it over the weekend but upon looking back at the front bumper, more bubbles than originally found had appeared in different spots but in the same general area

I'm not looking for an "I told you so" to the painter and if it was an issue caused by me id prefer to know for future reference but the base bubbling like that seems to me like a different issue

Thanks for any reply

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:52 pm
First off it has nothing to do with buffing or overheating the paint. If that ever were to happen the paint more or less "smears" off the car, you don't get blisters.

It's going to be hard to tell you what caused the bubbles other than there was something trapped under that paint that had to expand but had nowhere to go. Most likely trapped solvents somewhere from the paint being rushed or the surface of the paint being baked or heated during forced cure, causing it to 'skin' over and trapping the gasses underneath.

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