Hello all

Well i am back here seeking help a year on!

I am now proud to say i am getting great results on all aspects of painting thanks to the help and patience of many on here before! and thanks to help of decent equipment and decent clear coats my results are coming out great!

But i have an issue when it comes to fade out thinners, now i know the first answer i will get is - always clear coat to a body line and accept no less, but i see people and videos on youtube of people doing SMART repairs and using fade out thinners with great success

I attempted to repair some paint flaking on my door, painted it... and then clear coated a nice area about the size of a small laptop, left a slight feathered clear coat area on the edge and then sprayed upol fade out (aerosol) thinners around the "feathered edge" but i just ended up with a horrible haze! (i wish i could get a picture but its very dark outside right now)

i did cut and buff helped a lot, but i am just curious to what i am doing wrong in general, the haze is still there

Final question is.... there is NO way to just "blend clear coat" without the use of something is there.... otherwise you end up with a horrid gritty edge, but the confusion comes when i google this and all i see is people saying , fade out thinners are not for clear coat, clear coat doesn't need it... which to me is wrong? or am i wrong

here is an example of one such google result, someone saying you don't need a fade out thinner on clear coat cos its clear... am i being stupid or is this guy totally wrong?

https://uk.rec.cars.maintenance.narkive ... ut-thinner


Some details

Black metallic car
base coated the problem area with a blend out to "old color" fine
Spraying clear with a FLG5 30psi - Using max mayer 0300 clear coat and a rapid hardener.

Sprayed the fade out thinners only after the last coat of clear
Temperatures are 15 degrees c (very cold at moment i know) but aided with infared heaters

So you can listen to the You Tube guys or you can follow the advice you get here. Choice is yours.

By the way, any of those You Tube guys posting pictures of their work after a couple of years? Anybody can make it look good for the pictures in a video.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:So you can listen to the You Tube guys or you can follow the advice you get here. Choice is yours.

By the way, any of those You Tube guys posting pictures of their work after a couple of years? Anybody can make it look good for the pictures in a video.

I haven't had any advice here on this topic

That's why i am here asking as i am a little confused what the right method is and why i am getting a hazy result

my mind is blowing more with different googling and forum readings! i am now seeing people mixing clear coat 1:1 with thinners to make a "blend" that goes between old and new clear coat.... and then using a bit of fade out thinner spray on the edge closest to the old area.

fabio1605 wrote:" . . . now i know the first answer i will get is - always clear coat to a body line and accept no less, but i see people and videos on youtube of people doing SMART repairs and using fade out thinners with great success . . ."

You already admitted that you knew the answer you would receive. Then you added the "but" and talked about you tube videos.

fabio1605 wrote:Hello all


Final question is.... there is NO way to just "blend clear coat" without the use of something is there.... otherwise you end up with a horrid gritty edge, but the confusion comes when i google this and all i see is people saying , fade out thinners are not for clear coat, clear coat doesn't need it... which to me is wrong? or am i wrong

I am VERY far from a pro here but if it were mine...I'd go the easy route and hit the entire door with 800 or 1000 wet and clear it again--all over. I think it will give you a much smoother finish than trying to fade it out. I do have some aerosol fade out that I would like to play with in my spare time but for me, it is just way easier to re clear the whole door. Just my .02

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:

fabio1605 wrote:" . . . now i know the first answer i will get is - always clear coat to a body line and accept no less, but i see people and videos on youtube of people doing SMART repairs and using fade out thinners with great success . . ."

You already admitted that you knew the answer you would receive. Then you added the "but" and talked about you tube videos.

Thanks for your amazing assistance, you have really helped me.

given this exact forum has many bits of advice about fade using fade out thinners instead of clearing full pannels .

anyway, il be sure to never ask anything on here again if this is what i get in response, its a shame as many people here have helped me before but your energy seems to be in to making it harder for people as opposed to easier

Rebel Racing wrote:

fabio1605 wrote:Hello all


Final question is.... there is NO way to just "blend clear coat" without the use of something is there.... otherwise you end up with a horrid gritty edge, but the confusion comes when i google this and all i see is people saying , fade out thinners are not for clear coat, clear coat doesn't need it... which to me is wrong? or am i wrong

I am VERY far from a pro here but if it were mine...I'd go the easy route and hit the entire door with 800 or 1000 wet and clear it again--all over. I think it will give you a much smoother finish than trying to fade it out. I do have some aerosol fade out that I would like to play with in my spare time but for me, it is just way easier to re clear the whole door. Just my .02

Thanks rebel, it just pains me a little masking the entire car again to do such a tiny repair! but it is what it is i guess if that's the right way to do it, i don't have any issues clearing a full panel, but this particular area is on the rear quarter of the car which involves masking pretty much the entire car to do so, its annoying cos the fade out thinners actually worked ok on the other end of the clear coat, just on one end its gone a bit "mank"

My next issue is i have a chip on my bumper to repair too, and its a big bumper! would of been nice to master this technique to avoid full panel resprays i guess, but il just have to take off the bumper and do it properly, least it will hold.

I would advise against aersol fade out thinner from my limited experience! i think its better to use stuff in a gun, so u have more control over the output, that's what i am starting to learn here!

Thanks for responding anyway, unlike others who just gave me grief for asking a question

Righto. Let's go back to OP's original question.

Can clear be blended in? Of course it can.
Is it the "best" way to do it. No, certainly not best practice, but cheaper shops and mobile repairers do it all the time and, with some practice, it can be done so it's not (really) visible.
Will the edge come back and be visible in time, say a year or two? Yes. Rebuffing the edge usually fixes it again, temporarily.

Surface where you're going to put your blend must be prepped with P1500-P2000, beyond where the edge will be. Take the first coat of clear to about 50mm short of where you want the final edge to be and slightly feather out. Take second coat of clear over the edge of the first coat and feather where you want the final edge to be. Don't tilt the gun and spray beyond this line. Almost immediately swap guns and fit a mini or midi gun (say around 1.0mm with a really fine atomisation) which has been pre-loaded with a quality blending thinner. I use the Cromax one because I haven't used another that's better, but if you stick with the major brands you should be ok. Mist the blending thinner on. And I mean MIST. Very light spray about 50mm each side of where you finished the last coat of clear. Too much and it will run, too little and you won't melt the clear at the join in.

After the clear has fully dried, LIGHTLY buff over the edge. If you go too heavy you'll pick it up and peel it back and that's a rework.

Remember that at this edge the clear is too thin to do its job properly so expect that it will lift and peel later.

Oh yeah. The haze. Likely possibilities are that basecoat wasn't finished far enough back or that it was just put on too heavy (likely with a spray can) or that it was not the right kind of thinner (also highly possible). Substrate clear and new clear do need to be compatible or the blending thinner will melt one but not the other.

Lastly, would I do it on a black door? No way, unless there was a clear line like a rub strip or sharpish body line that I could hard mask or fly mask to and then just blend the clear along the bottom of the door. Even then, fraught with bad possibilities. The technique works best on narrow areas like quarter to cant rail or pillars or bumper bar sections. On a door I'd just clear the whole door - quicker to mask and takes the same time to paint. So you use an extra 100ml of clear. Who cares - the job is better and you're not giving yourself grief over trying to master a technique that some pro painters never get right.

fabio1605 wrote:

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:

fabio1605 wrote:" . . . now i know the first answer i will get is - always clear coat to a body line and accept no less, but i see people and videos on youtube of people doing SMART repairs and using fade out thinners with great success . . ."

You already admitted that you knew the answer you would receive. Then you added the "but" and talked about you tube videos.

Thanks for your amazing assistance, you have really helped me.

given this exact forum has many bits of advice about fade using fade out thinners instead of clearing full pannels .

anyway, il be sure to never ask anything on here again if this is what i get in response, its a shame as many people here have helped me before but your energy seems to be in to making it harder for people as opposed to easier

My point wasn't to deny you help but rather to point out your stated rejection to the answer you would be given. What's the point in offering you the same advice you have already decided you don't want?

As can be seen by the replies, you are right back to the original advice. "Blending clear coat is not the best way." It is cheap? Yes. It is a quick fix? Yes. Would we advise you do it? No.

NFT5 wrote:
Lastly, would I do it on a black door? No way, unless there was a clear line like a rub strip or sharpish body line that I could hard mask or fly mask to and then just blend the clear along the bottom of the door. Even then, fraught with bad possibilities. The technique works best on narrow areas like quarter to cant rail or pillars or bumper bar sections. On a door I'd just clear the whole door - quicker to mask and takes the same time to paint. So you use an extra 100ml of clear. Who cares - the job is better and you're not giving yourself grief over trying to master a technique that some pro painters never get right.

I think this says it best, when a pro says it is hard to do right, I would clear the whole panel. Would I take it on for experience or practice, maybe but, I would know that it would be a steep learning curve and I certainly would not do it if time was a concern because I know (at least with me), I would be doing it over several times to get it "right". That's just my .02 but I do admire anyone who tries to gain new skills.