Buffing gloss paint

[blackrose]

I keyed and gave one of the cabin sides another coat of paint yesterday in an attempt to get rid of all the marks made by flying insects which seem to be inordinately attracted to my paint. 

 

There didn't seem to be many insects around and I foolishly thought summer's over and they'd gone. But sure enough one by one they stuck themselves to the paint and brushing them off the dry paint today just leaves marks in the surface.

 

There doesn't seem to be any way around this other than paying for more controlled conditions and finding a suitable covered dock. So I was just wondering if I could hire one of those buffing machines with a mop head and buff the marks out once the paint is properly hard? However, the paint I've used is International 10 Year Gloss which is basically a good quality front door paint and neighbour told me that you can't buff gloss paint, it has to be enamel. Is that true? What's the difference between gloss and enamel anyway?

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by blackrose

[Alan de Enfield]

If it makes you feel better - I had the same problem.

 

Every black spec is a 'midge'.

Waited for the midge season to finish, went over it with a 'scouring pad', snapped off their legs and painted over the top.

No other way that I could see.

 

 

[blackrose]

Yes if you zoom in on my picture you can see all the dots which are the insects. If they're midges they're big ones!

 

It's quite disheartening. I'm not a painter but you try your best and get a half decent result only for the gnats to bugger it up.

Edited September 11, 2020 by blackrose

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, blackrose said:

Yes if you zoom in on my picture you can see all the dots which are the insects. If they're midges they're big ones!

Apart from the insects you had a very nice finish - that probably makes it even worse !

[blackrose]

Yes see my edited post. ☹️

[mark99]

 Ouch. Must be gutting. All that hard work.

 

What time did you stop painting?  

 

Been doing some outside varnishing this week (on small surface area handrails so little risk) and starting at 10.30am stopping 1pm. This allows the varnish to skin off quite quickly (takes only 1.25 hours) as decent heat in steel and not drift towards cool evening where drying time extends and coincides with any evening rise of insects and the dreaded dew point. Might be worth a try (polisher) in a small area when paint has fully hardened. I'm a rank amateur so don't know. Some car detailing sites  may know?  Very light cutting compound Farcla 3?  

There are random orbital battery powered polishers (cheap) that a few in our marina use. 

Edited September 11, 2020 by mark99

[blackrose]

7 minutes ago, mark99 said:

 Ouch. Must be gutting. All that hard work.

 

What time did you stop painting?  

 

I think it was about 3.30pm, probably too late. I started about 1.30pm and there were a few insects on it straight away. I should have started earlier but I was meant to be working.

 

I've only brushed a few off so far. I'm going to leave to paint for a few days to harden and then try to brush them off again and see if that's any better.

Edited September 11, 2020 by blackrose

[mark99]

I noticed Carnuba Wax from Craftmaster seems to cut very, very slightly into old hard paint (mop goes slightly blue with pigment). Perhaps when paint hard try that? It may improve slightly but not cure and give a  even lustre. Varnish and to a lesser extent wax does mask to some extent my failures.

Edited September 11, 2020 by mark99

[blackrose]

1 hour ago, mark99 said:

I noticed Carnuba Wax from Craftmaster seems to cut very, very slightly into old hard paint (mop goes slightly blue with pigment). Perhaps when paint hard try that? It may improve slightly but not cure and give a  even lustre. Varnish and to a lesser extent wax does mask to some extent my failures.

 

Ok thanks, but have you used the wax on top of gloss or enamel paint? I'm still not sure what the difference is or indeed if there's a difference?

[mark99]

44 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

Ok thanks, but have you used the wax on top of gloss or enamel paint? I'm still not sure what the difference is or indeed if there's a difference?

Only used on enamel paint. But it has a "gloss" surface. I don't know the diffence myself. But the paint I use is clearly marketed as enamel.

 

What might be better is to determine what base your paint base was made of. Enamel is oil iirc, there is water based, acrylic and urethane?. Mine is alkyd (synthetic not organic) oil based. But in the end a small scale empirical test may be more expediant?

 

I have seen gloss water and oil based stuff.

Hammerite and other "funny" paints may be based on resins. Bondaprimer appears resin like to me.

Edited September 11, 2020 by mark99

[blackrose]

I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure it's not water-based ? 

[Tony Brooks]

Not that it helps but I prefer to start painting as soon as the morning dew/mist has cleared and be finished by 10am

[peterboat]

12 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Not that it helps but I prefer to start painting as soon as the morning dew/mist has cleared and be finished by 10am

Same here Tony, insects seem to gather later

[blackrose]

It takes me about 3 hours to paint one cabin side so there's no way I could be finished by 10am this time of year. The morning dew has only just cleared by then.

[bizzard]

You need a decoy Mike to attract midges and ggnats away from the paint until its dry. Like a nude figure on the bank smothered in deoderant, scent, perfume, aftershave. Any of these stinks attract most insects, wasps included. They also thrive on carbon dioxide so instruct the decoy to breath heavily. Why they like buzzing around your face and biting.

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by bizzard

[ditchcrawler]

8 minutes ago, bizzard said:

You need a decoy Mike to attract midges and ggnats away from the paint until its dry. Like a nude figure on the bank smothered in deoderant, scent, perfume, aftershave. Any of these stinks attract most insects, wasps included.

I half remember a joke about that and melons but I wont repeat it here 

[BEngo]

Let it fully harden then (next spring) tackle a small area with a white sponge mop in a sander polisher and some car polish (not wax) like Autoglym.  If that only nearly gets there then try Farecla G3, which is OK to polish out 1000 grit scratches.

 

Don't expect brill results because you are trying to polish out a million very small imperfections, AKA midge feet and polishes are designed for largish areas.

 

N

[Alan de Enfield]

48 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I half remember a joke about that and melons but I wont repeat it here 

 

Was it the French woman sat in the Square eating a melon ?

[blackrose]

1 hour ago, BEngo said:

Let it fully harden then (next spring) tackle a small area with a white sponge mop in a sander polisher and some car polish (not wax) like Autoglym.  If that only nearly gets there then try Farecla G3, which is OK to polish out 1000 grit scratches.

 

Don't expect brill results because you are trying to polish out a million very small imperfections, AKA midge feet and polishes are designed for largish areas.

 

N

I wouldn't mind if I could just brush them off and leave their feet in but the whole bodies are embedded. 

 

So you think that gloss paint (as opposed to enamel paint) can be buffed?

[Paul Gwilliams]

Would T Cut or Mer be any use?

[BEngo]

9 hours ago, blackrose said:

So you think that gloss paint (as opposed to enamel paint) can be buffed

Yes.  Paint is (crudely) pigment in a binder, with solvents  and dries.  Once it is set the solvents and the driers are gone.  Solvents evaporated and driers incorporated in the hardened binder. 

 

When you polish you are just making the binder and pigment scratch free and shiny, which is what the maker chose them to do. 

The art is to use fine compound so that you don't polish all the paint off, but don't expect quick results either.

Practice on an area like the front or back bulkhead where an over paint is not such a big task.

 

T cut is a bit too aggressive and Mer is full of silicones, which mean any future painting job will be a nightmare of fish eyes in the paint. Autoglym polish has silicones too, but they do seem to not affect touch up or overcoat work as long as the paint is well panel wiped.  Farecla stuff is silicone free AFAIK.

 

N

[blackrose]

Thanks. I'm going to wait until the paint has fully hardened and the bugs start to rot away and see what it looks like then.  

 

I wanted to get the vinyl coachlines on and signwriting done but I guess it's all going to have to wait.

Edited September 12, 2020 by blackrose

[Onewheeler]

11 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Was it the French woman sat in the Square eating a melon ?

She was Spanish.