Does anyone know if Radiant Red is clear over basecoat? I've bought a 97 R-plate Escort GTi for a runabout, nice clean motor, only downside its started to go pink, not really bad, but you can tell on the body panels next to the plastic bumpers and spoiler that have kept there colour as bumpers seem to do.
Ive had bit of a rub at it by hand with some rubbing compound and its made it nice and shiny but not brought the colour back. Ill borrow the rotary from work and have a go at it at some point, but it seems as though its laquered and all im polishing is the laquer, in which case am i as well just to keep lathering it up with wax to prevent it getting worse?

 

thats close to when ford went base and clear but i think seeing as its pink yrs is straight colour

 

the reason its gone pink is because the top layer of clear has been sun bleached making it go cloudy hence the reason why rubbing compound is used to take this thin layer off to reveal the clear coat and base coat again

problem comes when it's been mopped to often and the clear coat is too thin then eventually you'll hit the base coat and then a respray is needed

same applies if its a solid colour altho it would be a larger area effected

 

If you rub with compound and it doesn't turn the cloth red then its clear over base.
If it was solid colour without laquer the cloth would turn red.......

 

Do what BLU said,if its gone pink then i would say it has NO clearcoat.

Polish it with a machine then keep a good layer of wax on top or it will fade again.

 

My old Civic was red with clear, the paint on the panels is prone to fading and nothing would bring it back.

 

I dont miss the days of red hands and cloths when polishing my old radiant red onion

 

Was there pigment on your cloths? If it has clearcoat you can polish this but as said you need to be cautious of how much clear is left.

 

Got me thinking here, made me wonder if basecoat reds or others under clearcoats can still be affected therefore no matter how much you refine the clear it would never revive the colour?? not had much experience with that yet.

 

I've given the car a going over by hand for now, i brought some Farecla G3 cutting compound and some G10 polishing compound home from work just to give it a try.
It looks as if on the cars had a good cut with a rotary before as the o/s/r 1/4 panel the laquer/clearcoat has been rubbed though, as it looks patchy and the red comes off on my cloth, however move down the panel and im back onto clearcaot and nothing comes off and the rag.
The car polished up lovely, as in very shiny, but it hasn't brought the depth of the colour back, it still looks slightly hazy, and not the deep red i'd like it to be.
Wether its the base thats faded under the laquer, or the sun has bleached the laquer, or both i dont really know. I'm inclined to say probably the former, im still tempted to give it a bit of therapy with the rotary but on the other hand i dont want to make the patchyness any worse on any other panles. I think the only real cure would be a blow over, but it'll not be having one for the the foreseeable

 

The patchyness is the aggressiveness of the compounds you used. You,ll never replicate a machine by hand ovbiously so the compounds aren't being broken down enough to cut at its optimum. Your just dragging the cutting particles across the surface adding to the hazey finish it will leave anyway.
It sounds like she needs a DA or rotary to get the job done, in an ideal world you would start with the least aggressive method and work your way up in pad/polish combination.
Without seeing the vehicle i,d still bet on a meduim compound/polish would correct it and get the full depth back and finish down the scale of refining. Be very careful if you use the rotary with your compounds.

 

Thanks for the advice dude, I'll have chance to slip it into the workshop on Saturday so ill give it a try with the machine if you reckon it's the way forward.
I'll have a go with some G6 on a medium head and see how that brings her up, and clean it up with some G10 on a soft head.
Ill chuck some pictures on when i've had a dig at it, to show before and after

 

I,m unfamiliar with g6 and 10. I,m guessing 6 is meduim polish/compound and 10 is a finishing polish?
Do you have a paint depth reader ?

 

Yeh thats right cheif, its a series of compounds by Farecla, G3 being the coarsest, G6 medium, and G10 is the finishing/polishing compound. Its the gear i was 'trained' on at work, so tbh ive just stuck with it. I always follow G3 with a finishing compound personally on any colour, but its imperative on solid and dark colours or it'll leave them streaky and swirly as hell and looking awful as its quite aggresive, especially if the buffer speed is too high.
Ive no paint depth reader im afraid no, nothing that technical lol.
Ive had a session on the vehicle today in the workshop though, gave it a wash down then started off as you reccomended with the medium compound on a medium head on the buffer, no pigment at all came off on the pad, other than from the 'patch' where the laquer appears to have rubbed through on the rear quarter i mentioned previously. Anyhow, i went over the whole car, and there was a slight improvement but nothing exceptional. So i went hell for leather and hit it with the coarse G3 over the entire car, and followed it up with a soft head and the G10 polishing compound, then a dose of AutoGlym Super Resin Polish, finished off with AG Radiant Wax. Its definately improved the finish, obviously the marks/scratches and fallout has all been removed and the paint is now glass like and beatifully shiny, but still not back to full red but to be honest i'm probably expecting too much of paintwork on a 15 year old car to come up much better than it is now!

I appreciate this is fairly useless without pics, i forgot to take the bloody camera to work, so ill get some up as soon as the rain breaks long enough to allow me to get some taken!

 

I should of said when choosing a combo just try it on an smallish area until your satisfied with the result then use that over the rest of the vehicle.
As you say they are aggressive products but however when compounding on any colour you,ll always need to refine . Detailers will use different types of lighting to encapture all the defects left behind , usually alot the human eye will never see.
Yes even with pics its hard to comment , just one thought are the two products you used fairly opposite in scale? You may still of not got the gloss out enough with the compounding, or maybe the refining stage cannot cut back enough of the marks left by compounding.
Sometimes it can take 3 stages , or different methods within the stages you,ve used.
Do you use a halogen when machining?