Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

***Bump***

Someone e-mailed looking for how to restore Carbon Fiber

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

The manufacture of my hood says that it is several coats of clear with the outer most layer having a UV coating. This hood is almost three years old now and I generally take good care of the whole car.

Well that haze looks just like clear coat failure, the clear coat is turning white and hazy and the next step in the progression is usually to start flaking, or chipping off. It will look like your hood has a bad rash.

Like this,









Beginning stage of the above...

[mike27]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

The manufacture of my hood says that it is several coats of clear with the outer most layer having a UV coating. This hood is almost three years old now and I generally take good care of the whole car.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

Clear coat failure is "throughout" the film-build. It cannot be fixed.

Oxidation is topical, that is it is deterioration taking place on the surface and a paint cleaner or a cleaner/polish or a cleaner/wax will remove it and expose a fresh base that should be clear.

Find out what you're working on.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

What would you suggest for my hood (see attached pic). I don't really have a swirling problem but rather a hazing issue. In no particular order I've tried Meguiar's paint cleaner, body scrub, cleaner wax and swirl remover, none seemed to do anything in way of removing the haze.

That haze looks like clear coat failure and if it is then nothing will fix it by any company except to sand and repaint and this is probably work and cost prohibitive.

Do you know, or can you find out if your Carbon Fiber Hood came with a clear coat finish, or did is it straight resin with no automotive clear coat applied?

Contact the manufacture and find out. Then you can troubleshoot and avoid wasting any time.

If it does have a clear coat and this is clear coat failure, how has the hood been taken care of since it was purchased and installed?

[Mayur]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

Im having that same hazing issue still.

[mike27]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

What would you suggest for my hood (see attached pic). I don't really have a swirling problem but rather a hazing issue. In no particular order I've tried Meguiar's paint cleaner, body scrub, cleaner wax and swirl remover, none seemed to do anything in way of removing the haze.

[hondaprelude98]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

Hey i have a hood like that link you posted and i tried what that guy did except i didn't use the cutting pad, do you think that the cutting pad will help it out more.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?

Moved to Hot Topics because the subject is a hot topic.

[hondaprelude98]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

I would try to buff it and that should work

[Mayur]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

UPDATE: Still waiting for products from ADS to come so it might be until next week until we are done. For now we started doing Scratch X by hand and it seemed to work. It left the white milky stuff again. After that we used some more #9 (again only because its the only thing we had) and applied it to half the hood. We then followed up with DC Polish. The hood doesnt look half that bad now. Looks alot better but still needs a bit more work. My friend took a few pictures and I dont know how well he took them so we shall see. We cant wait for the products to come in. And btw he is now hooked on Meguiars lol. He is now broke because he spent all of his money on Meguiar's products. He also found hes getting a PC 7336sp for Christmas. Gonna be some good times

[Mayur]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

Carve out a small section, about 8 to 12 inches square or so, no larger. Cut up a terry cloth towel so you have a piece of towel about 4" by 6" and fold it in half to give you a piece about 4" by 3"

Apply about a teaspoon of ScratchX to one side of this piece of terry cloth towel and then spread the product out over the section you're going to work, circle motions usually work best to spread products out.

Once the ScratchX is spread-out, put some passion behind the pad and get busy with it, apply the product aggressively against the surface, using fast back and forth motions and with about 8 to 13 pounds of pressure.

Work until the product starts to disappear but not all the way, (or turns oily and clear if it's the original version of ScratchX), and then wipe off. Repeat this about three times before passing judgment. Then to get the total appearance results either polish and wax, or at least wax and then inspect.

Sounds good. We will give this a shot tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks Again Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

Tomorrow we are going to try out scratch x by hand.

Carve out a small section, about 8 to 12 inches square or so, no larger. Cut up a terry cloth towel so you have a piece of towel about 4" by 6" and fold it in half to give you a piece about 4" by 3"

Apply about a teaspoon of ScratchX to one side of this piece of terry cloth towel and then spread the product out over the section you're going to work, circle motions usually work best to spread products out.

Once the ScratchX is spread-out, put some passion behind the pad and get busy with it, apply the product aggressively against the surface, using fast back and forth motions and with about 8 to 13 pounds of pressure.

Work until the product starts to disappear but not all the way, (or turns oily and clear if it's the original version of ScratchX), and then wipe off. Repeat this about three times before passing judgment. Then to get the total appearance results either polish and wax, or at least wax and then inspect.

[Mayur]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

Thanks Mike for the good write up as always! We used #9 because thats all I had on me along with the DC system. We are currently placing our order for the products we need to come in. Tomorrow we are going to try out scratch x by hand. Ill keep you guys posted. Again Mike you rock

[Mike Phillips]

Re: URGENT HELP!!! - Carbon Fiber Hood

Alright here is the story. My friend has a carbon fiber hood and it is in pretty bad condition. Seems to me that it has yellowed and there are many scratches and etchings.

The yellow part makes it sound like straight resin, no clear coat paint, thus no UV inhibitors to protect itself. Hoods that are clear coated get the benefit of UV protection in the clear paint and usually cost more money.

So just now we bust out the buffer with some #9 Swirl Remover. I used this because I know its mild and I didnt want to do damage.

The finish did seem to get smoother but it started leaving white streaks, some powdery stuff seemed to come off the hood. He now tells me that he did not find out with the manufacturer if its gel or clear.

#9 is just to gentle for what you're trying to do, you can try again using a polishing pad on the 5.0 speed setting if you're using a G100/PC, if you're not using this tool, what are you using?

Remember, no matter what tool or product you're using, test first in a small section to see if you can fix a small section first. You could even try ScratchX by hand with some passion behind the pad to be very safe.

It can either be fixed or it can't be fixed, so at this point you really don't have anything to lose. If you can fix it, then take some before and after pictures to share on the forum and after you fix it, be sure to maintain it or it will reverse and get bad again and you'll start running out of film-build to work with in the future.