HELP: White spots on CF hood!

[stab]

I've recently bought this car and there are white spots on the CF hood, how do i fix this?

I can still see the pattern underneath the spots, what is causing this? So it should be fixable right?

[aerogt01]

Re: HELP: White spots on CF hood!

I work in a composites shop, and also showed this to my supervisor. What it looks like is the clearcoat on the hood is actually unbonding from the carbon and creating a little bubble. This could happen due to improper surface prep or cleaning. We noticed it mainly occurs in changes in geometry. Once again, this points to surface prep.

The only way to fix this would be to strip the paint and re-spray. However, there is a small chance this is actually internal layer de-lamination, in that case it is a problem embedded in the part and cannot be fixed. From the pictures this does not seem to be the case, but it's hard to be sure.

[bmrfan]

Re: HELP: White spots on CF hood!

From your fuzzy pix, it appears the clear coat is lifting (delaminating) from the composite substrate.

If it is clear coat lifting, its already bad enough that you'll need to strip the old clear coat and respray the panel.

There are lots of potential causes clear coat delamination - anything from poorly prepped surface (didn't remove all the mold release?) to clear coat incompatibility with substrate.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: HELP: White spots on CF hood!

Clearcoat is separating from the hood.