Paint comes off when polishing?

[toey]

When I polish my car, the only thing that ends up on the cloth is the colour of the polish. But when I was polishing my friend's red noticed the cloth started turning red. Is this a sign that I should stop?

[vlv8vic]

on older cars red tends to oxidise. My old camry was the same. A few good polishes and a few good coats of wax kept it right for quite a while.
If it's bad enough you can run your finger over it and get red on your hand. On a couple of points on mind i actually had no paint left from over cutting. Old car though. How old is your mates red car?

SOmeone might confirm that older cars that do this don't have a clear coat? I might be totally wrong with that but mine didn't appear to ever have a clear coat.

[westbad]

the red will be direct gloss paint mate.. no clear coat..
yours will be lacquered ie clear coat on top of base coat.
When your polishing you will be taking a very tiny amount of the paint off as u polish.. there for making the cloth red on the red car.. and the car thats lacquered you wont see as its clear!

Reds tend to fade a lot quicker than any other colour and require a lot more maintenance to keep shiny as they age.

Im quallified spray painter ;-)

[vlv8vic]

Reds to tend to fade a lot quicker than any other colour and require a lot more maintenance to keep shiny as they age.

Im quallified spray painter ;-)

So can you use your qualification to tell us why that happens? I'm interested in why the process of oxidation is particularly prevalent in red paints. I was lead to believe it isn't fading, but complete oxidisation of the pigment or whatever compound binds the pigment.

Thoughts?

[toey]

Wow ok thanks guys. I should've said this originally, but my friend's car is a red 2000 Camry.

So because there's no base coat, should I continue with the polishing?

[faroogoo]

Red has more pigments than other colours no?

[westbad]

the red pigments in paint dont stand up to the uv rays very well since lead was removed from the pigments years ago.. thats the basics of it. im a spray painter not a lab technician so dont know all the technical words etc for it.

[Scooter79]

Generally you have two types of factory paint jobs, single stage and clear coat. Clear coat is used over metallic paints to create the 'sparkle' I guess you could call it. All to do with light refraction and all that scientific stuff.

When you polish a single stage painted car you have to expect to get some of the paint on your polishing pad or cloth. This is not a bad thing. Keep going

I've added a few pics of a Suzuki Sierra I polished a few years ago with a black single stage paint. It was pretty messy but I was rather proud of the final results

Straight after a wash (pretty bad)





After shots





This was an almost new white polishing pad

[toey]

Scooter, thanks for the info, and those pics are amazing. I reckon you just added a couple of grand back onto the value of your car!

[Scooter79]

Scooter, thanks for the info, and those pics are amazing. I reckon you just added a couple of grand back onto the value of your car!

Toey... It's not my car.

[Car Care Products]

As had been said the red paint is not clear coated and to see small amounts of paint come off when polishing is normal.

Oxidation is caused by the oxygen in the air and water reacting with chemical structure of the paint. Technically as the oxygen burns up the free radicals contained in the paint, the finish becomes duller and duller. The only way to prevent this is to apply an artificial barrier between the paint and the elements.

For some more pics on polishing a faded red paint:
Fading Red Paint

What sort of polish are you using?

Cheers Greg

[toey]

Thanks CCP.
I am using the Kitten cut and polish, it has worked very well for me thus far, hence why I introduced my friend to it.

[green5.7]

the colour comes off the car and on to the rag or pad because it would be 2k not 2pack ,
we use 2k with colours that dont have metallic in them like white red black, 2k is direct gloss where 2 pack is a base coat then clear coat, it doesnt last as long in the shiny department because there is no clear coat on top and clear these days all have uv protectant crap in them...... hope that helps

[darren44]

red is one of the weakest colours in the spectrum.
It easyily get distroyed by sun light and will eventualy turn a shade of blue.
Blue light wave in the suns beams are the strongest.