Paint & Clear Hardness

[mattysshop]

Not Mechanical, but still technical i guess? feel free to move though.

Getting more and more involved in Detailing... and also refinishing.. so input from Detailers and Spray Painters will be useful..

now it's not the be all and end all of 'quality' but im specifically after info on hardness.

When detailing - it's critical to test your intended correction method on an area to work out how 'hard' the paint is and which pad & compound combination you will need to remove the least amount off the surface, whilst adequately removing the scratches/swirls etc..

typically the below are based upon 'most' cases where OEM paint is being corrected

Subaru COB Metallic - 'soft/very soft'
Audi COB Metallic - 'hard'
Toyota solid (white/black/red) - 'hard'
Toyota COB Metallic - 'soft'

etc...

now i have corrected a few panels where they have had insurance repairs in the past (solvent based), even once that are done very recently (water systems) where they panel shop has had their monkey hit it with their 8" rotary buff for a quick once over.. but in turn have destroyed and swirled the buggary out of it, but not realized as they typically use 'panel shop' compounds that have heaps of fillers in them.. and the customer doesn't realize the damage until many weeks later..

anyway most of the painted stuff i have worked on is beyond the joke soft.. and some harder than a white 40 series hilux in white!

i am curious to know if there are known brands of solid's and clear's that are soft or hard etc.. obviously there are the 'ceramic clears' out there for euro cars. but i'm talking about stuff that is available at refinishing suppliers - Concept, Glazerite, PPG, Standox etc etc..

would be great to hear both sides of the story

[oldcorollas]

it will be based on two things..
- mainly the polymer used for the topcoat that is being buffed
- also the pigment loading if you go through the clear.

hard paint chips more easily, soft paint is tougher... which is why manufacturers go different ways on hardness.

paint is basically a ceramic/polymer composite, and thr type and proportion of polymer and ceramic change its properties.

metallic, are little flakes of mica and maybe silica filler pigments, in a clear polymer layer.. there is not usually a high pigment loading
solid colours, particularly white, will have a high loading of small TiO2 pigments, which makes the paint harder.
in terms of the polymers used.. lots of things make a difference.. the monomer backbones, functional groups, cross-linking.. I don't know much about paint chemistry tho

I think testing hardness usually involves scratching the paint