forgot hardener in clear coat

Rebuilding '86 trans am - white, just repainted midnight blue and got all the way through the paint job--primer, base coat,and clear coat....just to realize that we forgot to put the hardener in the clear coat-#$@&*! Have we messed up too terribly badly? CAn the clear coat be properly mixed and applied over the existing coats or doees it need to be sanded down and properly mixed and reapplied? Can't get ahold of the guy that mixed the paint...being a weekend and all...and I haven't had any luck on any of the Sherwin-Williams websites. Suggestions would be appreciated.thanks.

Rebuilding '86 trans am - white, just repainted midnight blue and got all the way through the paint job--primer, base coat,and clear coat....just to realize that we forgot to put the hardener in the clear coat-#$@&*! Have we messed up too terribly badly? CAn the clear coat be properly mixed and applied over the existing coats or doees it need to be sanded down and properly mixed and reapplied? Can't get ahold of the guy that mixed the paint...being a weekend and all...and I haven't had any luck on any of the Sherwin-Williams websites. Suggestions would be appreciated.thanks.



It's bad news rjogle. I have seen clear sprayed without hardener several times, and seen all types of desperate measures taken to prevent a strip and start over. Guys have mixed hardener w/ reducer and sprayed on top of uncatalyzed clear, others have applied properly mixed clear over uncatalyzed clear. Never did any of these measures prevent the removal of the bad clear and all were a waste of time and material. My recommendation would be to use a putty knife and scrapers to remove all of the clear that you can. I hope you used 2-K primer or this gets uglier. You will the need to wash the basecoat off with thinner. The thinner will cut everything except 2k products. After cleaning let the 2K primer sit over night before reapplying the basecoat. I would also sand with 600 wet to expose clean primer before re-applying the basecoat.

If you used lacquer primer I would use the aerosol cans of aircraft stripper by Kleen Strip and start all over, re-prime, BC and clear.

Sorry, but I've seen several people in your position and every one of them ended up using one of the recommendations above.

Yeah, what 'not1yet' said, there's noway to salvage a mistake like this except to remove the finish and start again. All attempts will only cost in time and material and you will end up removing the finish in the end. :smokin:

Buy lots of laquer thinner and a whole bunch of rags. I almost did it too before when I was a noob. Luckily I saw the dixie cup of hardener in my way. Whooh. It was only a hood too, so it wouldn't have been terrible.

CB