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Bird poo etching into clearcoat

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275
Recently there was a blob of bird poo on my pristine Civic type R fk2's bonnet.I got a sponge cloth, an aqua pur sponge cloth which can be purchased from Lidl and soaked it with warm water. The blob was mustard colour, I carefully started dabbing the blob gently so the warm water would soak into the blob and start to release it as it had set. After a few minutes of dabbing ,it started to break up and start sticking to the cloth and lifted the blob off the clearcoat. As I did this I was wondering , had this etched into the clearcoat or would it have left no mark at all, as I'd finished dabbing, it was apparent that the blob had etched into the clearcoat where the blob had been.
So I had to see if and how I could get the etching out. At first I tried turtle Wax dark grey colour magic which matches the colour of my fk2 polished metal metallic to see if it would polish out, which it didn't. So I then tried Autoglym super resin polish and being slightly abrasive 1 on a scale of 1-10 and that didn't shift it. My wife said what else can you do? I replied there's only one other thing I can do, which I'd seen a video on YouTube was applying heat to the clearcoat with a heat source such as a heat gun or a hairdryer. In my case it was a hairdryer and as the video showed and set the heat setting to hot. With the blower on medium blow so it wasn't extremely hot and took off the diffuser and brought the end of the hairdryer down about approximately 2 inch above the etching and with circular movements over the area also frequently lifting the hairdryer away so the area can cool down and by getting the clearcoat to expand and contract I could see the etching starting to disappear, I repeated the exersize for I would say 10 minutes until it completely disappeared.
I was well pleased with the outcome and washed the car a few days later then polished the bonnet in particular where the etching was with Autoglym super resin polish to ensure the clearcoat was absolutely smooth and had a brilliant shine. Looking across the bonnet I could see that where the etching was it had definitely disappeared and the bonnet where the etching was,had been fully restored to its original condition.
in the trade this is known as refloating . Where the clearcoat expands and literally flows and fills in the etching marks leaving a perfect smooth surface.
I posted this as I am truly amazed as to how this works ,but it does ,seeing a video on YouTube looked too good to be true, but it is.If you do it yourself just do it like I did but make sure the bonnet doesn't get too hot by keep doing circular movements and lifting the hairdryer off and then back down again. Obviously it's at your own risk ,like I did ,with a superb ending. Apologies for the lengthy thread but I've explained in detail how I removed the etching. Finally it's important to dab bird poo off and not wipe as this will scratch the clearcoat.
Regards Fred.
 
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