# Standox lacquer - how long until fully cured?



## TonyHayers (Nov 4, 2014)

Hi,
I'm a :newbie: in need of some advice please...

I recently had a partial respray of my car (front wings, bonnet and front bumper, nearside rear qtr, drivers door and bootlid) done at a local bodyshop.

The bodyshop (who, for now, will remain nameless) seems to be properly kitted out with a huge drive-in oven and there's plenty of nice cars being worked on e.g Porches, R8, Q7s and they make a big deal about using quality brand paints and clearcoats. Standox is the only clearcoat they use and say they have used for the last 5 years.

After a week or so of having the car back, I started on some polishing where their buffer had left a few swirls. It polished up really nicely (to my eye anyway!), although I did notice a couple more minor imperfections here and there in the paintwork that can't be polished, but, since it was a couple of weeks afterwards I thought I could live with it as I should have spotted them earlier.

While polishing, though, I accidentally marked the paint with my fingernail and discovered that if I press hard enough with my fingernail, I could leave a small indentation on all the newly painted panels - which was a bit alarming. It's not so much that the paint is "soft" so much as that it's not completely "rock hard". Is that normal?

The bodyshop had told me that after the car has come out of the oven at 60C they will buff it as soon as it has cooled down and it will have reached it's full hardness.

I called them and went round to show them the car and basically they are just telling me that it's supposed to be like that - that it's supposed to have some "give" in it  Frankly, that sounds like total bull. As it stands now, it will end up getting scratched far too easily.

Having read around a bit, there seems to be differing opinions as to how long new paint can take to fully cure to it's full hardness. Some saying as soon as it has been baked the reaction is done and others saying that it can take 60 days or even 4-6 months. I'm fully prepared to wait for it to harden if that's what I need to do - but I can't believe anything the bodyshop is telling me now since they are clearly trying to pull the wool over my eyes by telling me that's what it's supposed to be like and that it's not supposed to get any harder :wall:

Since I had the rear qtr redone, the whole car has been in the oven twice now and most of the paint is more than 2 weeks old.

Should I wait longer? Help!


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## Aaran (Sep 18, 2007)

do you know which standox they used?

but in my experience (i air dry a good 60% of my stuff) after 2/3 days the clear is hard enough not to mark with a fingernail.

cant comment on the standox range as yet to use it bit even the cheaper clearcoats places use do go hard fairly quick (they just swirl and mark real easy)


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## Andyb0127 (Jan 16, 2011)

Do you know which standox clear was used, as I've used there hs klarlack and that was baked for 35mins ant 60 and once cooled down you couldn't print it. Sk after two weeks it should be hard and unable to print it, sk it should not be soft still.


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## TonyHayers (Nov 4, 2014)

Aaran said:


> do you know which standox they used?
> 
> but in my experience (i air dry a good 60% of my stuff) after 2/3 days the clear is hard enough not to mark with a fingernail.
> 
> cant comment on the standox range as yet to use it bit even the cheaper clearcoats places use do go hard fairly quick (they just swirl and mark real easy)


I'll find out what the Standox product name is.

It's weird because it is "hard" but not rock solid.


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## TonyHayers (Nov 4, 2014)

Andyb0127 said:


> Do you know which standox clear was used, as I've used there hs klarlack and that was baked for 35mins ant 60 and once cooled down you couldn't print it. Sk after two weeks it should be hard and unable to print it, sk it should not be soft still.


Hi mate - when you say print it, do you mean with fingerprint or fingernail. Like it's definitely hard enough not to leave fingerprints but with something sharper like finger print, you can leave indents. Some parts are harder than others.

I'll find out the product name.

Just don't know if they're trying to pull the wool over my eyes :s


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## Andyb0127 (Jan 16, 2011)

TonyHayers said:


> Hi mate - when you say print it, do you mean with fingerprint or fingernail. Like it's definitely hard enough not to leave fingerprints but with something sharper like finger print, you can leave indents. Some parts are harder than others.
> 
> I'll find out the product name.
> 
> Just don't know if they're trying to pull the wool over my eyes :s


Yes that's what I meant mate. You shouldn't really be able any little indents in it. These areas your say your can mark do you know if they are where the basecoat colour applied as the base may not be fully dry before it was clear coated. The only other thing could be there oven is not getting to the temperature they are setting it at meaning its not curing it properly. As its not the temperature in the oven that's cures it, .its the panel temperature that drys it, so when they say 60 this will be the panel temp not the temp in the spraybooth. To me it seems like something is not right.


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## TonyHayers (Nov 4, 2014)

Andyb0127 said:


> Yes that's what I meant mate. You shouldn't really be able any little indents in it. These areas your say your can mark do you know if they are where the basecoat colour applied as the base may not be fully dry before it was clear coated. The only other thing could be there oven is not getting to the temperature they are setting it at meaning its not curing it properly. As its not the temperature in the oven that's cures it, .its the panel temperature that drys it, so when they say 60 this will be the panel temp not the temp in the spraybooth. To me it seems like something is not right.


I had several panels completely resprayed, so yeah, they've had basecoat underneath. Going around the car, it seems that some areas are harder than others.

Yesterday, I took the car to a different bodyshop (that I heard good things about) - mainly to get a quote for redoing one of my front wings after my lighting stand blew over onto it *sigh*. While I was there though, I asked the guy there for a second opinion on this hardness issue.

He tried it himself and said it will be ok and that sometimes in can take up to a month or two to go completely rock hard all the way through, especially with the weather being cooler. He said that they themselves actually use a slightly different hardener in the winter months to counteract this. He also said what would probably happen though is that it will "tighten" very slightly as it goes fully hard so will lose the gloss a little and need polishing again to restore the finish.

Who's right? I have no idea!


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