You don't want to just sand down the surface and repaint as the problem will usually not go away. Once the surface fish eyes, the paint should be removed as something has contaminated the surface. If we had a job that fish eyed, we would start over again by washing off the paint with automotive lacquer thinner. To be honest, we had jobs where the fish eyes occurred and we had no idea what caused them as we could find no rhyme or reason for it. When you wetsand out imperfections in the basecoat, sometimes there will be traces of water left causing the problem. Also, if you leave the wax and grease remover on too long before wiping it off, it can cause fisheyes. Water, oil and silicone are the three major culprits. Fish eyes are caused by contamination of the surface you are spraying. Fish eyes occur immediately upon spraying. (Looks well, like a fish eye and hence the name). I'm tempted to wipe with thinners (it's 2 pack) then wet sand again, then wipe with thinners again.ĭoes anyone have any better ideas (which don't involve sanding back to bare metal)?įish Eyes look like little craters on the moon where the paint pulls away from the center. The panels have been wet sanded prior to top coat. Only thought is the tea towel I used to dry the panels after wet sanding could have been contaminated, or the bloke sharing the garage has done something silly, but my panels have been covered in dust sheets and he's painting primer at the moment without this trouble. Even the panel wipe was done about 15 minutes before spraying, so I'd be surprised if any solvent remained from that. The air supply has reasonable water filtering and it's not been a problem up to now. This is the final top coat and I wet sanded last week so it shouldn't be water. Common reason would be silicone contamination, but I've been careful to do nothing in the garage apart from paint. Trying to figure out what to do next, as I can't figure out what could have caused the fish eyes in the first place. I had a try at spraying a final coat on my Renault today.

Fisheye in paint