Car rigs and freshly painted cars...

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Paul
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I know its a big no no to use a rig setup with suction cups on a car that has had a recent paint job. But how long should you leave it before you can safely use a camera rig without damaging the paint?

Cheers,

Paul.
 
Not sure but as a detailer I would never use cups on the paint but we always work on the rule of 6 weeks is the minimum time for paint to finish curing/drying/setting what ever you want to call it before we will apply wax to freshly painted parts. Some say that paint that has been baked (dried with heat) can be done immediately but I would always leave it 6 weeks incase.
 
Exactly what i wanted to know (y) Thankyou John!

I'm always careful with the suction cups and i appreciate that you wouldn't use them as a detailer. Which is why I went for the manfrotto suction cups. A quick wipe with speed detailer afterwards and you wouldn't of known that a suction cup was there :D Alot better than cheaper suction cups :)
 
Little John said:
Not sure but as a detailer I would never use cups on the paint but we always work on the rule of 6 weeks is the minimum time for paint to finish curing/drying/setting what ever you want to call it before we will apply wax to freshly painted parts. Some say that paint that has been baked (dried with heat) can be done immediately but I would always leave it 6 weeks incase.
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Interesting idea but we often had to valet new cars that were a lot less than six weeks old, in fact I have seen a showroom that took cars straight from the Mercedes factory, it was outside the gate and some cars would be less than six days old. I also work in the motor trade and usually bodyshops polish/wax the work before returning it the punter, I thought this was to protect the paint from all the crap in the atmosphere(as well as make it look good) so wouldn't expect suction cups to do any damage.
I take no responsibility for damage caused by listening to my opinions though.:shrug:
 
Martin polish or wax? 2 different products, polish has abrasives in there to restore the shine, a wax adds protection to the surface and enhances the polishing process.

Bodyshops can't polish a car to perfection like a detailer does if they did they would never make any money. Cars very rarely go from factory to dealership, sitting in fields, on the boat where ever also cars in the factory are usually baked, bodyshops don't always bake so if someone says it had paint reciantly I always say 6 weeks before seealing the paint to allow any solvents to vent off fully.

I had my rear bumper painted a few weeks ago due to someone hitting my car it really annoyed me as the weekend following him hitting me was the 2 days to polish and protect my car for the summer but due to fresh paint I am haveing to wait a few more weeks, yes I could polish it but I wouldn't be happy with the finish. yes 2 possibly 3 days to polish my car thats why bodyshops wouldnt make money if they polished to my standards.
 
Quite a few body shops do bake the paint, and am sure that most car manufactures will do the same?

But even still, I personally wouldn't risk using really abrasive polish to remove swirls and scratches etc. On a freshly painted car for the first 2 months(but that's just me, better safe then sorry!)

I would leave it 2 months before putting any sort of suction cups etc. near the paint in my opinion. It's not worth taking the risk!
 
GFWilliams said:
You can never 100% be sure of whether a suction pad will leave a mark. You have been warned...
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yes agree there may always be a risk, even more so with a dealer repair, i would leave a min of 48 hours and ideaaly 7 days.

Also be carefull with scracthing the paint
 
As another Detailer, I would recommend 2 months between the painting and mounting suction cups onto the bodywork (regardless of wether it was baked in an oven or not - the paint still needs time to Gas and settle).

To minimise risk of marring induced by the suction cups, thoroughly clean the contact areas both before and after mounting the cups (y)
 
Also, get the car owner to sign a disclaimer that states they accept all responsibility of any damage caused by the use of the suction cups. Your protected then.
 
At the risk of turning this into a detailing thread, if paint has been applied by a reputable bodyshop, and the paint cured in an oven, you can polish and wax it the next day, and achieve a perfect finish. Carnauba wax, a decent carnauba wax not containing synthetic fillers like Autoglym, Meguairs, etc, will let any remaining outgassing occur without any issue whatsoever. Only if you cannot ascertain the above, would you need to consider leaving it any longer, otherwise 2 months, or even 6 weeks delay is completely unnecessary.

As for applying suction cups, yes it can leave marks even on original paintwork that has been finished for a long time, but I've only seen that happen once and I've used camera mounts on quite a number of cars for hours at a time.
 
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