Is there a place I can see a photo of a fish eye? I'm not sure what one is.

This is an extreme case but will give you some idea:

[www.specialchem4coatings.com]

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Bruce,

A fish eye is a circular crator in the finish caused from contamination of the subsurface. I couldnt find a good picture of one for you. Are you still having a problem? If you continually get them you need to determine what is causing it. Did you clean the blank before building? I do not allow any wax or silicone products in my building room. Furniture polish is a big NO. Gun cleaning solvents and oils, if you use anything like that in close proximity to where you build. Washing your hands with soaps containing lotions will contaminate your thread when handling them. You could have handled a spool of thread and contaminated the whole spool. Maybe you cleaned you vehicle and used a vinyl dressing, that stuff causes major issues with finishes and is tough to clean off your hands. I manage a bodyshop so I've seen what silicone can do to a fresh finish, not that solvent based finishes are the same a chemical reacted finishes but contamination is contamination. I wash my hands and rinse and dry well and then I wipe down with DNA before touching anything. What I cant figure is how I got one recently on the second coat, if it were my brush or mix cup it should have been on all the wraps, only one spot on one wrap....go figure!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2011 09:28AM by JIM MOWL.

I suspect that many times it is not contamination but simply what is referred to as the "Water Break Free" referred to here: [www.rodbuilding.org]

Instead of water it is the epoxy that beads but instead of making beads it leaves an uncovered area. I usually just add a drop of epoxy on the area and let it turn for a few then heat it to level it out.

Scott makes a good point. Fish eyes generally appear in large numbers, not a single or just a few. And they're usually quite small in size. When you see just a spot or two, you're typically dealing with bad surface prep or something else.

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CONTAMINATION.....

Here is the proof from the article you cited

If the water breaks free across the surface, all is well and we proceed to the next operation. But sometimes the water will not break free, it will bead up or draw back from the edges in spots, indicating a contamination of some sort and the cleaning operation is repeated until the water breaks free in the rinsing operation.

Every now and then I'll see a fisheye/crater forming while the finish is still flowing. In those cases I'll use a bodkin/needle to scratch the center area of the crater which usually causes finish to flow back in and avoid the fisheye.

Jeff

If you really want to see fish eyes Take a piece of scrap blank open up a can of car wax refinish the scrap piece You will see lots of them

Bill - willierods.com

Jeff Shafer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Every now and then I'll see a fisheye/crater
> forming while the finish is still flowing. In
> those cases I'll use a bodkin/needle to scratch
> the center area of the crater which usually causes
> finish to flow back in and avoid the fisheye.
>
> Jeff

Great piece of information....Thanks

You could get some of that stuff Mud Hole has that is to help finish flow maybe it will help

Bill - willierods.com

Bruce, this is the best example of fish eye I could find, though it is on a larger scale than you will see in rod building: [freespace.virgin.net]

Jim, I was not being personal about the contamination, it is recommended that epoxy be sanded lightly if it has sat a couple of days and that is simply to give it something to bite onto. Epoxy can cure that hard faster than that and you said yourself that you had a fish eye despite everything being clean. With contamination if something repels the coat, be it paint or epoxy simply scratching through it will not cause it to fill up, if it is the water break though it will fill right in.

Bill are you referring to the bubble buster from mudhole?

Yes never used it and have no idea it it will work -- Just a thought

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks All. Check out Tom's link for fish eyes. After seeing it I realized I didn't have fish eyes, I just did a bad job. I just flat out missed some spots. I decided I'm only going to apply finish during the daylight. I removed the butt wrap and refinished it and now it looks fine. This is the third time I re-wrapped and refinished. I took the advice that the job I'm doing is representing my work so I want to make it as good as possible. Thanks for all of your help. I do appreciate it. I'm sure I'll need more in the future. It seems like every job presents a new problem I've never seen.
Bruce

Water brake free is only a test to see if there is contamination....If the water beeds up there is something causing it and surface needs to be cleaned better....Water brake free is not a condition.

There is a product for eliminating fish eyes in automotive finishes and I cant understand how it works because it is pure silicone. You add to your spray gun cup and mix with the paint before spraying. One would think it would cause the worst reaction possible.

In stead of all that you probably could have just put another coat on ?????

Bill - willierods.com

Water-break-free is a surface condition. It is not a test. It produces the optimum surface for bonding, painting, etc.

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Water break- free is a test commonly performed in the coating industry. It is used to determine if a surface is free of organic contaminants. Cleaning systems are designed to remove organic and inorganic soils prior to coating. The surface is wiped with a clean, white, lint-free cloth to check for inorganics and distilled water is sprayed onto a surface to check for organics. If they are present the water will not sheet out and flow smoothly across the surface (there is a break in the water). A clean surface ready for coating is said to be water break-free so it is both an actual test as well as a statement of the cleanliness of surface.
When we see fisheyes they are the result of incompatible contaminants disrupting the surface tension creating the surface defect. Skin oils can cause some disruption of surface continuity but aren't usually real bad about causing fisheyes. The worst culprit is silicone spray lubricants. Keep them away from your coating areas! You would be amazed how far a single particle can float and land at the worst possible place. Another culprit to be aware of is measuring syringes. Some of these are assembled with silcone lubes. Another is mold releases used for molded plastics. Lastly, air compressors can leak oil into the lines which is transferred to anything you blow off.
So if you are seeing fisheyes with regularity think it through and see if you can identify the source.

Let me rephrase - prior to bonding or finishing, you need to create a water-break-free surface condition.

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Thank you Kurt!

Sounds like you need better light in your finishing area

Bill - willierods.com