blisters?

Anyone experience fiberglass blisters? I've got pinhead blisters showing up all over. I haven't opened any yet to see whats in there. They started 2 yrs ago with a few and now i see more every time i look.MY car is a 2005 IM speedster.

Michael,
Weren't you trying to sell this car back in 2009? It is great that you were able to find a way to hold onto it. Have you tried contacting Henry at Intermeccanica? I believe that he would be quite interested in hearing from you. His cars are meticulously prepared ,and the bodies are cured for a long time before painting.He definitely would want to know about your issues with the car.The very last thing that he would want,is someone dissatisfied with his product. If the car was purchased from a reseller of Henry's product,start with them. The car is 6 years old, so I don't think that you have any recourse other than to make them aware of your dilemma. Good luck, and I hope you get some helpful answers.

Henry would definitely want to know if his curing process has a potential problem. I'll second Al's suggestion to check in with IM.

I believe that may be a storage-related problem.
At first, I was going to ask if you'd been crawling around in your attic, but then I realized you were talking about the body of your IM.
Here's a simple explanation and an apparently easy remedy:

http://chryslersailing.lizards.net/sail_blister.html

Yes, good memory i was trying to sell until the blisters showed up. Henry offered to look at it with the car in Hawaii that wasn't possible. Now the blisters are moving much faster. Henry hasn't offered any info other than this happens once in awhile. My paint shop friend [also owns a CMC speedster] has seen this a few times but isn't sure of the reason why. The car sees light use usually good weather and lives in a garage.

No one can diagnose your particular problem from long distance, but blisters in fiberglass are not unknown. On boat hulls, hydrolosis and osmosis are usually the culprits. This means that water goes in and out of the gelcoat and laminates at varying rates. Equal in + equal out = o.k. It's when more goes in than comes out that problems with blisters occur. Hull bottoms are more prone than topsides. Quality boats, as well as chopper gun nightmares, can all be prone to blisters of varying sizes and percentages of coverage.

For Vettes, the problem is usually bad prep on damage repair. A respray or damage repair that was done too quickly, mixed too hot, baked too fast, etc. This is usually a tradesman mistake by someone with insufficient knowledge or a guy who is pressured to move too quickly.

Since your damage is so widespread, poor prep would seem the likely, though uncertain, culprit. IM has a great, and well-deserved, reputation for quality, and I'm not suggesting that any fault is theirs. A careful exam should tell you whether the car has been resprayed. The only practical solution for you seems to be thorough prep and new paint. If you go that route, you may want to focus on a shop that has done lots of Vettes. Best of luck!

if ur in hawaii im sure the salt content in the air has something to do with it. i was stationed in Pearl and had a car and even the new cars has rust bubbles. of course this was back in the late 60's.

Kinda tough for fiberglass to bubble due to rust, isn't it?

I've seen this a few times on corvettes. It reeks of a repaint with poor prep. That don't sound like Henry's work at all. but Im sure Henry CAN fix it for ya and get it corrected but it's gonna take some time. it will need some cure time in the Kelm to dry it out then repair the places then back into the kelm to see if anything reblisters itself.. ( rince repete kind of thing) untill its free of problems. before a repaint

This was purchased new so there was no repainting. Poor prep was my first thought but it took 4 yrs to show its ugly little pimple. As far as being in Hawaii and salt air we have millions of cars here without problems. Its disappointing to spend so much thinking you have the finest workmanship to see this happen and have no support unless the car is sent to the builder. Henry builds a great car but he is a businessman first.

Do you store it in your garage with a car cover? And it's actually fiberglass blisters and not just paint blisters? Any pictures of the damage?

I've seen similar damage to a jet boat that had been parked and covered, only to have water collect under the cover (condensation?) and sit for quite a while. Is that scenario a possibility?

You're right Lane, that blister problem used to occur on a lot of fiberglass boats back in the 70s and 80s. Haven't seen much about it lately. As I recall, back then it was cured by grinding away the gel coat and into the fiberglass and then sanding and re-coating the whole surface. Not a trivial job! They used to blame it on boats that sat on wet trailers all the time I think?

What color is the paint?

I bought an older Corvette several years ago that had a perfect and very expensive (think $20k+)repaint job. The repaint was more than 5 years old when I bought the car. After 5+ more years the car started developing what the Vette owners call "Corvette Acne"...namely the bubbles under the paint. On my car the bubbles occurred on both painted plastics as well as painted fiberglass, which to me suggests something was porous in the primers used, or paint. The car did spend a lot of time baking in the hot and very moist Houston environment. It was a driver, not a garage queen in our ownership. The bubbles were on top of the gel coat on this car.

In the case of the OP, I would guess he needs to ascertain if the bubbles are under the gel or on top of the gel coat. If it is under the gel coat, he needs to have a conversation with Henry, if on top the gel and under the paint, then the last painter is suspect. If under the gel, which I think unlikely due to Henry's great fiberglass work, it is a big problem. If just under the paint, smaller problem, but might well require stripping to gel coat and then having repainted by a painter who has a long and successful history of painting fiberglass....I have owned 2 of Henry's cars, and neither had any Fiberglass related problems....I really think a painter screwed up someplace in the history of the car and even at that I suspect it was not Henry's painter....

And the blisters on the Vette, the largest expanded to like 1/2" x 3" long and raised up maybe 1/8th". One thing for absolutely certain, they don't get better on their own. I sold the car....

What I don't know is if the problem on happens on repaints or if it happens on factory Vette paint jobs too....anybody know anything on that point?

Heres an update on my blister problem.Its seems the blisters showed up where the gelcoat was sanded through. The gelcoat was black on the body[its painted silver] but not the doors,which had no gelcoat at all. They dripped water for 2 months once they were stripped.The bondo was a 1/4inch thick in places.So now i've sealed the raw fiberglass with epoxy blocked it smooth and sprayed it with PPG's DP sealer.Next week the fairing begins. The high spots have been taken down so very little filler will be needed i hope.Henry spins a good tale but the boys in the paint dept sing a different song.Its under control now that i've figured out what was done originally.

Aloha Mike,

 

Glad to hear you've got a handle on your problem.  Let us know how it goes.  l had some bubbling of the paint under the rear bumper and would be interested in who's doing the work as I would like to have some touchup done to my paint.

 

ed (zukes7) 

I'm on the Big Island.You should look at why you have blisters. I've found theres more to them than meets the eye.I hope their limited to that one area.Look for a distorted reflection in the panels. That is how my problem looked before all hell broke loose. Good luck