GL1200 Paint

[BadMonk]

When I bought my '87 last fall, I noticed the paint wasn't great. It looked like a rough cover slid on/off so many times that it caused many micro scratches in the clear coat. It also looked like the clear was stained in places from something laying against it for a long time causing some discoloration...like when old emblems/badges are removed from a bike. It wasn't a deal breaker. Buffing and polishing would fix it.

Finally got around to taking off the plastic and start buffing. However the hundreds of micro scratches aren't in the clear coat. The clear is actually in very good condition, and excellent condition for its age. The micro scratches are in the color. At some angles the micro scratches disappear and all looks good. At another angle, they're easy to see. No amount of work on the clear coat will fix the problem...it's definitely in the color coat or below. Never seen anything like this.

I'd take a pic but it won't show up on any pic that I can take. Has anyone else seen or heard of this? Since buffing won't fix it, I guess a repaint is the only fix but I'm not into that right now. Anyone have experience with this? Is this just old paint? UV destruction? Micro cracks in the ABS below the paint???

[julimike54]

Mine has the micro cracks, they appear to be in the contrast color of the main color. Might be due to they're cracks in the decals that were placed and then cleared over/ I've not noticed the cracks in the base color.