Cissing, sometimes called fisheye, is when a wet paint film pulls back from itself in small circular craters rather than laying flat. It happens during application or shortly after, and the cause is almost always a contaminant on the substrate that the paint cannot wet out over evenly.
Silicone-based polishes, certain sealants, oily residue from hands or masking tape adhesive left on a surface are the most common culprits, since they lower surface tension in that spot and the wet film retreats from it as it flows out.
The wet film can look fine going on and then pull back as it starts to level and dry, which is why cissing is sometimes only spotted the next morning rather than caught during application, even by an experienced painter watching closely.
The affected area is sanded back, the surface cleaned with an appropriate solvent to remove contamination, and recoated with attention to keeping tools and rags dedicated to that job away from anything silicone-based nearby.
Cissing is a paint defect where the wet coat refuses to lie flat and draws back into small round craters or bare patches, sometimes with a raised rim. It is also called fisheye. It shows the surface underneath has something on it, such as grease, silicone or polish residue, that the paint cannot wet evenly.
Let the affected coat dry, then sand the craters back, clean the whole area with a suitable degreaser or sugar soap and rinse it well. Where silicone is suspected, a cleaner designed for silicone removal is used. A fresh coat, or a primer first on stubborn areas, then goes on over the clean, keyed surface.
No, the contamination is still there and will pull the new coat apart in the same spots. It needs cleaning off first.
Very rarely. It is almost always a surface contamination issue rather than a fault with the material itself.
By identifying and removing the contamination source, keeping tools clean and dedicated, and always test-patching a small area before committing the whole surface.
Photograph the affected area close up, including any nearby polish, sealant or adhesive residue, and send it over.
Cissing and fisheye come from surface contamination, not a bad batch of paint, cleaning the substrate properly solves it.
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