I'm no expert...been doing this for less than a year...but I had a similar experience. I had paint "wrinkle" in spots, not the whole surface. Turned out that during my prepping I had sanded through the clear coat to the base, and in some places I went all the way to the primer. (All of these layers were less than a week old.) The PPG guy at my local supplier looked at it and called it "lifting." Apparently the basecoat will cure at different rates depending on the surface it is on. Since I had several different surfaces (base coat, primer, clear coat) it lifted where they met.
In a few spots it wasn't to bad, so he said to smooth it out with some 600 grit and paint over it, but paint "dryer" than before. He suggested a hardener as well. Went home and tried it. Lowered the air pressure a bit and kept the gun a little further from the surface. Worked like a charm.
His explanation was that the different substrates continue to exude fumes for quite a while, sometimes for months. The difference in the rate for different products contributes to the lifting.
From now on I'll make sure to have a consistant surface for each application of paint.
Does this sound right, Scott?
