How to properly touch up the paint job???Help Plz

NYSpeed Automotive
1

Hey guys, well I have a few paint chips from rocks im sure on my hood. Id like to hit them before winter hits…so i got like 2 days right.

Anyways, how do you guys do it “the right way”. I bought the touch up paint for it. The chips are down to steel and the metal is rust color, 1 or 2 look like they are starting to bubble, or atleast soon. I cant just put the touch up paint on it right. I need to primer the area first right?

If I do that should I take my orbital sander and make the are a little bigger?

After it dries I can wet sand it to get the “touched up” area down to normal right?

Whats your method?
Thanks guys

2

an orbital sander is gonna force you to have to do a rather large area. It sucks that it’s rusting already. A lot of times, sand paper will only embed the rust further.

maybe try one of the chemical rust remover solutions. pretty sure por-15 has something.

3

There’s a bunch of touch ups on my car and none of them have chipped off, I would have to say you don’t need primer.

4

Cavi Mike- so you just simply put the touch up paint on the “chip” and let it dry? Did you do a few “coats” then wet sand using 1000 or 2000 grit?

Boardjnky4-really, the sand paper with force the rust deeper? Grrrr thats not cool. When you say chemical rust remover is that a liquid, spray etc? I should probably protect the sourronding areas then. Im sure if it gets rid of rust it will take off gloss coat

5

I would say lightly hit the chips with a little sandpaper, then fill in the chips with touch up paint. let it dry and add more til lthe chip is filled. Then wet sand with 2k grit paper till the chip is level with the surrounding area paint. Hit with some compound and be done with it. You can also add clear coat if you want.

6

http://www.synlubes.com/por/prep.html

7

I didn’t paint the chips on my car but I can clearly see they were just lazily applied, I wouldn’t doubt it if whoever did it didn’t even clean the area.

8

This is sorta complex but easy enough.

  1. Obviously wash and dry your car first

  2. Get some iso propanol and dab the area with a Qtip to make sure there is no wax or anything oily in it. - Prepsol is not really needed but if you want to use or have you can. Just make sure its the fast drying self evaporating one and not the one you need to wipe off.

Anything but clean bare surface may compromise the chip

2a)Second you need to lightly scuff the area, wetsanding paper is easy enough but dry is fine too just control it- You can cut little circles out and glue them to a pencil eraser for better control instead of going at it with a finger.

You have to get all the rust out of the chip otherwise the rust may spread and the chip ultimately fail.

You should also pull up any edges and take them off if they stick up high enough (Yes it may make it a bit bigger but you can see what is under the lifted part and follow 2a again.

  1. Prime - you should prime the area if metal because there is a fair chance the chip repair wont stay and may fail. THIN coats on all paints and primers use a toothpick to lightly dab and allow 1 hour+ to dry. When its dried it will sorta sink because the solvent carriers will have flashed off. When you touch the area with the toothpick it should pull it right down and lay evenly

  2. Color Coat -you can LIGHTLY sand this primer if you want or move straight on to paint.

With paint use a toothpick again - LIGHT coats(the lighter the better) it will draw the paint right off the toothpick(or fine artist brush w/e). LIGHT COATS! Again leave this to dry for any hour+ then come back for another coat etc…

  1. If you want your touchup to look as close to factory as possible you should be using the supplied clearcoat. When doing your color coat - dont over fill the chp otherwise there is no place for the CC to go and when you sand flat will just be sanding away what you applied

I like to use a couple color coats then as many Clearcoat coats to overfill the chip so I have something to sand flat.

Allow to dry dry enough to drive around then let dry for a couple more days to allow outgassing of the remaining solvent - I know it seems like a ton of work

When you’re ready wash the area again and dry.

Sanding is at your discretion but be careful sanding “happens fast”.

I would recommend working your way from 2000 grit to 3000 if you have it as the marks left but 3000grit are much easier to remove by hand.

Again use little circles of the paper glued to a pencil eraser for easy control.

Do it once, do it right and you wont have to come back.