What to do after paint touch up..

[Turbopugsleylx]

I have a blue Merc 300 SDL 1987....I just put it thru its first round of Colorx and all I can say is that if the paint does not look showroom colors right now I am not sure what will....it is amazing...

The catch is the car still has a ton of chipped paint spots on it....today I have finished nearly half the car with a touch up paint pen with a similar color...all the white chipped specs are gone....but I need to know what I should to now after the touchup pen to smooth the paint down to the existing paints level (which is not that much of a difference) and also help the touch up paint to blend in alot more with the existing paint around it....

What I was thinking about was using the last bit of my Colorx and an orbital on all these touch up spots to help them blend in and reduce the noticability (mainly from them being raised slightly higher off the car surface....)


I am not a pro and have only basic knowledge of detailing....so what should be the best route to use to accomplish what I am looking to accomplish with the orbital buffer that I have?

[benhui86]

What to do after paint touch up..

touch up paint needs to be leveled by sanding and thats kind of up there passed the rotary skill level.....

you would have to sand it with very fine grade sanding block or sand paper until it is level with surrounding paint and then remove the sanding marks with a rotary

bluezero had been able to tackle sanding marks with 105 by hand but that might have just been because the paint was very soft.....

[Turbopugsleylx]

What to do after paint touch up..

I have a blue Merc 300 SDL 1987....I just put it thru its first round of Colorx and all I can say is that if the paint does not look showroom colors right now I am not sure what will....it is amazing...

The catch is the car still has a ton of chipped paint spots on it....today I have finished nearly half the car with a touch up paint pen with a similar color...all the white chipped specs are gone....but I need to know what I should to now after the touchup pen to smooth the paint down to the existing paints level (which is not that much of a difference) and also help the touch up paint to blend in alot more with the existing paint around it....

What I was thinking about was using the last bit of my Colorx and an orbital on all these touch up spots to help them blend in and reduce the noticability (mainly from them being raised slightly higher off the car surface....)


I am not a pro and have only basic knowledge of detailing....so what should be the best route to use to accomplish what I am looking to accomplish with the orbital buffer that I have?

[Turbopugsleylx]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Do you think there is anything that might help it blend in better with the surrounding paint? Maybe rubbing compound by hand or machine.. or Dual Polish by hand or machine?

[benhui86]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

the reason why only sanding works is because liquids just round the edges while sand paper actually flattens the touch up paint.....

you can try testing maybe 2000 grit sand paper and 105 by hand on inside of your trunk lid and see if it will take out the sanding marks and if it doesnt no one would see it.... if 105 does take out the sanding marks then you can test it on one touch up spot first and see how it goes....dont rub so hard with 105 that it ***** out the touch up paint though....you can read more on the wetsanding forums to see how to do proper sanding techniques....

none of this is recommended for beginners and it may damage your paint to the point of beyond repair other than a repaint especially your paint is already so old to begin with that it may be very thin and sand paper is as aggressive as it gets when it comes to detailing.....

rock chip looks a hell of a lot better than clear coat failure or a bunch of hazy sanding marks on the hood.....

[Nappers]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

The best would be to sand with a fine grit paper then polish it out. I think it was member Blue Zero that sanded his hood and polished the sand marks by hand with M105. It can be done but can be done incorrectly too!

Here it is:
M105 VS 2500 grit wet sandpaper

You just have to be careful. I have a chip in my Yukon hood that I need to do the same thing but my paint is rare and only get the touch up paint from the dealer sometime in the future.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Its a tough call. Without the proper skill level and tools you may just have to except the fact that this is as good as its going to get. Read over Blue zero's thread. If you feel confidant that you can tackle it. Go for it. Just do a test spot first. Good luck.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Regardless, what you want to do is very difficult and usually investing more and more time into rock chip repair work usually only results in minimal improvements over just applying the paint and moving on.

You can make rock chip repair as difficult as you want, including wet-sanding and buffing with a rotary buffer, this means knowing how to wet-sand and knowing how to use a rotary buffer.

And even if you know how to sand and buff it's still not easy and it's always filled with risk that you could sand off and then buff off too much clear in the rock chip repair area.

You can do a search on rock-chip and touch-up and see some related threads...

[Turbopugsleylx]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

What is M105...I searched in abbrev and found nothing...

[BlueZero]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Here's a link for you... M105

Edit: Also here is a place where you can buy a sample size for $10... ADS

[CAShine]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

If you are a beginner to detailing I would suggest just applying the touch up paint and then hand polish. Sanding or using a rotary might cause more damage especially to paint that is almost 20 years old.

[Turbopugsleylx]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Yeh I was thinking that the slight abrasivness which made my 20 year old paint job return to a showroom color if applied again with a rotary like i did before could accomplish the job of blending as much as I need it to....this sound like a workable plan?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Yeh I was thinking that the slight abrasivness which made my 20 year old paint job return to a showroom color if applied again with a rotary like i did before could accomplish the job of blending as much as I need it to....this sound like a workable plan?

The problem with buffing touch-up paint with a rotary buffer is your pad and chemical and and will often times "pull" the touch-up paint right out of the chipped area...

Thus what we wrote in our first reply to this thread...

investing more and more time into rock chip repair work usually only results in minimal improvements over just applying the paint and moving on.

If you're going to run a rotary buffer over the touch-up paint let the touch-up paint dry really well first.

[Turbopugsleylx]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Well I mean its gonna be abput 24 to 48 hours is this enough...? Do you think colorX would have enough of an effetc by hand to do the trick...if not what could be used by hand safely to do the trick?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: What to do after paint touch up..

Well I mean its gonna be abput 24 to 48 hours is this enough...? Do you think colorX would have enough of an effetc by hand to do the trick...if not what could be used by hand safely to do the trick?

A week or two in the sun

Not sure what you mean by "do the trick"

If you mean you're going to wet-sand the touch-up paint till it's flat with the rest of the surrounding paint and then try to remove the sanding marks out of the touch-up paint and the surrounding clear coat with ColorX then the answer is 'no' as it's not aggressive enough.

You're going to need a machine applied compound and it still may be difficult if you're not experienced with this kind of work.

Here's the problem, the sanding marks will come out of the touch-up paint okay if you don't first pull the paint out of the chipped area, the problem is going to be getting the sanding marks out of the surrounding clear coat and do so without buffing so long in that area that again, you end up pulling the touch-up paint out of the chipped area.

Everyone wants an easy way to apply touch-up paint, flatten the area out and then restore gloss with an "Original Look" as in you can't tell where you applied the touch-up paint.

There is no easy way. If there was an easy way then you would find this kind of service listed by detailers along with the other services they offer buy you don't and that's because it's difficult to do and especially difficult to do in a few hours and people's expectations are too high, thus a detailer cannot make their customer happy.

That's why most people do the best they can to just apply a thin coating of touch-up paint and then move on...