"Touch up" paint questions

[3Fitty]

I do not have this immediate concern but want to know the process by which the experts here go about doing jobs with "touch up" paint.

Assume for a second I've got a new car and I have a scratched area or chipped area that I deem can be corrected with touch up paint instead of full paint job (but the sratch or chip is beyond a normal correction).

How do you go about using touch up paint properly?

Do you put it on and leave it, then wet sand, or buff or what? Can you use the G110 to do any of the work or do you need a proper rotary? Anyone have any pictures showing the before and after of touch up jobs?

Thanks in advance.

[Mort Corey]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

The last one I did (which came out pretty well) was pretty tedious. For pain chips, I first cleaned the area with a prep-solvent and chips that were down to metal were first primed. I let that dry a day or two and then put on the color.....al this with an artist type paint brush BTW. After the color had cured I wet sanded and then topped with clear coat. A final wet sand and then used ScratchX to polish out the area. A month later....wax and polish.

Didn't use any machine as I found that the power of the PC can pull out repaired chunks no matter how good the prep or how long it's cured....you don't want to know how I found this out

The hardest part is not getting things too thick. Too much primer and there's not enough depth left to apply color that can be later sanded. My way is not likely to be the way a body shop would approach the task.....too time consuming.

Mort

[Murr1525]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

Depends how far you want to go.

For instance, I had a little nick in my wheelwell from over the winter. I just used a light sand paper to remove any rust, then a dab or paint from a tooth pick onto the nick. Repeat once or twice over the next hour or so. But yes, you could still see it easily if you really looked for it. But even for a more visible area, a little dab at a time is best if you arent comfortable wet-sanding, machine polishing, etc.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

Doing Touch up paint work and making it look good and having the process be easy doesn't exist.

I wrote something on this on the old CS forum let me see if I can find it.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

Just tried to go to the CS forum and it appears to be down, probably has something to do with the forum migration and our Webmaster Ross is still on sick leave.

http://forumarchive.meguiars.com/

How about the nutshell version...

Applying touch up paint and making it look like you didn't apply touch-up paint is hard to do.

[3Fitty]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

The only way I've ever seen touch up paint used in the past is by lay people, dab it on, and leave.

Often, it ends up looking worse than the original chip or scratch.

[3Fitty]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

Applying touch up paint and making it look like you didn't apply touch-up paint is hard to do.

That is what I figured.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: "Touch up" paint questions

The only way I've ever seen touch up paint used in the past is by lay people, dab it on, and leave.

Often, it ends up looking worse than the original chip or scratch.

Yep.

You can make this process as complicated as you want, a more simple approach is to purchase a fine tipped paint brush from an artists supply store and only apply a very small amount of paint to start with.

Don't use the huge paint brush built into the lid, you tend to take a chipped area and turn it into a blobbed area.