Not the whole car, just cleaned up a spot.

A few months back I was rolling down the freeway and heard / felt a bang. When I got where I was going, I had a combination scratch and ding. The first ding in the 17 years I've had this car.

Those of you who read the Southwest Star know we ran a do it yourself paint article last edition. Although I edited it, Jay Pill wrote the article and based it on the job he did to one of his cars, before heading off to Europe for a couple of months. I got sick of seeing my scratch every time I was in the garage, so I thought I’d use the stuff I publish. Besides, I figured if I jacked it up, Jay will eventually find his way back stateside and fix it.

The basic process is clean the car, make sure it’s dry (I used a blow dryer), wipe it with surface prep solvent (denatured alcohol), sand, wipe with prep solvent, fill the scratch/dent, sand, wipe with prep solvent, glaze, sand, mask what’s not going to be painted, primer, sand, wash with water, apply several coats of basecoat (paint), and then apply several coats of clear. Now the scratch is gone. I used materials from automotivetouchup.com. Primer paint and clear were about $35. I also used their $4 trigger. Anyone else trying this will also need tape, masking film, alcohol, and some other stuff mentioned in the article.

I’ll buff it in a month, but I’m not going to color sand it. That’s because the rest of the car has never been color sanded. And I'm too lazy.

I’ve included some before during after pictures.

 

Wow that came out great , got a similar dent and scratch on my s2000, but it's higher up so not sure what I want to do yet , PDF for one first then will tackle the scratch after

 

wow, that looks fantastic.

 

Great job!

 

The next time someone needs a replacement bumper and the one they get from Ebay is the wrong color, they can simply shoot it in their garage. The same applies to mirror updates and body kits.

 

Have the issue on the lower edge of my driver's door. Same color - brilliant silver. With mine it was a sand to bare metal because I nicked the door several years ago and the small chip started to rust and spread upward. Had to sand that out and the spot is now about 1" X 1". Etched primed it and sprayed acrylic clear to seal it. Primer will soak in moisture and rust will form under the primer. Doesn't look so great but you can't notice it unless you really look for it. To it to my bodyshop as my insurance deduct. is super low; they said to do it right they have to remove the window trim and color spray the door and part of the rear panel otherwise it wouldn't blend. Pretty much BS and I don't want to have 1/4 the car painted over original paint.

Going to do the same - blend spot touch up in the fall - its super hot here. Couple of questions - can you post a close up of the finished product? From far away it looks great but how about up close. Also - what clear coat did you use? The standard (1K) or the (2K) which according a body shop would be much better because it adheres to the existing clear without sanding (great for blending to the existing panel) and it drys super hard and will not flake off.

 

I used a 1K clear. Although I have a mask, 2K clear has been known to cause serious respiratory damage. I stay away from it if at all possible. I figured I'd use the 1K, and redo it if the 1K looked like crap.

I can post more pictures when I'm back in town. The CLK is sitting in long term parking at LAX until the end of the month. By the time I get back. it should be ready to be buffed.

If you use ATU, the paint will match, making the blend dead simple. Looking at the door on a CLK, if your spot is on the lower edge of the door, I don't know why the body shop wanted to paint your entire door. The door guard is a hard line separating the upper and the lower part of the door. They could have masked it at the guard, and shot the bottom half of the door.

 

Thanks. Love to see the close ups. When I brought it to them that's what I thought but they said it wouldn't blend and they wouldn't warranty the result. Said something about when they sprayed it the silver wouldn't match the existing paint and you would see a color difference because when they spray even if the paint is a true match in the can the way the flakes in the metallic wouldn't line up the same way the original paint was sprayed and you would see it depending on the angle you view the final result. The result would either be darker or lighter.

I've sprayed lacquer in my garage with a HVLP a couple of summers ago when I repainted my kitchen cabinets. Not something I'd do again. Full suit, respirator and high powered fans to vent the fumes. The 2K or two part clear is supposed to be significantly better than the 1K when it comes to gloss and durability and it sticks to the surrounding clear which 1k doesn't do very well and most of the time it will peel. 1K is ok for full panels but still isn't as durable. I talked to a paint supplier here and they definately recommend the 2K even though the can only can be used once $$$.

In both cases 1K or 2K you can use a blend spray which melts any hard tape lines so you don't have to go back and compound the new to old clear. Tape a hard line or feathered line, spray clear pull tape and then mist blender spray. The hardline will go away and the new clear will basically melt to the old. Supposedly no compounding necessary.

Here in Missouri, St Louis the body shops are fairly horrible. They never use the most up to date methods and most of their work is just ok. For instance they don't know how to do micro repairs, chip repairs and there is only one shop that does proper wheel repairs.