touch up paint procedure/guidance

[Sambuca]

Hi all,

Been reading these forums for quite some time now and I am hoping you guys can help me. I do alot of interstate travel and have quite a few nicks/dings on my hood. A friend of mine said he could help me do some touchup on them but I'm not confident in his abilities anymore. Attached are two photos of work on my hood area. I ordered the touchup paint from:

2012 Chevrolet Sonic Colors of Touch Up Paint

I have the primer, paint, and clear coat 2oz bottles. I'm just curious what you guys recommend I do from here? I have little experience in this area but I have been doing alot of reading on the forums. Should I be doing wet sanding then reapplying more paint? Just looking for a little guidance please and thanks!

Tom

 

[Stew]

Ok I'm going to be real honest with you here, you should take that to a body shop before it gets more expensive to fix. Getting good results with paint is not something you'll achieve by reading or watching YouTube videos, it takes a lot of practice to be good at it.

 

[Insanika]

I agree with Stew.. Painting well is something that takes experience. If you want to learn how to touch up your own paint, I wouldn't discourage you, but I WOULD encourage you to find something to practice on first. And if this is bothering you now, take it to be done so you don't get impatient.

I believe proper touch up procedure involves touching a "bubble" of the paint into the chip keeping the bubble within the boundary of the chip. It should dry higher than the surrounding paint and then you can use the sanding and clear coating it.

I'm not an expert and I have never done this, but I have read some on it. Again I would definitely do this on something else first and do lots of research leading up to it.

 

[Sambuca]

Thanks guys. I didn't think a body shop would do something small like this which is why I asked my friend about it. I thought touching up would be something they wouldn't spend time on doing. There are about 7 of those small spots, maybe 1/4" diameter. Is a body shop just going to airbrush over it and redo the clear coat or something? Thanks again!

Tom

 

[Stew]

Most rock chips that you touch up with a small bottle of touchup paint are between the size of a large grain of sand to a peppercorn or so, much bigger than that and it gets increasingly hard to get good results.

Insanika was spot on, think of a rock chip as a teeny tiny volcano, you just need to fill in the crater with paint. This usually takes several applications to build up the paint because it's mostly solvent which evaporates. After filling in the chip with paint you get a small semi-flexible sanding block with around 2000 grit and even out the rim of the "crater' and where you filled it by wet sanding. Finally, get a dab of fine polishing compound on a soft cloth and shine it up. Most chip repair that I've seen is single stage because the areas are so small but they do make base coat/ clear coat touch up systems too.

In the pictures of your hood the paint looks to be slopped over an area bigger than the chip and the clear coat has been roughly sanded for some reason over a very large area. Because of how the first attempts to repair have been done, it just looks like you now need to have a body shop repaint a much larger area than the original chips for it to be fixed correctly.