Need to fill some chips and have a pint of unthinned, single stage Dupont paint. To do brush dabbing touch-up, do I need to add hardner or thin it down at all? Also, once it's on their and hard can I take some fine grit paper or an X-pad and scuff it to remove the three dimensionalness of it? Gracias!
What Tinbender said... I have fixed chips in the way I describe below, with satisfactory results. For the beginner, this may be a bit hard to follow, but anyone who has questions can PM me and I will try to explain further. If you'd rather talk, PM me and I'll call you back. It's really not that hard to fix chips/scratches...especially if it's not a metallic color. (NOTE: the below info assumes you have single stage paint (no clearcoat, that's another story FIRST: Clean the area to be repaired with 3M "Wax and Grease Remover" or similar product. If you have wax stuck in the chip, this is all useless info: If you "flow" the paint into the chips (i.e. you don't go on top of the paint that encircles the surrounding chip,) you could build it up with several successive coats, until it is a bit above the surrounding paint. Keep the paint IN the chip with a fine point striper's brush or a Testor's model paint brush (I'm not kidding). Build it up till it's a little above the rest of the surrounding paint, and allow 15-30 minutes drying time between coats. It'll take a while, but do it on a nice day in the sun. You may have to hit it 6 or more times to get the paint built up. After the last coat has cured, use plenty of water & with 1200-1500 grit wet sand paper, knock it down to the level of the surrounding paint. Use your finger first, on top of the area you just painted. Always sand (even with your finger,) on a diagonal, alternating between left and right strokes. Keep it in that area, and try to only sand the area you just painted. (If you're real good, you can take a single edged razor blade, and do the same thing: flatten the chipped area out. This also works for runs & sags.) Be careful to first concentrate on knocking the chipped area down & not getting into the surrounding paint, then after a while when it is level with the surrounding paint, sand with some light pressure into the surrounding area. When you start sanding into this surrounding area, switch to a block, or if you're more experienced, use the palm of your hand. If you keep going with your finger, you'll get "ripples." when you wheel it. Then, compound & polish with a quality (NON-RANDOM ORBITAL buffer/grinder.) Use the kind that will burn the shit out of your paint if you keep it in one area longer than 10 seconds. 1500 RPMs is about right - using appropriate pads.Start out with a cutting pad and cutting compund, then switch to a polishing pad and polishing compound. If you do it right, the repair will be darn near invisible when you're finished. I have done the above on an area of one of my cars that had a 6 inch long key scratch (solid red color-no clearcoat), and when I was done, the repair was invisible... (and I used off the shelf Dupli-Color paint for the touch up!) Maybe I should do a Tech on this... Mercman
On the money-Mercman1951. My favorite "touch-up" brush is the fuzzy end of a paper match. They're cheap (free) and can be used as torn from the pack or cut at an angle with a razor blade for finer work, then tossed. overspray
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