Red paint questions continued

You will need to use a solvent to remove any wax and other stuff from the areas that you intend to touch up. A very small artist's brush will be needed if you intend to just fill the chip. In addition, a mild solvent wetted lint free cloth should be available to immediately wipe off a goof. Test whatever red paint you use on a "so what" area first. This is for color match, and compatability. Hobby stores sell a plastic backed package of extremely fine wet & dry sandpaper. There is a small tube of "body putty" available at most auto stores that can be used to fill a chip before touch up paint is used. One of my neighbors is in the touch up business, and uses an air brush with heavily thinned paint. Depending on the climate and the paint used, there is a drying time, and a cure time. The drying time is fairly short, and the cure time is longer. It is easier to clean up overspray and other little problems before the paint is completely dry and obviously before it partially cures. Cleanup may need to be done within an hour or so, and hand applied rubbing compound is more effective when used before the paint is completely cured (usually a few hours). After final cure (a few days minimum), fine rubbing compound can be used to get a glasslike finish if desired. Once this is all finished, then a decent wax job is appropriate. The solvents and compounds used in touchup have removed all protection from the paint.

Just the high spots. There are lots of gritty little details.

"dhawo" wrote in message news:P4cOc.2248$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Dawn dishwashing liquid is the standard product for stripping wax.

Chuck's info might work fine for an expert but seems totally inappropriate for a guy who is asking how to do this, sounds like for the first time. Nothing personal Chuck!

I'll try to give you a simple / feasable (sp?) method that can be quite effective w/o sanding, spraying or filling!

You do need to remove any wax, autoparts places sell it as 'wax and grease remover'. Of course make sure your touch-up paint is properly stirred and is an acceptable match before proceeding. I apply the paint with the tip of a tooth pick. A small amount for a small chip, on up to greater amounts for larger chips. The idea is to 'deposit' the correct amount into the chip to 'fill' it, for best results. For large rock chips, you might want to rub around a small amount of paint to get good adhesion and to help the 'droplet' of paint that you deposit to spread out into the area better. The key is getting the correct amount of paint on the tooth pick (we're talking very small amounts here), you can put a few drops in a cap of some sort so you can see and controll it well. With a little practice you can do quite well. I'm just afraid Chucks method takes much practice and has opportunity for disaster, which, I'm all for opportunity but......

Good luck, Chris

A pin or needle works as well or better than a toothpick. (And you can reuse it) The trick is to get (as you mentioed) the right amount of paint in the chip. The "body putty" allows you to fill a deeper chip, and provide some tooth for the paint to stick to. The two solvents I usually use are a wax remover (small black can 3M & others) and a paint prep solvent commonly called "preps all". It is mild and will clean cured paint without making it soft, and can be used to wipe off excess paint when it's still in a plastic state. The other solvent is stroner, and should be used carefully, with a test in a non critical area first. If left on cured pain as a puddle, the paint will soften. (At least this happens with paint code SU, which is Red without the clearcoat.

My pet peeve -- a factory paint job with light orange peel that has been clearcoated. Both the paint and clearcoat are likely to have some orange peal, and esp with metallic colors, cannot be easily turned into a smooth mirror finish.

Favorite wax-- High Carnuba Content with UV protection. Locks into the paint to the point that light rubbing compound applied by hand doesn't do anything.