Touchup painting

You can get several thousand grain wet/dry paper.

As well, for 'final' polishing, look into a product called Novus plastic polish.

I have filled some paint chips in my car with the following procedure:

-clean and dry the area

-put a SMALL dab of paint over the area, enough to leave a small bump

-take a thin strip of 2000 wet/dry, and put it over the end of a small square wooden rod

-wet the paper

-gendly sand the immediate paint bump in tiny circles

-wipe off the excess water

-check for flushness with eye and finger

-once it's flush, polish with Novus #2.

Aside from the fact that my paint is metallic, which is tougher to match, it works very well.

Just takes time.

I think that procedure is similar to this product;

Carl

Yep...

In fact, I think I bought some Langka stuff once, but found that the 'physical' approach (ie slowly sanding down the bump of paint) worked more predictably and consistently than the 'chemical' approach. Sanding and polishing took far longer, and was more work, but I found the results were just more consistent.

That Novus stuff is amazing. Used it to polish my guitar, and my car touchups. ;-)

Probably crocus (sic) cloth. You could also try fine steel wool. I used to use toothpaste for polishing down an acrylic watch crystal. You may not need to get that fine as paint should fill it in. Frank

I have a bottle of factory touchup paint as well as clearcoat. I'm curious, when you sanded with the fine grain sandpaper, did you create scuff marks in the surrounding paint? I'm using 1500 grit right now and when sanding a small area on the plastic bumper, I'm getting scuff marks in the surrounding area of the immediate dab of paint. When I dabbed on a few drops of clearcoat, that stuff leaves a raised surface level from the regular clearcoated bumper. But when I sand that down very very light to the touch, it scuffs the new clearcoat I put on and then a tiny bit surrounding it. When I wet the area (I'm wetsanding, wiping off, and wetting again) to remove the dust particles, it looks great, but as it dries it shows the scuff marks once again. Do I need to goto finer grit?? solution??

Novus polish #2. Seriously. Try it.

Go to ebay and look for Novus Polish. Obviously, don't go nuts on it without proving it yourself, but It _will_ get rid of the scuff marks made with super-fine wet-sand paper.

What are your recommended instructions for using it?

What I've done so far is use between 800-1500 grit sandpaper getting the scratches smoothed out, in some cases sanding a bit of the black plastic underpart. Then dabbing the paint in the scratches and trying to sand them smooth and even with the rest of the painted area. That is where I"m getting my scuff marks at. Then I've applied the clearcoat over top and that seems to leave a raised area until I wetsand it down and thus leaving more scuff marks.

What is the difference between #1, #2, and #3?

#3 is the coarsest, #2 is a fine polish, and #1 is really just a spray liquid for cleaning.

How to use it - put it on a soft cloth and rub. Dead easy. _But_ if the scuffs are any coarser than a 'haze', it might be too much for the polish to abrade down. You'll be able to see easily enough - if the polish doesn't remove it in about 10 seconds of rubbing, the surface isn't ready for the polish yet, and you'll have to back down for a little more wet sanding.

If you're getting fairly even coverage, and your only issue is the superfine scratches from the 1500 grit, just give it a whirl and see what effect it has.

My experience in sanding fine scratches is that you need to work through the grits in sequence until each grit has removed all scratches made by the previous grit. The 'tough' bit, in my view, is getting the paint even with the surface. I think the only real key is to go very slowly. I haven't done particularly large areas - mostly tiny chips - and in my case the amount of paper touching the paint was about the width of a match head. And still it left a hazy area about 1/2" across. The polish cleans these up like they weren't even there. Couple of wraps of soft cloth over a fingertip, 20 seconds of rubbing in small circles, and that's it. The polish itself couldn't be simpler to use. Just keep in mind it is still an abrasive, so trying to use it to even out a paint blob may actually result in you removing some clearcoat before you know it.

BD

Bradley Walker wrote:

Thanks for that info. Do you know if chain stores will carry that? Walmart, AutoZone, etc?

No, sorry. Never seen it anywhere.

I learned something from a pro shop that not many paint pros share with people and the scuff marks and scratchs on their cars:

lipstick.

Yeah, it sounds odd, but it does work. Just buff it in and wipe away, but keep in mind that the larger the scratch/scuff, the less likely it will work.

Weird. I imagine that the stuff has _some_ wax content, but what about color matching? Y'd think that would be an issue...

You would think, but I saw the guy use a deep red on white paint, and it didn't seem to matter.