Scratched Finishes and Dented Relationships

line-x the whole thing

On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:57:25 -0700, Desert Guy found these unused words floating about:

Take her with you and get her into l;ooking at the "birds, a few rodents, a gila monster" ! Maybe (if she hasn't one) get her a digital camera. They go nuts woth "look=it!"

Off road racing stripes! Rubbing compound is really too course --- I'd stick with polishing compound and a 2 speed polisher. A good coat of wax will reduce damage.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, J. A. Mc. at snipped-for-privacy@gbr.online.com wrote on 2/26/06 8:50 AM:

Just keep doing it. You already depreciated the s*it out of the truck; it's yours now, so use it for what you bought it for and enjoy it!

What color is it? I bought a silver '06 partly in hopes it would hide scratches better in the long run... i get out on the logging roads some. My dark green Jeep showed everything it touched!

-jeff

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 07:03:35 GMT, Jeff Olsen found these unused words floating about:

Silver Mist hides quite a few of my 'desert pin-stripes' ...

DG,

Thanks....gave me a good laugh tonight !

I bought my '04 Tundra new....spent a lot of money on it (donated my long-since-paid-for '91 Ranger)...I'm not any kind of off-road guy, but for the first few months, I had trouble "adjusting" to the Tundra's size and steering radius when parking in the garage at work. I put some pretty nasty scrapes in the front bumper. The touch-up paint made it look even worse ! After creasing the front panel, spent $500 to have it repaired and repainted...looked great !

A few months later, I backed into my outside A/C unit at the house and scraped the crap out of the rear fender flare and panel....after screaming "YOU IDIOT !" several times, I said "Wait a minute....it's a TRUCK, for crying out loud ! Even if it rides better than my cars, it's a freakin TRUCK !"

I'm much calmer now...in fact, the last time I had it in to Toyota for

Keep telling your wife to chill out....I know, easier said than done !

Dean...

Desert Guy wrote:

Forget trying to figure it out, this is classic 'Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars' stuff. Just nod your head and respond with a "Yes, Dear" at the appropriate times. If you think you understand, that's a sign you're REALLY lost.

No, that generic touch up in a nail-polish bottle is probably not going to cut it - they never get the color match quite right. Hopefully you bought a truck with regular paint finish and not a Metallic or Clear-Coat.

The Clear Coat you can duplicate with a little more effort and another layer of Clear on top. But a Metallic is an absolute bear to patch because you have to do the entire panel /and/ duplicate the direction the factory paint was sprayed in to get the 'lay' of the metallic particles to match. Otherwise you park in the sun and the odd reflections off the patched area will be glaringly (pun intended) obvious. For Metallics you can do all the prep work yourself, but let a professional shooter at a body shop do the color "Money Coat" to get it right the first time.

You can have an auto paint supplier mix you up a quart or two of the right paint color for the truck, a quart of the right primer, the thinners and reducers you need, an assortment of Wet-N-Dry sandpaper, and a tube of glazing putty to build up the scratches without multiple paint and sand layers. A touch-up spray gun can be had at Harbor Freight, and you needed an air compressor around the house anyway.

Set aside one free weekend day and you can sand clean, prime, sand, spot putty, sand, and put on a color coat. Which will look like heck up close (until you develop the touch with the gun), but fine if you back up five feet to look at the results. And it will prevent rust from getting a foothold.

- it's like clear Rhino Lining. But fix the paint underneath first, it will show through.

And since she's the one complaining, she can help with the wet sanding and the putty work. Saves your money buying an air sander.

You could... (reads the sentence all the way through) Um, nevermind.

This is why you have to choose wisely - Did she have a truck and a bass boat or a motorcycle before you married her? If she's not the "outdoors type" and you are, you don't have a common frame of reference on this stuff. You may have to develop one. ;-)

Take her with you and go out mud-whompin' or up to the top of the most spectacular vista in the state. And get her to drive for a while, teach her when to back off and when to go "Balls To The Wall" so you don't roll or get stuck - it just might prove to be contagious.

And don't forget to teach her the basics - like NEVER hook your thumbs inside the rim of the steering wheel, unless you want broken thumbs when the wheel kicks. Hands at 10 and 2, but drive like you have mittens on.

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On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:57:25 -0700, Desert Guy spat out the following

Thanks for a great set of replies. Very entertaining, and very helpful as well.

Everything is relatively OK now, it was just her initial shock, which I can completely understand.

Love my new truck. I'm really having a lot of fun. We're taking it to go hiking together this weekend, so she can experience the scratching first hand!

Desert Guy