Question about a scratch

[Candyman]

hey Chris,

Ok, lets see if we can get that scratch taken care of.

1. First wash your quarter panel down to remove any dirt, or other related material from your paint surface.

2. Next since you have a small dent your going to have to fill it using your spot putty., but before you can do that your going to have to scuff the surface so the putty has something to adhere to. A lot of guys like to use Scotch Bright Pads for this because their relatively cheap and easy to find. If you choose to use these, I recommend using the red ones. You can also use sand paper with the main goal being to wind up with a uniform dull surface, and remove any surface rust or contamination. What you want to wind up with is a sanded surface that is only about 4-6"" around where your scratch is at the most.

3. After your done sanding, your ready to fill the scratch. Grab a plastic body filler spreader (putty knife), add a little spot putty to it and fill over the small dent in a nice smooth motion.

4. Once the putty dries, you need to sand it down with 380-400 grit wet/dry sandpaper. When sanding spot putty its a good idea to sand it wet by dunking the sandpaper in a bowl of water. This will help keep the paper from loading up allowing you to use it longer. Keep another bottle of clean water to rinse and check your progress as you go, in conjunction with feeling the area with your hand. Continue to sand until you start to see the scratch come through and the area is completely smooth to the touch.

5. once you have the area smooth, do one more rinse with clean water and dry it with a clean microfiber towel, and then your ready to tape off the area to prep it for paint. As you already know, just mask off an area no bigger than 4-6" from where the scratch was. Make sure the entire area is smooth, and completely uniformly dull. Tape off the area, using appropriate masking tape, and newspaper, and be extra sure to make the area good to prevent any overspray. I would mask the entire quarter to the top of the quarter window all the way down to the wheel, and over partly into the trunk, and rear door to prevent spray from getting onto surrounding areas if you might catch a breeze while shooting. Also grab a trash bag and place it over your wheel to prevent overspray on that as well. Here is an example on mine except on yours you will want to mask around where the primered area is to prep for just painting that area instead of the whole quarter.


6. Now you are going to need to shoot some primer over the repaired area to promote paint adhesion and prevent bleed through from where the spot putty is. I recommend using a good primer/surfacer, and I would shoot at least 3 paper thin coats to make sure you have good coverage allowing a good 5 minutes flash time between coats. Many Primer/Surfacers are one step products that do not require sanding, however depending on what you have in the kit you may have to go back over it. If this is the case, you will want to lightly sand with 400 grit paper again. Use the paper wet like before, rinse, and this time wipe down with a good Wax/Silicon Remover and a tack cloth to remove any dirt and contaminants from the surface prior to paint.

7. Now were on to the fun part. Following the maker’s directions, mix the paint with thinner. Use disposable plastic droppers (from the hobby shop) to draw up paint, then thinner, and plastic into a small mixing container. Use separate droppers for thinner, and for different colors, to avoid contamination. Mix the paint with a toothpick or similar. Note: do not pour paint from the bottle into the mixing container! This generally leaves dried paint on the bottle rim. The dried paint makes it hard to close the bottle properly, but worse, pieces will fall into the paint. This dried paint can clog the airbrush nozzle! Always test spray! Make this a part of your routine. You never know how the initial spray will come out of the nozzle, it will sometimes make a big mess. Test spray and then make any adjustments to the airbrush, or to the paint mix. Then test again. Including when spraying a repeat coat, as paint may have dried on the nozzle between coats. Not test spraying is a common mistake that people make when learning how to airbrush, but it only takes one ruined paint session to change your way.

Now that you’ve test sprayed, time for the real thing. Always start and stop the spray off or away from your panel. This will result in even coverage of your paint. It will also give you time to abort if you see something strange like paint splatter, and so on before you ruin the paint coat.

Hold the airbrush at an angle to the model, about 8 - 10 inches away. Again, a test spray on another piece of wood, or preferably metal will help you get a good starting point. Move smoothly and at an easy pace. (Be careful to not tip over the airbrush too far, or paint may spill from the color cup).

Your first coat will be just a light dusting. Make several passes, but do not attempt to actually cover completely with color. Just go for a uniform light dust of paint. Follow the manufacturer’s recommendation on length of time between coats. I usually wait 20-30 min for acrylics and a hour for enamels. The follow-up coats can be much more “wet” than the first coat, but you should still expect to take at least 3-4 coats to get good even color coverage.

Always remember the number one rule in anything paint....TAKE YOUR TIME!

Once you have shot 3 - 4 coats of color, then follow up accordingly with a good 3 - 4 coats of clear.

8. Once you let the paint dry for a minimum 24 hours, then you are ready to remove your making and move on to color sanding the new paint out. To color sand, you will need some 1000 - 1500 grit Wet/Dry Sand paper. Once again you will want to use the paper wet, and sand the area to a uniform dull appearance, and it should feel ultra smooth to the touch. As with the paint, take your time on this process, moving outward from your repaired area slightly to blend into the existing paint better.

9. Once you have color sanded everything out, then you can move on to compounding the area which can be done by hand, but is much better with a high speed rotary buffer due to higher heat and friction which just does a much better job of it. Then follow up with a good glaze, and wax.

Luckily your color is not too hard to match up. Their will most likely be a very slight color difference, but the overall job should turn out fairly decent.

That is pretty much it, but as always, if you have any more questions, please let me know and I will try to answer them as best I can.

Go easy, good luck with the project, be sure to post pic's, and I will catch you later.

Candyman

[chris15]

Haha thank you for the extremely detailed response. Maybe Crewzin will sticky this as I'm sure a lot of people have had scratches, wanted to repair them themselves but ultimately just taken it somewhere to have it done.

My only question is: could the paint/primer process be done using an airbrush? I know a gravity-fed or HVLP gun is much more ideal, but I'm on the outs with my dad at the moment and have been denied access to his garage for the time being.

[Candyman]

Hey Chris,

No problem. I usually wind up going off into big detail when doing write ups as I try to play everything out step by step in my head as to how I would do it. Its funny that no matter how many times I go to do one of these, I still wind up editing it a good 3 - 4 times cause of things I forgot along the way. LOL. I guess you can say I am never totally satisfied!:

Anyways, sorry to hear you got locked out of the garage, although I recon your still one step ahead of me as my garage is a makeshift tent which loves to shed tarp droppings all over my clean paint all the time

To answer your question, yep, you can do it all by Air Brush. It is always better to use a gravity feed gun but then again, its nice to have a fully enclosed booth with a good compressor with a water trap, and heaters to bake the paint as well, but you got to use what you got. Like I say, the biggest thing is to go slow, and easy, and not get into a rush! Also make really sure to watch carefully as when shooting the primer as it usually might be a bit thicker consistency and tends to like to clog the tip more than the paint so keep an eye on it. And make double sure to really clean out your gun before switching over to paint. Remember to keep doing test patches before shooting your next coat to always make sure your tip is good to go, and you should be fine. Does that answer your question?

One last question for ya, since you got locked out of the garage, are you going to go for shooting outside or? If you do, make really sure to wet down as far as you can to help keep the dust and other contaminants from getting under the fresh paint while your spraying.

Go easy, andd good luck!

Candyman

[chris15]

I definitely understand where you're coming from. I thoroughly enjoy the Edit option as well!

Firstly, sorry to hear about your tent. :P I've at least got a garage I can pull into. :P Unfortunately, it's not the one with all the tools/equipment.. haha.

Secondly, yes, you answered my question to the T.

And thirdly, I haven't quite decided yet. I'm located in Florida (about 10 minutes away from Crewzin, actually) and it's quite hot/humid.. talking 90+ degrees and upwards of 80% humidity at times. Would you mind giving me tips on what to do/ensure is done for an outside paint job as well as inside of a garage?

By the way, I didn't see your original post before your detailed response. I wasn't being impatient, just remarking because you typically answer very quickly on these boards. I appreciate your time and understand you've got things to take care of yourself as well. Thanks again!

[Candyman]

Hey Chris,

No problem! I have a couple of paint projects in the mill, and am trying to find time in between to work on my ride as well. No rest for the weary! LOL

I know where you are at then. I used to run out to Florida quite a bit when I was working for Fed Ex. The last time I was up their, they had just opened the big bridge back up after redoing it all a few years ago. I do have to admit, driving an 80,000 truck across that way long temporary floating bridge was kinda an experience! I don't miss the heat, and humidity though. Although we were 103 with 50% here today so were getting nice and toasty as well. At any rate, it surely makes an ice cold beer that much better at the end of the day!

Anyways, basically you just want to create the cleanest environment you can possibly make. If your outside, make sure you wet everything you can wet, or wash down to try to prevent dirt from getting under the paint. Try to stay away from roads where you got cars passing by all the time kicking up dust, and so on. Also watch for any wind as it will carry all kinds of dust, and other contaminants which could reek havoc on an otherwise decent paint job..

That is why inside is much better if you can swing it. If you decide to shoot inside, its basically the same thing. You will want to wash, or rinse down everything to try to keep dust to a minimum. Way back in the day I used to do some makeshift spray booths out of friends garages by lining them out with painters plastic from the ceiling, walls, floor, and then duck tape all the seams to create a kind of seal which worked pretty decent for painting whole cars in. Of course not great if you do it regularly cause of the fumes, but for small jobs here and their, it worked pretty good.

Like I say, just a clean environment as possible so your fresh sticky paint doesn't get all messed up with dirt, and flies of which both are well known for ruining otherwise decent paint work.

Here is what ya really need.



I know...in a perfect world, right? For bigger projects though, you can actually rent a booth from most body shops by the hour if you need a better place to do a job.

Anyways, go easy, and let me know if you have any more questions, and I will be more than happy to try to help any way I can. Talk to you later.

Candyman