How To Use Touch Up Paint Properly?

[West]

Hi

Has anyone successfully use Touch Up paint? What's the proper way of doing it? I have a small tube of Touch up paint and another one is Clear but i'm a bit nervous to use it .....

Cheers

[Hadouken]

Clean the area with isopropyl alcohol, let dry, apply paint, let it dry then apply clear.

Easy peasy

[GTR-N1]

Firstly shake it up properly.

I don't mind being corrected by an experienced painter, but depending on whether you're touching up a chip, a scrape or a scratch; my applicators can vary from a minute artist's camel hair brush to a cotton bud to a toothpick. The brush on the Touch Up Paint canister isn't always the best applicator.

The surface should be clean and dry.

With a chip for instance, I steady my hand by placing the base of the hand on the panel as a brace and then put an appropriate sized drop on the chip and very slightly overfill the hole. When it dries, the paint settles to become more or less level.

I'll let someone else describe the sanding and application of clear.

[Shoota_77]

Terry is totally on the right track.

It's important to take your time and do it over a day to build up the paint level slowly. Less is more with touch ups. Try to keep all of the paint within the chip so you're not overlapping too much, especially your first 2-3 layers. Once you're back to slightly over the paint depth on the rest of the panel it's time to crack out the sand paper.

The best way to do it (IMO) is to get the little 3M sticky dots that are designed for this task. They're about the size of a 50c coin. Peel off the backing tape and stick the dot to the lid of a softdrink bottle. This gives you a perfect rubbing tool as it's slightly rounded yet keeps your sanding surface relatively flat.

Spit on the sand paper side (sticks better than water!) and with circular motions sand back the raised repair back to level. Keep it wet and only apply very light pressure.

You then need to rub back the repair and surrounding area with cut and polish. Then fine cut cleaner and then finally with a crystal finish (super fine polish).

Make sure you 'blend' in the repair to the surrounding panel over lets say a 40cm area. You'll be a lot less likely to notice the repair this way.

Personally I never worry about the clear coat. If the repair is done properly you won't need it.

[West]

Cheers guys

Never thought touch up paint can be so painful to use ..... I'm being a lazy prick here hehe.

[iwanta34gtr]

I've had success with touching up with the brush, then sanding down the area i painted with 2000 wet and dry a few days later, then buffing it in with a light compound, followed by the standard polish and wax to bring back the shine.

Few ways of doing it - trial and error. If your not happy with the result, you can always remove what you have painted with a standard cutting compound.

[iwanta34gtr]

That being said, if the car is a good car of yours - dont practise wet sanding on it, that might have been a bit of bum advice.

[GTR-N1]

  On 18/05/2012 at 10:39 AM, West said:

Cheers guys

Never thought touch up paint can be so painful to use ..... I'm being a lazy prick here hehe.

Put 1x chip, 1x scrape and 1x scratch on your mother-in-law's car when she ain't lookin'

...then practise with a brush, a cotton bud and a toothpick when she is.

She'll think the world of you and become convinced that you're not lazy after all.

[Excuses]

  On 18/05/2012 at 1:17 PM, Terry_GT-R34 said:

Put 1x chip, 1x scrape and 1x scratch on your mother-in-law's car when she ain't lookin'

...then practise with a brush, a cotton bud and a toothpick when she is.

She'll think the world of you and become convinced that you're not lazy after all.

I did that with a computer my mother in law had, to prove i actually know what im doing.

Now she expects me to fix her laptop all the time because shes too lazy to run proper anti virus programs!

[asps91]

  On 18/05/2012 at 7:23 AM, Shoota_77 said:

Terry is totally on the right track.

It's important to take your time and do it over a day to build up the paint level slowly. Less is more with touch ups. Try to keep all of the paint within the chip so you're not overlapping too much, especially your first 2-3 layers. Once you're back to slightly over the paint depth on the rest of the panel it's time to crack out the sand paper.

The best way to do it (IMO) is to get the little 3M sticky dots that are designed for this task. They're about the size of a 50c coin. Peel off the backing tape and stick the dot to the lid of a softdrink bottle. This gives you a perfect rubbing tool as it's slightly rounded yet keeps your sanding surface relatively flat.

Spit on the sand paper side (sticks better than water!) and with circular motions sand back the raised repair back to level. Keep it wet and only apply very light pressure.

You then need to rub back the repair and surrounding area with cut and polish. Then fine cut cleaner and then finally with a crystal finish (super fine polish).

Make sure you 'blend' in the repair to the surrounding panel over lets say a 40cm area. You'll be a lot less likely to notice the repair this way.

Personally I never worry about the clear coat. If the repair is done properly you won't need it.

This method works really well if done correctly, darker colour cars a mutch easier to do this with, silver is the hardest. A little tip.... bicycle tyre repair kits have these steel tools (used to get the tyre of the wheel) that act great as a little sanding block with little surface area that is level and easy to control. You should also use 2500 grit wet and try for this job... and soapy water works just as well as spit

[GTR-N1]

  On 18/05/2012 at 11:02 PM, Excuses said:

I did that with a computer my mother in law had, to prove i actually know what im doing.

Now she expects me to fix her laptop all the time because shes too lazy to run proper anti virus programs!

Well I never said that mothers-in-law were dumb

But lazy + dumb would I admit, be a bad combo