Clean The Scratch Area
Before applying color on the paint scratch, clean that area carefully. Otherwise, it will become patchy. You can use soap or car shampoo for washing that area. Always use sandpaper. In some cases, many people use grease remover which is effective for rusty auto paint areas.
Primer is applied to the places where uncovered metal or plastic is showing. Thin coats of the primer are used for this purpose. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes for drying out. Enamel primer may cause peeling out of the paint. So it should not be used.
Find The Biggest Chip Nick Or Scratch
If this is the first time youve attempted car paint touch-up work, chances are youve got quite a few chips, nicks and scratches in your vehicles paint job to choose from. Start by doing a thorough examination of the entire painted surface, and identify the biggest, ugliest flaws. Youll be fixing these first. Once youve learned the process and gotten some practice, you can come back and fix the small stuff.
Use A High Quality Touch Up Paint Repair Kit
If you dont have properly matched and high quality paint and all the tools you need then youre wasting your time.
A good touch up paint repair kit will be matched to your car or trucks exact paint color, will include clear coat, and will include a method of smoothing out the touch up paint.
We recommend getting your touch up kit from PaintScratch.com and choosing the touch up pen option.
You can get a perfect match to your paint color by providing them your paint code. If you dont know what it is you can easily;find your paint code from the database on the PaintScratch.com website.
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Practice And Test The Color Match
The point of practicing is to get used to the flow of car paint. Touch up pens are my preferred tool. If you havent tested how the paint flows from the pen you can easily apply too much paint. This might seem like a step you can skip but its worth taking the 30 seconds it takes to make sure you get a feel for the paint flow. Trust me.
Apply a bit of your chosen touch up paint to something with a shiny surface that you can use to compare the color to your car or truck finish. A porcelain mug is a good test object.
Once Dry Finish With Products
You can then apply polish;to the paintwork to protect it and choose a suitable wax product to keep it looking good after this.
The repair job at ChipsAway is finished with a professional polish using a machine, to really get the paint glowing!
We hope this gives you some helpful pointers if you are considering touching up your cars paint, as well as some advice as to when its best to have professional work done. If youd like someone from ChipsAway to assess the damage on your car for scratch or dent removal and provide a free, no-obligation quote, please complete our online form.
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Where Do I Get Touch Up Paint
You can purchase touch up paint at your local auto parts shop. Sometimes, you can also purchase it at the car dealership. More common colors should be readily available. Just make sure you have your correct color code on hand. If your car color is more unique, you may need to call ahead to verify that the store has it in stock. If they dont, they might need to order it in.
Never order a generic color for your touch-up paint! With that, you run the risk of it not matching your cars original paint color at all.
Prepping The Car For Paint
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What Is A Car Paint Touch Up
A car paint touch up is a quick and easy way to fix scratches, chips, and other small damages that have left a mark on the body of your car. It requires a few supplies, such as sandpaper, soft rags, and the paint itself, but the full repair can be finished in three hours max. Kits are available that include all the items youll need, and you can get all the gear with a quick stop at a local AutoZone store.
How To Touch Up Paint On Car Surfaces
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Keep Your Work Area Clean So Your Vehicle Touch Up Jobs Go Smoothly
This may seem like a no-brainer, but a dirty workspace will ruin a paint job in seconds. Keep dirty buckets of water, paint cans, and tools away from the car that you are painting. Dont store anything nearby that could fall on the car and make sure that you wont be able to accidentally blow dust or grit onto freshly painted surfaces.
Best Car Paint Chip Repair Kit
There are different types of touch up kits available on the market and many work quite well. The main differences are in how the touch up paint is applied. Some use a touch up pen, which is my personal preference. Some provide or require a brush. Others may even require special equipment to spray the touch up paint.
PaintScratch.com provides what I consider to be the most appropriate and comprehensive package of options available for touching up your automotive paint. You can choose whether you want to use a touch up pen, brush, or spray. Also, they offer primer in these forms as an option if you need it. Not to mention, they have a color match guarantee and use PPG car paints.
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Clean And Prepare The Area
First, clean the entire area of the scratch with the dishwashing liquid, and ensure its clear of debris.
Then, youll use the toothpaste. Whitening toothpaste is actually a polishing agent. Thats why it whitens our teeth. It acts as a very fine-grit wet sandpaper, and is perfect for buffing out minor scratches.
Cover the entire scratch with toothpaste, and buff it with a clean cloth. Rinse it off again. If you only had a minor scratch, it may already be gone! If not, continue to the next step.
How To Touch Up Car Paint Chips To Avoid Rusting
May 12, 2021
Paint chips, sometimes called rock chips, are unfortunately fairly common. These;small chips in your cars or trucks paint start off small and innocent enough. But if left as is, they can cause serious and costly damage to your vehicle. With time and weather exposure, a small paint chip will evolve into a rusty, corroded spot on your car that will need professional expertise to fix. Before it gets to that point, you can touch up your car paint chips yourself, saving time and money and restoring your cars paint job to excellent condition.
Touching up car paint chips is simple. With a few tools and a little time, you can repair those chips and prevent further damage to your vehicle. Below, we give you a step-by-step guide to touching up paint chips on your own car. Lets get started.
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Minor Car Scratch Repair
Car paint repair starts with knowing how deep the damage goes. Your cars paint isnt a singular homogenous mass. It starts with a primer on top of the rust-preventing electro-coat, followed by the base and mid coats, which add the color. Then the clear coat, which provides the reflective shine as well as physical and UV protection, goes on top.
Some damage stops at the clear coat, which simplifies the car paint and scratch repair. Much like with headlight restoration, the basic process involves smoothing out and filling in the imperfections, Popular Mechanics explains. And, for safety, its best done in an open and ventilated area.
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After washing and masking off the area, use 800-grit sandpaper to sand down the rough area, Advance Auto Parts explains. Then wipe it clean with isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber towel. After that, spray clear coatwhich can be purchased in aerosol spray cansover it repeatedly. Then, once its dried completely, use 2000-grit sandpaper to wet-sand the area.
Some car paint repair is less about fixing scratches and more about restoration and correction. Removing very minor scratches, swirl marks, orange peel, and so on. For that, The Drive recommends using polishing kits, which usually come with several buffing pads and compounds. 3M, Chemical Guys, Meguiars, and Automotive Touchup are some of the best-known brands.
Wash Sand And Rinse The Area
Give the area immediately around the chip, nick or scratch a thorough wash with water, soap and a sponge. Its important to remove all residual, oil, grime and dust from the spot youll be touching up or your primer and paint wont stick. Rinse off all soap residue when youre done. Lightly sand the chip with 220 grit paper until its bare, clean metal, with no hints of rust anywhere. Then rinse the dust off and let it dry completely.
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Car Paint Layers Explained
Before we get started we need to make sure you understand the different layers of paint on your car or truck.
The first layer applied to the metal or plastic of the body of your vehicle is primer. Primer is a type of car paint that is designed to bond well with the metal or plastic and give the colored car paint an ideal surface to be applied on.
The next layer is the colored paint. There are usually several layers of this paint.
The final layer is the clear coat. Clear coat is essentially a protective layer. It allows the colored paint to show through but creates a sacrificial layer above that small scratches and chips will now show as badly.
Scratches that only affect the clear coat can usually be polished out and wont need touch up car paint. 3M makes a;great scratch removal kit;which can be ideal for dealing with small issues in your clear coat.
Scratches that go through the clear coat down to the color can possibly get away with simply applying some clear coat touch up but more often than not will need a layer or two of touch up paint applied.
Scratches and chips that dig through to the primer will need touch up paint and clear coat.
Scratches that expose bare metal or plastic will require a layer of primer before applying touch up paint and clear coat.
Also, if bare metal has been exposed rust has likely begun and will need to be removed prior to applying primer.
Wash The Vehicle Before Paint Touch Up
You really cant tell anything about the damage to the paint if the vehicle is not clean. Beyond that, you will only damage the paint further by driving road grit into the paint as you try and repair the damaged paint. Grit and surface grime will also impede applied paint from adhering properly.
Always wash the car thoroughly and then wipe the affected area clean with a microfiber towel and some rubbing alcohol. This is the basic prep that you will need to do in any situation where the paint needs to be corrected.
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Apply Clear Coat And Wet Sand
After letting the paint dry overnight, spray clear coat over the painted area, keeping the coating as even and free of runs as possible. Once youve coated the entire touch-up area with clear coat, let it dry overnight again, then wet sand it. Start with 1500 grit paper, then work your way right up to 3000 grit, keeping the surface wet the whole time. Rinse off any clear coat residue, and the job is done.
I like to add one more layer of clear coat for extra protection. After this second coat dries, do a little very light wet sanding with 3000 grit paper.
How Do You Touch Up Scratches On A Car
If the scratches on the car are not deep, you could benefit from using a Car Scratch Remover. With a very easy application, you can often fix shallow scratches. The product will also restore the gloss and finish if used with the sponge, and it is advertised as being safe on all car finishes. However, if the scratches are deep and large, this product may not help.
With that said, the same steps used to touch up paint chips can be used to touch up scratches as well.
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The Clear Coat Scratch
If you steam clean the scratch and it disappears, that means its a clear coat scratch. Steam cleaning is no longer limited to the engine housing. Its now available to maintain the car body. This scratch repair is fairly easy and requires only some light tools.
Heres how…
Get some very fine grit sandpaper like 5000 grid
Spray steam on the surface of the scratch and spray water on the sandpaper
Then put on wax paste and rub it in and youre good to go
Clean The Car Paint Chips
This is a typical rock chip that you can fix with this procedure. In fact, even if the chip is about one-fourth the size of a dime, you can still repair it. Clean the chip with soap and water and then dry it with a soft cotton cloth. Rub a dab of automotive polishing compound over the chip to gently soften any ragged edges. Just a dozen swirls or so will do the job. Too much rubbing could damage the clearcoat over the paint and make a cloudy mess.
Has your car suffered a scratch as opposed to a chip? Find out how to repair car paint scratches here.
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Can You Sand Touch Up Paint
The short answer is it wont hurt to sand the touch-up paint, however, there are some things that you should consider prior to getting out your sanding tools.;Here are some questions that you can ask:
Did you avoid dirt and particles sticking to the surface between coats? If you did, then there is no need to sand between the coats which will save you lots of time.;
Did you apply the touch-up paint evenly? If so, then there is no reason to sand. Sanding is done in order to make sure your touch up paint is smooth with the older paint. If this is already the case, then it would be redundant to sand.
Know Types Of Car Paint Color
About 100,000 types of car paint colors are available in the market. First of all, you have to choose your desired color. You also need color tools for painting perfectly. After buying color, examine the quality of the color. You can test the color painting on the surface of metal or old pictures.
Test either the color matches with the previous color or not. It is difficult to find a perfect match of the color. If the color doesnt match, you have to wash it off again. Using a clear coat or primer with the color may cause a color mismatch.You can also lighten or darken the color paint by adjusting the position of the spray from the surface. You need to do frequent practice for this.
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