Removing/correcting bad touch-up jobs?

G

gswearengin

New member
Ye detailing gods, :)



I probably should have known there was a good chance I would be posting a thread like this before I started, but oh well. Anyway, so I tried to touch up a few paint chips this weekend, and a lot of them went badly.



The first issue is that I had a VW/Audi paint pen, and I wasn't very impressed with it. I was trying to do the toothpick method, but it was really hard to get enough paint (and especially clear) for it to work right. So, I now have some sortof splotchy gray-ish areas on my black car. They really don't look that terrible, but I would like to correct it, if possible.



A similar/related issue is that I wasn't really able to get the touch-up paint blobs to sand down as much as I would have liked. So, two of the areas that even went pretty well still have tiny raised areas. I wasn't feeling brave enough to really attack them with my 2000 grit (3m) sandpaper



Honestly, everything finished down pretty well...I was able to get rid of most of the wetsanding marks, so I think the issue is more in the application of the touch-up paint than in the finishing. There were some "pre-touched up" areas (done before I got the car) that I was able to sand down and polish, and they look great, despite the fact that they used black touch-up paint on a color with lots of metallic flake in it. This is my first time doing this, so I am both disappointed in the results and encouraged to try again.



I would love to hear any suggestions you guys may have about what I could do to improve these areas!



:thx



Gary
 
D'oh...can't figure out how to upload my crappy cell phone pics to my webspace. I don't think it's operator error...I will have to figure something else out, hopefully soon.



Thanks,



Gary
 
gswearengin- Doing decent (let alone good) touchups on metallics is *VERY* hard. I'm simply awful at it, but I'm still better than a lot of people ;) My one painter is a miracle-worker, dunno how he does it :nixweiss



I do best with very small artist's brushes rather than toothpicks, matches, or any other improvised tools. That's also what my painter uses, but he's simply gifted, or talented, or...whatever he is.



Lacquer thinner will remove touchups but it can mess up the surrounding paint if there was any post-production paintwork (which you might not otherwise notice).



I've been using Langka's Blob Remover to remove touchups with good results, but I hear it's just lacquer thinner mixed with a mild abrasive. Whatever it is, it works pretty well for me.
 
One of the thing which works is to use the body shop paint. After a repair, I always ask them for the left over paint. This is lot thinner than the typical touch-up paint that you buy at dealer or part store. It does not have clear mixed in it. After using 3000 grit paper on touched up spots using the body shop paint, it matches lot better (even on metallic) than the paint from the dealer supplied bottle. With the dealer supplied paint, you can NOT sand it down as it shifts color. Dealer paint is also way thicker to apply without resulting in blobs.



Last year I touched up lot of scratches using the body shop paint. When it ran out, I bought the touch-up bottle from the dealer. When I used my previously successful method with the dealer paint, I got horrible color shifting. After another unfortunate incident, I got more body shop paint and I tried it again and it worked quite well.



The spot with body shop paint looks very flat after drying but after using 3000 grit paper and M105 it blends in nicely.



I have not tried to thin the dealer touch-up paint. I wonder if it will work similarly.



- Vikas
 
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