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Paint-chip Repair Guide (2/28/2004)
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Several days ago, I picked up a real bad rock-chip. It was a big one, took it almost down to the bare metal, exposing the black primer under the paint. So I decided to just write a simple guide on how to repair paint-chip with factory touchup repair paint.

There's two parts to this guide, the first is the use of the factory touchup and the second is the polishing.

Here's some of the stuff you'll need:
1) 1000 & 2000 grit wet/dry sanding paper.
2) Wooden chopstick
3) Toothpick
4) Rubbing alcohol
5) Single hole-puncher
6) Tack cloth
7) Silicone glue
8) Masking tape
9) Pencil w/ good easer
10) Touchup Paint (factory or aftermarket, make sure it is color match)

First, you need to make some sanding sticks. Use the hole-puncher and knock out some 1000/2000 grit circles. Then use the glue and tack them to several chopstick ends like this picture. Label the sticks so you know which is which.

Than tape off the area you want to work on. Make sure you have most of the good surface taped up. But you need to make sure the bad edge is available for you to work on. (Sorry, the above photos show that I applied touchup to the area. But it gives a good idea of how to tape off the area).

Now, clean up the area with rubbing alcohol real good. Use the tack cloth if you need to make sure everything is picked out of that hole.

Start with the 1000 grit stick; start to sand the edge and the hole itself. Sand in small area and try not to overlap into the good surface. Move to the 2000 grit stick and sand it even more. This is wet/dry... so I kept my little area wet with water to make sure I'm not rubbing paint particle into the hole.

After sanding, clean the area again with rubbing alcohol and let it air dry. Use of heat gun is also recommended if you have it.

Get some foil and make a little cup to hold the touchup paint. You want a small amount to work with at a time and never right out of the bottle. Shake the paint up real good to get a good mix, than put some down into the foil cup. Use the toothpick and apply a small layer into the chip. What works best is to dab the area with the point of the toothpick that has a drop of touchup on it... never use the stupid brush that the touchup comes with.

Let the paint dry, then apply another coat. Keep this up until you have a nice little bum above the good surface. Make sure you overlap the edge where the paint has cracked from the chip. After several layers, looking at it flat with the surface, you should be able to see the touchup paint bum out of the surface. Now, let the whole thing air dry for 24 hours.

Once it's all dry up, look at it again and you will notice that the paint has shrink, very common for touchup paint. Use the 2000 grit stick and sand the touchup paint a little. Since there's a bum, you should be able to sand just the paint... but make sure you sand the whole area so the new layer of touchup will bond. Again, do several layers.

You keep this up until you bring the touchup paint flat with the other surface paint. If you are happy as it stands, than you have finish.

If you touchup is color match, the look should be pretty close... but never prefect. No touchup will ever match the original paint job and bend into it. And any apply touchup will never be smooth as the paint surface... because touchup is apply with a toothpick, not sprayed on. So while far area to the untrained eye, it'll look fine... a closer look will always bring out the touchup.

For me, it was not good enough... so polishing is the next. To understand polishing, you have to understand how modern paint is applied to automotive. While what I'm about to tell you is just a summary of painting detail... it's good enough for you to understand how polishing works.

Modern auto painting is a process of layering. It starts with a primer coat, which is usually black. Than several bases coat which is the color of the car. So if your car is 'red', the base coat is 'red'. What would change this is 'metal flakes'. If your car is a 'red metallic' color, the base coat would be 'red' with 'red metal flakes' mixed in with it. The last coat is about 2-3 layers of clear coat, which is the protection layer.

Clear coating of automotive paint is probably the most unknown part of the painting process. The common mistake most have about clear coat is that it's just a clear layer of protection for the paint. While in a sense it's true, there is one more thing that clear coating does for the paint... it brings out the shine in your base coat so that you get that wet look.

Base coat does not shine... I don't care what you add to it. Paint is flat, flakes or no flakes. The best way to understand this is with the 'water on rock' example. If you have something that is dull looking, like a piece of rock. By pouring water onto it, you give it a shine... thus it's a 'wet' look. A clear coat is just that, a long-term water effect on your car base coat. That's why long term weathering of any automotive paint will destroy the clear coat, thus give your car a dull... none shine look.

Another thing to understand is that there is no repair for a clear coat. It is something that will disappear in due time... no matter what you apply to protect it. Every time you wax it (some wax does not destory clear-coat anymore), wash it, clean it... you are taking some of that clear coat off the base paint. That is why automotive company layer on the clear coat with 2-3 layers... to give you a longer base coat protection. But what you can do with a clear coat is polish it to bring out the shine again.

Polishing is a process of taking off a layer of the clear coat, destroying the top layer which may have discolored, scratched, etc. While polishing is not for the faint of heart because doing it wrong will result in 'base coat burn', which means you just polished yourself right into the base coat. Yes, that's BAD.

Without getting into more detail in paint, just understand that polishing may result in you damaging your paint job... so make sure you're ready for it before following my steps.

Still want to do it???? All right, here we go....

We will back track to the chip repair real quick. Remember that we just applied several layers of touchup and that the touchup paint is now above the paint surface. Since I want the area to blend as much as possible and also to be flat (and smooth) with the rest of the surface... I need to sand it. I went ahead and started to sand the touchup paint down and also to sand part of the good paint surface around the chip... making sure to overlap the area with the sanding. This is for blending the touchup and original paint.

Use 2000 grit only with water, since you don’t need 1000 grit to sand down the touchup. Also use a sanding block of some kind to give you a flat surface-to-surface contact for the sanding paper. Your hand will never do since your flash will always go over the touchup paint without rubbing it down.

Once the touchup is flat with the rest of the surface, you will notice that you have a dull finish in the area. This is normal because we just damaged the clear coat in the process of sanding down the touchup. Yes, we wanted to do this.

Next is polishing of the area to bring back the wet look. The next couple steps are destroying of the clear coat... so go slow and never put your body weight into that polisher. The polisher takes some time to get use to, so experiment on some junk surface before you put polisher to your paint.

Here's what you need to polish: A variable-speed polisher. Two wool-polishing pads; a compounding pad (white) and a polishing pad (yellow). And the final products, compounds.

I use three types, all 3M... all very costly but worth the investment: Fine-Cut Rubbing Compound, Finesse-IT Polishing Compound, & Hand Glaze Compound.

The first step in polishing is compounding of the area. Let's pick up where we left off, with the paint-chip filled in with touch-up paint. The area has been wet-sanded down so that the touch-up is on the same plain as the rest of the car’s paint. And the wet sanding has created some micro-cuts in the clear-coat.

One thing I also wanted to point out is the touch-up paint’s surface compare to the car’s regular painted surface. You’ll notice that the touch-up paint is not dull like the clear-coat after the wet sanding. The wet sanding also scratched the touch-up but does not leave a dull surface… this is because touch-up paint is lacquer based, so it reflects light thus ‘shine’. Your base-coat, as stated above, is dull and requires the clear-coat to help it ‘shine’… and wet sanding has destroyed that reflective property of the clear-coat.

First, tape off the area you are working on so that you don’t end up destroying good clear-coat. Second, setup the polishing with the wool-compounding pad and set it for 1400 rpm. You really don’t want the polisher too fast nor too slow… I have found that 1400 rpm is best for this type of job.

Now, take the 3M fine-cut compounds and squeeze a thick line of the compound across the surface you want to work with. Now, start the polisher (I’m assuming you played with it already and that this is not the first time you are using it)… and with a left-to-right motion, slowly lower the rotating pad onto the line of compound. What you want to do is to apply a left-to-right motion with the polishing pad across the center of the line of compound.

WARNING: never leave the pad rotating in any area at all!!! A wool pad spinning at 1400 rpm will burn right through your clear-coat and base-coat in a blink of an eye. That’s why I call polishing the most hazardous part of this whole touch-up repair.

After couple of pass, left the polisher off the surface before stopping it… never stop the polisher on the surface. Currently, the area should look real nice now, even will reflect light and give off a shine. This is because we just compounded away a part of the clear-coat with the rubbing action of the compound and heat created by the wool pad. It may look shiny, but the surface is still has some micro-cuts in it… you just don’t see it but run your hand over it and you’ll feel it.

Now, change the pad off the polisher to the wool-polishing pad, than use the Finesse-IT compound to take out those finer micro-cuts. Apply the compound using the same steps as the above for the fin-cut compound. After that… you should have a nice shine to the area and a smooth surface with the touch-up and clear-coat blending well with each other. Now use the hand-glaze on a hand-polishing pad, or use the polisher, both will work well. Just give it a quick run through with the hand-glaze… you don’t need to really work it in because the hand-glaze isn’t really a compounding media, it’s more of a clear-coat polishing and won’t ‘rub’ into paint surface.

After you’re done, wax the area and ‘BAM’… just like new :o)

Can you see the touch-up area? Either can I...

But at low light, at the right angle... it does show up. But it's good enough for now until I repaint it.

A far away shot... can't really see it at all.

Additional shots of a old fender repair with touch-up paint. Can you find it?

Just remember this, touch-up is never better than real paint. And you'll never be able to match it correctly so that you get a prefect blending of both touch-up and regular paint. The only exception is black and white base-coat... they blend better than any of the other colors (but not prefect). The hardest... is metallic color (like mine), which is a PITA.