I'll be fixing paint chips on the front end of the wifes corolla today, kind of a guinea pig for the touch up. anyone have experience doing it?

the plan:
1)wet sand the affected area with 600 grit to get rid of the surface rust
2) clean it with alchol and let it dry
3) take a touchup pen and fill the area with touchup paint to form a nice bubble... 1 drop at a time
4) repeat step 3 until a nice bubble has formed that fills the area and extends above the existing paint line
5) wet sand with 600 & 1200 grit paper (in that order) until the imperfection is smooth again.

what do you all think. I will take pics of course to show before & after and everything in between...

 

1200 won't be fine enough in the end, you'll need to be at 2000, and then polish it out, Just takes loads of time.

 

thanks, what I bought was 2000 grit. I've already started on 4 spots so we'll see how it turns out. I'm going to go sit out there and watch it dry [&:] <jk>



off to the car show...

 

2000 isn't fine enough either, it will still look really dull. You need to hit it with a buffer, your ending pad should be around 6000 grit for a good finish.

 

You can polish out 2000 if you have the time, I use a 3000 grit trizact pad on my DA, then use finesse it (both 3M products) and if it's a dark color usually finish up with Meguires #9 swirl remover on a fine foam pad. Sometimes I'll even go over it again quick with some good old liquid ebony, (I've still got a few quarts of it) it looks fantastic, but just doesn't last all that long.

 

When I painted the black stripe on my hood, I filled in all of the spots with bondo and then painted over it.

 

well, I did the initial touchup but Jr's had the car all day & most of last night... still havent seen how it turned out for the 1st part of it...