Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

[DrTech]

Key scratch...


Egged damage...



My car's color is a tri-coat Ivory Pearl. For the scratch, I can see that the layer of the metallic flakes has gone already. Do I need to touch up or I can only wet sand it and polish away? For the egged damage, I know I need to touch up, but is the dark chip the metal or the primer? Before touching up, anything I can do to improve it?

I am very new to detailing, please help and give me some detailed advice.

Thanks.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

My car's color is a tri-coat Ivory Pearl. For the scratch, I can see that the layer of the metallic flakes has gone already. Do I need to touch up or I can only wet sand it and polish away?

If the scratch is through the clear and through the metallic portion, then sanding will only act to remove more paint and will not fix the problem but make it worse. We doubt that not even the most skilled artist in the world could apply touch-up paint in a way as to make the defect look better. Chances are that if you want it to look better or unoticable you'll have to have the panel re-painted.

For the egged damage, I know I need to touch up, but is the dark chip the metal or the primer? Before touching up, anything I can do to improve it?

Sorry to have to post answers that will not give you hope, but egg impact damage is almost impossible to fix and have it look good. Same answer as above, chances are that if you want it to look better or unoticable you'll have to have the panel re-painted.

[DrTech]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

After wet-sanding, the scratch is less obvious. However, the area seems to have lost the metallic flakes coat. Is that the clear coat? Can I buff it back or any other solution? I know that Ivory Pearl tri-coat is hard to touch up...sigh...

[MaxImage]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

Yes, the metallic "pearl" flakes are usually in the clear coat, or in a coat of clear sandwiched between the base white coat and a plain (sans flakes) clear coat. As Mike was pointing out earlier, by wet sanding, you are removing paint, in this case the clear coat first and if applicable, even into the middle pearl coat as well. By sanding, you have "rounded" out the edges of the scratch to the level of the paint that is remaining under the scratch; thereby making the scratch less obvious. Unfortunately you are probably now left with minimal--if any--clear coat coverage over the base white coat. On some colors, you can tell that you've gone through the clear because the base coat will look a little darker, similar to a [slightly] darker pigmented birth mark on your skin.

I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news, but buffing it further will remove even more paint and thus make matters worse. The only true fix for this particular situation would be to repaint the affected panels. Not only would it completely remedy the situation, but it may be the only fix that a car aficionado could live with.

Indeed, Ivory Pearl is a tough color to touch up, nonetheless color match on a repaint as well. It sounds like you may have an Infiniti. If so, I've tried 3 different batches of touch-up paint on a spare piece of bumper fascia, 1 was a one stage paint (factory branded; white and pearl mixed together in one tube), 1 was a two stage touch up system (factory branded; 1 bottle of white, another bottle of metallic clear, 2 total bottles), and 1 aftermarket touch up pen. The aftermarket touch up pen came the closest but was the hardest to work with. Don't despair, there's many others out there that can attest to similar, if not identical trials and tribulations with their vehicles. We're all here to help in the best ways we can...to share our experiences, knowledge and know-how.

[DrTech]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

Wow, MaxImage, you are smart. I do have an Infiniti G35. Right now, I have 3 stage touch up paint from paintscratch.com which comes with base coat, mid coat and clear. Please give me some direction for doing a good touch up. In my case of the dulled area, is it possible for me to add back the clear coat? Also, when touching up, if I don't get the right color after it dries, what can I do?

Thanks for everybody's help.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

Wow, MaxImage, you are smart. I do have an Infiniti G35. Right now, I have 3 stage touch up paint from paintscratch.com which comes with base coat, mid coat and clear. Please give me some direction for doing a good touch up. In my case of the dulled area, is it possible for me to add back the clear coat? Also, when touching up, if I don't get the right color after it dries, what can I do?

Thanks for everybody's help.

We hope MaxImage will add some stellar step-by-step instructions for how to re-apply clear, then sand then buff to make the repair look as good as new because to date we've never seen this outlined on a forum with a success story. Our fingers are crossed.

The issue you're going to run into starts with the flake, if you've removed or altered the flake layer of paint in any way, shape or form, any repair to this area, including adding any touch-up paint, whether it's the basecoat, midcoat or clearcoat, is never going to match the surrounding areas, thus when you stand back and look at the car and specifically this section of the panel, you're going to see a spot that doesn't look like the rest of the surrounding area.

Besides the above big picture view, the difficult part will be applying the clearcoat to the area in a way that it will cover the area and look good, (that's two things), after that if you want to sand and then buff the touch-up paint, you'll need to allow the touch-up paint plenty of time to dry and harden. Then sand, and then buff and it's in the buffing process you'll find out if the clear will endure the buffing process or merely buff-off leaving you where you started or worse.

When you attempt this, please do your best to capture the before and after pictures as well as and most importantly your process pictures to share with the forum for everyone's future reference.

[MaxImage]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

We hope MaxImage will add some stellar step-by-step instructions for how to re-apply clear, then sand then buff to make the repair look as good as new because to date we've never seen this outlined on a forum with a success story. Our fingers are crossed.

Haha, Um, let me get back to you on that one. You can always try this

The issue you're going to run into starts with the flake, if you've removed or altered the flake layer of paint in any way, shape or form, any repair to this area, including adding any touch-up paint, whether it's the basecoat, midcoat or clearcoat, is never going to match the surrounding areas, thus when you stand back and look at the car and specifically this section of the panel, you're going to see a spot that doesn't look like the rest of the surrounding area.

Besides the above big picture view, the difficult part will be applying the clearcoat to the area in a way that it will cover the area and look good, (that's two things), after that if you want to sand and then buff the touch-up paint, you'll need to allow the touch-up paint plenty of time to dry and harden. Then sand, and then buff and it's in the buffing process you'll find out if the clear will endure the buffing process or merely buff-off leaving you where you started or worse.

When you attempt this, please do your best to capture the before and after pictures as well as and most importantly your process pictures to share with the forum for everyone's future reference.

Exactly what I would have said. But as both Mike and I have previously touched upon, the ONLY way for it to look seamless would be a complete repaint of the area. I've never tried touch up products from the company that you acquired yours from, but all the types of touch up paint that I've used (whether from the dealer, or aftermarket) have had little success in the ease of application and as a result, making the area look good without having to sand and machine the touched up area. [NOTE: I've never sanded and buffed a touched up area before for fear of the glob of touch up paint falling off, but give me some time and I'll see what I can do. Mike, keep those fingers crossed. My schedule is very hectic at the moment, and something touched up will need a good length of time to cure, 3 months or so. I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do as my schedule allows.] I have clients that have had portions of their cars repainted due to fenderbenders or minor collisions (meaning, just cosmetic damage, replacing the bumper fascia and not the bumper or its components) and thusly have acquired touch up paint from the leftover batch that their car was sprayed in. Only in this method have I had both of the above (read, I came really close to it looking good, but to a discerning eye, it didn't look flawless). The viscosity of most commercially avaliable touch up paint is high, whereas the "batched" touch up paint had a lower viscosity making it easy to work with and easy to apply in numerous layers to fill in the chips of missing paint. In the latter instance, the paint rarely ventured outside of the "boundaries" of the area to be touched up, and did not glob up like other touch up methods. I was able to apply as many as 4 coats to the touched up area without the surface being raised too far above the OEM height. Needless to say I was pretty amazed. (That might be confusing, let me know if you need it reworded)

The thing that was difficult with the multi-step approach is the inevitability that you're going to apply a thicker coat than what your car was originally sprayed with, so after three coats of the 3 different paints, the surface of the touched up area will be considerably raised compared to the OEM surface. Now, in this case, considerably is a measurement in micrometers, but put another way, you'll be literally be able to feel the difference. It'll feel like an insect bite on your otherwise smooth skin.

Getting back the questions you had asked:

Please give me some direction for doing a good touch up. In my case of the dulled area, is it possible for me to add back the clear coat?

I would do one of two things (if touch up was absolutely necessary):

1) Apply just a layer or two of the pearl clear, more if needed as I'm not sure of its viscosity. Let it cure for a month, more time (i.e. 3 months) if you can. Then lightly wet sand the area, using a small square (approx, 1 cm x 1cm) of Unigrit 2000 paper, taking a little clear down at a time. You don't want to take down too much of the pearl clear because when you buff the area, you will also be removing more paint. Try not to venture too much out side of the boundaries of the touch up area; sand with the grain as you don't want to remove the already thin factory clear coat. This is where Mike said things can get worse than just dealing with the scratch. If you sand too much, or buff too much, you'll be left with an even greater area of flat paint.

2) Apply a layer of the pearl clear, let dry for a couple of days, wash the area and dry it with a hair dryer (after wiping it down with a towel) to make sure that all of the moisture over and around the touched up area has evaporated. Then apply the regular clear semi-generously to get an "insect bite" appearance. This will allow you a small fudge factor in taking down the touched up area. (Do this with Option 1 above too) Repeat the sanding and buffing steps from above as needed. Use your discretion.

Also, when touching up, if I don't get the right color after it dries, what can I do?

It is highly unlikely that the touched up color will be exactly color matched. In all of my experiences with Nissan paint, no two batches of Nissan pearl white are exactly alike. From QX1 (the color between 2% and whole milk) to QX4 (ivory, learning towards a more ecru color), a discerning eye can pick out the differences. QX1 and QX4 are Nissan and Infiniti pearl white paint codes. I have seen factory sprayed splash guards on a car that are a different shade of white than the actual car itself. It's a minute difference, but a difference nonetheless.


It's difficult to put into words something that would be better understood if mated with an actual demonstration. These are just ideas with a great deal of risk involved. It is by no means a fix-all solution, nor one with guaranteed success. But I really do hope this helps somewhat. I'm sorry that I really can't shed more light on the subject. Thank you for the compliment though I think that there's a much larger contingency lurking on MOL that have had more experience and knowledge in the science of paint than I. My findings/experiences have paralleled much of what Mike has already said. (He's just one of many here with a wealth of quality knowledge. ) Though IMHO, I hardly think that "good" and "touch up" belong in the same sentence together, much less next to each other in the same sentence....quite an oxymoron. If I had to do this with my own car, I would either let it go and live with it or have the areas completely repainted. But knowing my AR and OCD, I would ultimately settle on the latter. Best of luck and keep us posted!

[DrTech]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

I have taken some photos of how it looks right now. See if touching up is necessary.




(Click to go to Webshot and "full size" on the right-hand top corner)

I hope that the photos can provide a good understanding of the situation.

Thanks for helping, guys.

[MaxImage]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

Of what I can see in the 2nd picture, the scratch is pretty deep. Is the dull finish, the non pearl area around the scratch? The non pearl area looks glossy, its just missing the pearl.

Unfortunately, you may not be able to remove the scratch completely without either touching up or having the area repainted. In other words, if you don't touch it up, or repaint, you'll always be able to see the depression that the scratch left behind.

It was a little hard to tell from the pictures, but the 2nd picture is the best. With your digi cam do you have a "macro" mode? If so, engage this mode and stay approx 2 inches away from the scratch when shooting; no zoom, and maybe no flash. It does not look like you've used the flash in the pictures above. See if you can duplicate the conditions in the 2nd picture, where the car appears dark grey, instead of white. Then snap the picture and repost it here. Reason being, when I blew up the photo to full size, it appeared a little hazy as if out of focus--or because of the natural shake of your hand coupled with the closeness of the camera to the subject--but I could roughly see the shadows cast by the scratch. In comparing the before picture with the 3rd picture in your last post, it appears that you've rounded out the edges of the scratch quite a bit. It looks less pronounced, however you may have already sanded as much as you possibly can. We'll see with the next set of pictures.

Also, could you outline what you've done so far in a step-by-step fashion, including products and methods?

I'm sorry that I don't have a more definitive answer to your question at this time. I'd like to gather more info first. Thanks.

[DrTech]

Re: Egged and key scratched, please advise what I should do!

Yes, the dull finish is the non pearl area around the scratch. I brought my car to a body shop one day to fix something else, and showed them the scratch. I asked them if I can sand it away and or need to touch up. Then the guy said they won't know until they sand it. So, after wet sanding with 1000 grit paper I guess, it becomes like this. When taking those photos, I already used macro mode. I will try using a better camera to take some good photos.