oxidizing scratch repair

[DoctorWho05]

Hey guys I have a 2001 VW Cabrio and want to fix some nasty scratches and chips on my car. There are a few on the front of the hood and some scratches on the passenger side just below the right rear window. The scratches have some signs of rust in them and some paint bubbling on the sides. Would the best course be to just sand it down, put a filler/primer/paint on them then wet sand/compound? How would you approach this?

[Murr1525]

Re: oxidizing scratch repair

Any chance of pics?

It tends to be easier the earlier you catch them.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: oxidizing scratch repair

The question of how to do rock-chip repair comes up fairly often on this forum and most people want to make the paint look like there was never a chip and there's no sign any chip repair was performed.

Both are worthy goals but the problem is that cleaning a chip, filling it with paint, sanding it flat and then removing ALL your sanding marks and doing all of this without making a mistake is hard and complicated.

That's why I always write to threads like these, you can make this as complicated as you want, which is true.

Instead of typing up a whole lot of information, we have this real cool features on the forum called Popular Tags. In fact, there's a thread on it...

The Popular Tags Box

On the forum homepage in the right hand column there is a box titled,

Popular Tags - (This is a link to the actual tags in the box)





Sometimes you can find information on a hot or popular topic by looking for keywords in this box.

Comes in real handy...

In the Popular Tags box there's a tag like this,

Touch-up Rock-chip and touch up


Click on the above to links and read through the threads on this topic and it should arm you with enough information to get started.

In a nutshell, you need to find a way to clean the surface and remove any rust or other contaminants.

Next apply touch-up paint
Allow to dry in warm temperatures for a couple of weeks so it can reach maximum hardness.

If you feel confident in your skills and abilities to sand paint and then to remove sanding marks, (that's two things), then you can try to sand the touch-up paint blob flat to the surface and then try using either M105 or Ultimate Compound to remove your sanding marks.

This is harder to do than it sounds and make it look good.

Usually, just to note, removing your sanding marks out of the touch up paint will be easy because the paint will be soft even after full cure, at least compared to the factory clear coat.

You'll struggle getting all the sanding marks out of the factory clear layer of paint because most modern factory clear coats are pretty hard, at least compared to old style single stage lacquer and enamel paint.

If you rub to hard or use a machine and heat up the area it's likely you physically pull the touch-up paint right out of the chipped area and then you get to start all over only now with thinner paint than when you started.

Doing touch-up paint work on rock chips is difficult and time-consuming, this is why you will rarely and usually never see it as a service listed by detailers, both Mobil and fixed location shops.

It's difficult to d and make look good and it's time consuming and people don't and won't pay the big bucks for someone with the talent to do this kind of work.

Thus the questions on the forum...

Tagging this with these two terms Touch-up Rock-chip so now every time someone clicks on the Popular Tag it will pull up this thread and all the other treads with the tags Touch-up and Rock-chip.

[DoctorWho05]

Re: oxidizing scratch repair

thanks a ton! i'll worry about the scratches first i guess then i'll try to tackle the chips later