Fixing a million rock chips

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I've got an update from tonight.

I went to the dealer and picked up some touch up paint and clear coat.

Since I have a ton of chips I decided to experiment with a few. First I read to clean the area with some rubing alcohol so I put some on a MF cloth and rubbed down a chip. As I did this I noticed the thin touch up paint I had was coming off. Since I had the dealer touch up paint, I decided to just keep it up for the chips on the left side of my hood.

So using a MF cloth and rubbing alcohol I managed to rub off the excess thinned touch up paint and on a few chips it appeared to leave the paint inside the chip. Unfortunately on the other few it removed all the paint. No worries I had the dealer touch up paint.

Well anyway I then moved on the the right side, where I hadn't touched any chips that last night I applied the body shop provided thinned out touch up paint. I decided to grab the clear coat and apply it to some of the chips, even though they weren't really level yet. After I did this though I something became very apparent to me:

The thin paint from the repair shop was a perfect match!! It simply lacked a clear coat so it looked dull! After applying the cleat coat it looks great.

The dealer paint is off color, but it is thicker. So here's my new question and I believe final solution:

How do I thicken the body sho provided touch up paint? It's like water, I could do layer after layer on each chip but it spreads around the entire area, I can't isolate it to within the chip.

Should I leave it as it is, apply several layers (if so how many?) to each chip, then blob the clear coat on?

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I would stick with the thin paint and just take your time and do several layers and build it up. Since you will finish with clear you want to leave it slightly below perfectly level before applying the clear. Then when you add the clear it should end up slightly higher than the factory finish.

At that point, after curing, gently wet sand that level with 3,000 grit. Then I suggest gently rubbing the sanding marks out with Ultimate Compound by hand.

Make sure you let things cure...it would be a shame to get it level and matched and then wreck it with the sanding or polishing.

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

Perfect that answered my next question on the sand paper to get. I've never wet sanded before so I'm glad this hood already needs repainting LOL

I'll get 3000 Unigrit paper and the Meguiar's sanding block, soak the paper in water overnight, then using a spray mixed with water and a small amount of gold class car wash I'll spray the area as I sand.

After that, some Ultimate Compound time! Then some #7 and seal with Gold Class Wax.

Thanks a bunch. Any idea how to remove touch up paint before it hardens too much? I think I'll try that rubbing alcohol again in some areas so I can more accurately touch them up. It's pretty harsh though, the MF cloth made some micromarring but the UC will get that out

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

Hi again, I'm preparing to buy some sanding paper now, when I noticed the sanding blocks as well. These: http://www.meguiars.com/estore/produ...ectionID=37301

Should I perhaps use one of those instead or just go with the sand paper and the pad?

I noticed the blocks don't come in 3000 grit though, not sure what grit I need but someone suggest 3,000

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

The blocks are going to be overkill (unless you decide you are comfortable and want to shave time off).

I always use 3,000 and take my time. BUT, since you have a TON you might want to grab some 2,000 too, so once you practice with 2,000 you can reach for that and save a little time if you like.

Or, play it safe and stick to the 3,000.

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I'm just curious as to how these blocks are meant to be used.

I have about 2-3 places on my car where the paint started to run and rolled up on the car that I could sand down. The body shops offered to fix them but I didn't care (I'd rather extra paint than less paint). Is that where you'd want to use the big blocks? (Curious as to what sort of application would require the "overkill")

I think I'll certainly buy some 2000 grit paper, maybe even 2500 since it's not that expensive. I'm not worried about being "safe" because, as I mentioned, I'll probably have to get this hood repainted anyway lol

I just want to get all my experience of wet sanding on this hood before I get it repainted. I'll either do great and not have to have it painted, or fail but learnt along the way.

[MikeEast]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I had a very similar problem to yours on my Dodge Van - a bazillion rockchips on the hood/nose. I used a toothpick rather than the brush that came with the bottle of touchup and just put one teeeeeeny little drop in each hole (after the obvious cleaning steps or course), and after a whole TON of time and revisitinging most of the spots several times, and waiting a few weeks for it all to dry well,I lightly touched each one with 3000 and finally did a 105/205 session.

They are still mostly there, if you look hard, but from 5 feet? They aren't there now...

I've touched up several cars since then with some decent results. How many toohpicks ARE there in a box?

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I'm just curious as to how these blocks are meant to be used.

I

You would first do what we call dressing the block, that is take a piece of sandpaper that's more abrasive than the grit of the block you're dressing and shave or trim down all the hard edges so you don't accidentally gouge your car's paint. Then using one of the sides of the block you work it over the paint focusing on the above surface defect you're trying to remove.

If it's a small defect then you can stand the block on end and minimize the repair area.

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

Yeah I was thinking by using the edge of the block it would provide me a better ability to micro manage the area I'm sanding.

Seems like I should order one for my hood job.

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

UPDATE (for anyone paying attention)

Well this was a great learning experience, unfortunately due to the shape of my hood, I burnt the clear coat on one of the curves.

I also rubbed a small area in the center of my hood down to the basecoat, I think.

I now officially need my hood repainted, but on the plus side, the burn is really glossy! LOL!

I also made some too aggressive scratch marks from the wet sanding that I didn't properly finish out with a 3,000 grit, so tomorrow I think I'll try to fix them (even though I'm going to get my hood repainted, I want the experience).

I think i also failed at the rock chips. I might not have layered them enough, they're colored in but still indented. Less noticeably though since the color matches.

I got the hang of Ultimate Compound and the idea of wet sanding. Wet sanding freaken ***** for rock chips. I used the 2000 grit block, I had trouble using the paper. On review, I probably shouldn't have used the backing pad to wet sand the rock chips.. hehe

Maybe I'll take the left side tomorrow.

[LongGone]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

I'm in much the same boat. My Jeep gets towed behind our motorhome, and on our way to Alaska we hit a bad patch of gravel, and the front of the poor Jeep got blasted. (I'm working on getting some pictures)

The front looks terrible now with the white or gray plastic/metal showing against the dark burgundy paint. I want to make it look better, but since I'm still going to be towing the Jeep behind the motorhome, it's going to get more chips, so I'm not going to go too crazy at this time.

I got a bottle of the touch-up paint from the dealer, and am trying to fill in the large spots. I got some ultra-small paint brushes from a crafts store, and I use the large brush in the touch-up paint to put some paint on a piece of wax paper, and dip the small brush into that paint. The paint dries so quickly on the wax paper, that I can barely get it all into the chips before it dries. But at least the paint in the bottle shouldn't dry out as quickly since the top isn't off the whole time.

The majority of the chips are only 1-2 mm across, but there are also a lot that are only the size of the tip on a toothpick. For now I'm trying to focus on the larger ones, but there are so many thousands of the little ones that I find myself hitting some of them with some paint, too. I'm not going to need the car for a while, so I've got some time to work on it. For the next few days I'm going to keep working the touch-up paint, especially on the larger spots that need several layers. Then the car will sit in the garage for a week while I'm out of town - a good chance for the paint to fully dry.

Beyond that I'm not completely sure what to do, but I've gotten some good ideas from this thread. Although I'm trying to be careful with the touch-up paint, I know I'm getting some onto the good paint outside the chips, which I'll want to remove. (wet sand?). At least now the reddish measles on the burgundy paint look a lot better that the white/gray spots against the burgundy.
But there's no way I can get all of the spots - there are too many of them and most are so small. I'm hoping that a lot of the other things I see are other kinds of defects that can be made better with cleaners and such.

The rest of the car needs some work, too, after 7 years without the proper care. I'm researching what to do there as well (clay/cleaner/polish/wax).

So, I've got a lot of work to do on this Jeep, plus both the motorhome and my other car need work as well. So I'm probably going to tackle the Jeep in phases - this first phase I'll go after the larger dings, plus the cleaner...etc and see how that does. Then I may come back in a few months to do a phase 2 (after the other vehicles are done, too)

Pat

[LongGone]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

Here are a couple of pictures of the Jeep before any work has been done. Ouch!




Unfortunately, the little defects don't show up very well.

Pat

[Eddie6th]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

There's a good book out there called 'How to paint your car'.I've read it and there is a section which describes in detail about chips.(I think it's an American publication,so you shouldn't have any trouble getting a hold of it.)
You've certainly got a hell of a lot of chips there! I think your only solution is a respray,if you want your hood looking like new again.One or two,okay,but to touch up so many and expect a good finish would be painstakingly difficult.

If i can find the book,I'll let you know what it says.

[xantonin]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

Yeah that's about as bad as my car, maybe worse I can't tell.

I'm opting to repaint my hood and bumper as well, but I'm going to have somewhere else do it

[LongGone]

Re: Fixing a million rock chips

An update:
I've done about all of the touch-up paint work I'm going to do for this time. Using the smallest brush I could find at a crafts store I dabbed the largest 200,000 or so spots, many more than once (I found that the ultra-small brush actually carried less paint than a toothpick, at least for me). It was 8-10 hours well spent. The touch-up paint actually matches quite well, so the car already looks tons better, even though there are another 800,000 or so teeny spots left. The wife thinks I should just stop there, but she hasn't seen some of the amazing before & after pictures on these forums using other products.

I should add that I really have split the front of the car into 2 sections: the section below the bumper closest to the ground looks like the surface of the moon - the plastic (or whatever it is) is very cratered, so much so that it’s beyond the point of dabbing touch-up paint. I actually painted a 1” x 1” section way at the bottom with the wide brush in the touch-up paint, and it actually worked pretty well. Anyway, I didn’t spend much time on this section. The upper section wasn’t as badly hit - the basic “terrain” was still fairly smooth - this is where I did most of the touch-up.

So, now the car will sit for a week while I'm out of town, which should give the paint time to dry. When I get back, I want to tackle the next step, but I'm not 100% sure what that is.

The main things are:
1) There are quite a few places where the touch-up paint went outside the ding and onto the adjacent good paint. I'd like to get some of that overflow off, but without touching the new paint inside the ding.
Based on what I've seen on threads about M-105 and Ultimate Compound, I believe many of the other 800,000 remaining spots might actually come out (or be improved enough for me)
The rest of the car needs work too. We often go back on Forest Service roads, and the sides have some light scratches from brushing up against bushes and branches. There are also other light defects from 7 years of less-than-stellar care.

I’m not trying to get the car looking as good as new. It’s going to get towed behind the motorhome some more and get more stone chips, and it’s going to get more light scratches on forest roads. I just want it to look a lot better than it does now. And I don’t have tons of time to work on it right now - I’ve got a 33’ motorhome with moderate oxidation demanding my attention, and there’s also a 2000 Subaru that needs a lot of work as well. I may come back in a year or so and do a Phase II depending upon what the results are of this Phase I.

So, I’d love to be able to pick 1 product to address all 3 items above, and use that product (plus polish and wax) to get the car looking as good as possible with 1 product. My questions are:
Will M-105 or UC remove any of the overflow paint? Or will sanding be needed?
There are parts of the car that are still in good shape, but could use a light cleaning. I want to do something on these areas, but not too much.
Which product is aggressive enough (with multiple passes if necessary) to tackle the bad spots, but not too strong for the areas that don’t need too much help?
I have a Porter-Cable DA polisher, but from what I’ve read in other threads I’ll probably only use it for the polish and wax steps, and do the M-105 or UC by hand, right?

I’m hoping that the answer for now is to use M-105 or UC by hand on the entire car, with 1-2 passes in the lightly damaged areas and 3-4 passes in the areas needing more help. Then polish and wax. And maybe this will be good enough for now. Any comments?


(ps - I’m having a hard time getting good pictures (mostly with reflections / proper lighting), but will keep working on it when I get back home next week)