I imagine you’re going to have to do something like this : Although instead of going to the matching paint shop, you can probably go to the link below for your paint. http://www.automotivetouchup.com/touch-up-paint/mini/
Yes. I have seen it done. One of my customers buys and sells Porsches, and they often have to take care of little scratches like that, without painting entire body panels, and they use a service that does amazing work. It is a mobile service. They color match and do all the work on location. Any high-end car dealer will have a service like that. If you lived in Dallas, I could get you hooked up, but I am sure you can find the same thing in Atlanta-ish. CD
Thanks! I'm hunting down something to either A. cover it with a wrap or a different badge/decal or B. paint it. The latter is on the back burner for now. I think maybe it originally was falling off, then he or she scraped off the old adhesive with what looks like a screw driver, than used a bunch of strips of this very rubbery double sided tape that actually came off pretty easy.
I would fill the scratches with matching paint so that the paint sticks above the rest of the finish. The smooth it down with something like the Langka chip repair system. http://www.langka.com/ I repaired a deep scratch on the roof of my MINI this way, I can't tell where the repair was anymore.
They're already painted over, I do have some touch up paint coming in, should I cover them again before filling?
Touchup kit I had for my Vette included a tool that looked like a sharpie, but instead of the felt tip it had several abrasive rods. You used it to clean the scratch out and rough it up so the touchup paint would stick. After you do that clean it up with some acetone to make sure you don't have any wax or anything else that would prevent a good bond.
Just clean the scratch with some paint prep and blob the touch up paint into the scratches then level it down with the Langka kit.
Just fill up the scratches with several layers of paint over a few weeks. Then wet sand it with 2000 / 3000 grit paper. Then you can buff it out by machine or hand and wax or seal it. Lanka is just cheap compound with lacquer thinner mixed in that softens the paint to level it.
If you fill it and don’t want to wet sand it yourself I can bring my tools to the Dragon and do it for you. (Wetsand and cut / buff and wax)
That's awesome! Thanks Dave! Before you go bringing all your tools though, I have a couple months to see what I can learn/do. I'm shopping around for a good buffer. Do you recommend an orbital, random orbital or a rotary polisher?
Drove her little ass up to Woodstock to visit my guys at Bavarian Repair. She's getting a new belt and water pump pulley today and maybe that little pump that pushes coolant thru the turbo. That thing was noisier than usual last night, engine is off in video-
Stay away from rotary polishers unless you have been trained to use them. They offer MAX cut but will very easily burn right through the clear coat and color coat down to the primer with a wool or foam pad. Orbitals are older and are really only used for applications of wax or sealers and offer no real torque for cutting / polishing. I would skip the two above for anyone starting out. I have a very strong Mikita rotary that I only use with a wool pad every one in a while for really bad small areas and deep scratches. I used to us it on every car that came out of a paint booth after I wet sanded the car to quickly correct new paint jobs. I did that for a few years when I was younger and was trained by an old Jedi rotary polishing master. Times have changed and technology with paint, tools and polishing compounds have changed everything. A good starter DA is the Griots one I provided a link to below. It is a great machine that runs smooth with excellent torque to keep pads spinning at low speeds. <— that’s a good thing. Low speed = less heat on the paint. The older cheaper entry level Portal Cables XP machine tends to bog down and not spin as well. I still have the Griots in my bag with my twice as expensive Rupes machine which is a pro machine. Below is a link to the Griots DA. https://www.autogeek.net/new-griots-polisher.html I like to only use 5 inch Rupes pads because the last and do not fall apart. I get from Esoteric website, link below. Yellow for cutting / polishing and White for fine / finish polishing. http://www.esotericcarcare.com/rupes-yellow-polishing-pad/ http://www.esotericcarcare.com/rupes-white-finishing-pad/ I have never needed a Blue or Green pad ever. The yellow pads are that good. RUPES Pad color chart: Blue = Compounding Green = Light Compounding / Heavy Polishing Yellow = Polishing (THE perfect one-step pad when teamed with Sonax Perfect Finish!) White = Finishing
Great info! Thanks Dave. Griots it is. I've been eyeing that one anyhow and I do use lots of Griots products.
I have a Harbor Freight DA polisher, it works great. It is much cheaper than the Griot's DA polisher and it has the same features. It even look like the Griot's polisher. The Lanka system is much cheaper than buying polishers and buffing compound and it works, it is just different.
I understand what you are saying to a point, but for a professional those products don’t stand up and do not produce high quality results. Cheaper is not always better. I detail some very expensive cars and the only use the best without taking shortcuts or using inferior tools or products. The right tools and products are worth the investment in the end.
They do produce professional results. It may take a little bit longer than the professional tools. There is a fairly steep learning curve when doing repairs for the first time, so it's going to take time to do it right to start with. I am not a professional, I don't do body and paint repair very often, the cheaper tools work well for me, they are not going to wear out in my lifetime, considering the few times I need them.
Right I agree, that why I was offering to did it for him with my tools at the Dragon. The repair is the easy part, just keep filling the scratches over time letting the paint dry and cure. Then when it is above the level of the surrounding paint you wet sand the repair and make it level with the original paint. After the paint is leveled you can polish put the scratches and make the repair disappear completely it no evidence it was ever touched up.