Paint touch up, what went wrong?

[tssdetailing]

I`m still kinda seething over this after Barry talked me "down from the ledge" shortly after. I`m just really pissed that this touch up paint looks like 10 shades darker than the body paint and the touch up tube came from the dealer?! :grrr





Ding:

http://www.tssdetailing.com/images/thumbs/LexPaint1.jpg



Bondod:

http://www.tssdetailing.com/images/thumbs/LexPaint2.jpg



Sanded:

http://www.tssdetailing.com/images/thumbs/LexPaint3.jpg



Painted:

http://www.tssdetailing.com/images/thumbs/LexPaint4.jpg



Leveled/cleared/polished:

http://www.tssdetailing.com/images/thumbs/LexPaint5.jpg

[Legacy]

The problem is the bumper is painted in a different factory from the body, so it seldom matches and they add a flexing agent to the paint.

[(901)]

Oooops



You should be getting your paint from an automotive paint supply store IMPO

[JohnKleven]

That car requires body work. A spot repair should be fine, unless if the owner wants 100%, then take to a good body shop. Unfortunately, you can`t perform touch up on a silver car. You could use the same paint that was used to paint the car, and it WON`T MATCH. It`s not because of the pigment of the paint, it`s the metal flake. The metal flake lays down much differently when brushed on, or even airbrushed on than it did when it was sprayed at the factory. You can tone the color to match better, most of the time by adding pearl to the paint. Silver paint is just metal flake and clear coat, no pigment, which tells you how much of a difference it makes to get the flakes to lay down properly. If you`re going to wetsand the area afterwards, you will have to use clearcoat on top, as sanding silver touch up paint will make it even darker. I hope this helps. Best of luck.





John

[Accumulator]

That car requires body work. A spot repair should be fine, unless if the owner wants 100%, then take to a good body shop. Unfortunately, you can`t perform touch up on a silver car. You could use the same paint that was used to paint the car, and it WON`T MATCH. It`s not because of the pigment of the paint, it`s the metal flake. The metal flake lays down much differently when brushed on, or even airbrushed on than it did when it was sprayed at the factory..



Exactly :xyxthumbs No point beating yourself up over something that was doomed to fail anyhow.



I`ve had very few silver touchups that turned out even remotely OK, though my "good" painter somehow worked a miracle on two chips in the Jag`s hood.




Silver paint is just metal flake and clear coat, no pigment..



I dunno about that :think: It sure *looks* like grayish pigment to me (sometimes with black mixed in; with some I seem to get four layers separating out when it stratifies). When I let it dry on white paper it doesn`t seem like just clear with metalflake, it looks like gray paint with metalflake mixed in..but I suppose different silver paints are, well, different.

[Final Touch]

The Toyota (Lexus) silver touch up paints especially seem to settle in the supplied tin and need a really really good stir to get the flake well distributed again. Even then it ususally goes on dark but lightens as the solvents evaporate to look OK.

My technique for your sort of repair is a bit different, I`d have lost the filler stage completely and and used the paint to over fill the damage - letting it dry between coats and using several coats to get the level up, (you`d probably want to trim the top of the slightly raised portion with a razor blade before trying to fill it) Once it`s overfilled and completely dry I`d smooth it with 2000 wet and dry but not quite take it all the way back.

Polishing it should help the remaining high spots smooth into the edges a little and hopefully be less noticable than if it was perfectly smooth. After polishing it should look OK although it will never dissapear completly and you will probably find that the darker looking paint will be less noticeable as the bright flakes tent to sink to the bottom in a pencil touch situation ant they`ll now be more exposed.

You could clearcoat it but there shouldn`t be much point or need to. Another tip to help with the finish could be to put a very reduced coat around the edges that show with a fine artists brush, it would act a bit like a blending thinner and reduce the look of the edge.



What you`ve tried to do looks to me like a micro blend without actually blending the edges and particularly on silvers it`s never going to dissapear which is fine except that you really want to focus on keeping the repairs as small as possible so you can focus your attention on minimising the look rather than making it perfect. Putting filler in just makes it harder as you`re left with no edges to work to and your paint will always be on above the paint surrounding it.

[jashton]

The reason the bumpers don`t always match the rest of the car is because it is a different material and will most always be slightly off.



Although you may have the factory touch up paint there are many more factors to matching paint. Example: 2006 Ford Mustang Black (the same black) could have actually been painted three different colors of black. Yes (3) different colors of black, with the proper paint software of a good bodyshop you would know this.



Now you would pull out color sheets, also what a properly equipped bodyshop would have and match the correct black of the three. Other factors that determine the color are that the paint is mixed PROPERLY and all the colors are added equally.



That color is so far off, it is not even close. I hope this somewhat helps you, but you will be hit or miss (mostly miss, miss, and miss some more).



-Jeff

[tssdetailing]

Thanks for all the help, fellas-it`s much appreciated. I definately think i`m gonna keep the bondo capped except for areas like that big gash in the middle. Filling with the paint sounds like there will be more "working room."



So as for finding the perfect match-what do you guys recommend? I can`t see myself blending blacks/whites with silvers to make it match-i`ll be there all day.

[Accumulator]

So as for finding the perfect match-what do you guys recommend? I can`t see myself blending blacks/whites with silvers to make it match-i`ll be there all day.



It`s just a crap-shoot IME, buy the same paint code from a few vendors and see which is best...but that`s a really inefficient/expensive/dumb way to do it, huh?



I`d have one of my paint guys mix some up, but if I bothered doing that I`d probably just have my good guy do the work for me. No easy answer here IMO....

[Jokeman]

Try a website called paintscratch. They usually come fairly close. If you want perfection, go to a Paint and Body supply co that does computer matching.

[Jrichards4]

If you want perfection, go to a Paint and Body supply co that does computer matching.



Even that doesn`t match sometimes...

[jashton]

I don`t know why so many people are posting incorrect info. You CANNOT just order paint and hope that it matches. If you want the paint to match you need to have color sheets to hold directly up to the paint and then you must make sure you add all the different colors to exact specifications.



If you have never done paint work you probably don`t know all of the factors that come into play. Like I said before but people in this thread don`t seem to understand is, you can`t just buy a paint color and assume it will match because it is the same paint code.

[Mindflux]

I don`t know why so many people are posting incorrect info. You CANNOT just order paint and hope that it matches. If you want the paint to match you need to have color sheets to hold directly up to the paint and then you must make sure you add all the different colors to exact specifications.



If you have never done paint work you probably don`t know all of the factors that come into play. Like I said before but people in this thread don`t seem to understand is, you can`t just buy a paint color and assume it will match because it is the same paint code.



I don`t think anyone in this thread said something from a paint supplier was going to be a perfect match. In fact, some folks said the only way to get it right is a good bodyshop. (and as others pointed out, that doesn`t always work either)

[Accumulator]

I don`t think anyone in this thread said something from a paint supplier was going to be a perfect match. In fact, some folks said the only way to get it right is a good bodyshop. (and as others pointed out, that doesn`t always work either)



Yeah, there`s a "right way" (scare-quotes intentional) to do it, but that`s just such a PIA that hardly anybody is gonna bother, and if you care that much I`d suggest just letting a pro handle it from start to finish.



OTOH, highly imperfect, but perhaps "better than before" (again, scare-quotes intentional as it`s eye-of-the-beholder) results can often be realized with OTC/mailorder touchup stuff. If you have a non-metallic paint you might be quite satisfied. With metallics...well, I get maybe 1% to look swell, 4% of them to look "OK but sure not great", and 95% of the time they look pretty bad (to me). But FWIW, other (non-Autopian) people think they look better than that ;)



When the optimal approach isn`t gonna get used, the best of the half-@$$ed ones can be worthy of consideration because it might at least get tried. OR you can just be like yours truly and let the chips go...those two on my Jag`s hood were there for decades and just didn`t bother me; real cars have stonechips.

[Mindflux]

real cars have stonechips.



That`s true. hah!