deep scratch repair / metallic paint

[imported_bpfoley]

well I scratched the wife`s car. It is a metallic blue and I want to try repairing it on my own. Worse comes to worse I can always take it to the pros I figure. For starters what should I get? I figure I will need:

- dealer touch up paint

- 95-99% Isopropyl alcohol, mixed with water (what ratio)

- wetsanding paper (local auto shop supplier has 2000, 2500 grit



For compounds I have SSR2.5 as my most aggressive but the paint shop carries some 3M products. Any suggestions?



Another worry I have is I only have a PC and yellow pads at the most aggressive end. The paint is GM/Saturn and I have found it to be hard, just a bit softer than my VW. Should I look into grabbing a Harbor-Freight rotary to make this go easier?



Any tips or help are appreciated. I have very good PC experience but only for hitting up swirls and minor scratches, this will be my first real paint correction and I need to make good with the wife.



Thanks!

[jshillin]

Post up a pic. How bad is it? Is it through the clear and the base coat??

[imported_bpfoley]

It is even past the base coat. I will post a pic tomorrow.

[tomstin]

Worth your time to read How to repair paint chips.

[chas.007]

i would ,,,try a wool pad after wet sanding,when you start the compounding stage,,it will cut better than afoam pad

[imported_bpfoley]

again, sorry no pictures BUT



I decided to attack the problem area with my PC first to see how it would go. Well, I used SSR2.5 and a yellow cutting pad on my PC speed 6. It worked amazingly well. I did one pass and it cut through most of the problem. I then followed with 2x Orange pad and SSR2.5 @ speed 6 and finished off with a final of SSR1 on white.



The result? Almost flawless. There is a small area where the paint is gone but I can fix that with some touchup paint. Everything else cleared right up. There is also a small area that distorts the reflection, but is glossy. All in all it came out great!