A small "how-to" on chip repair/wetsanding + spring cleaning (black G35) (56k = owie)

[MichaelSpoots]

Well, I attempted this fix on my '09 Civic, and somehow screwed it up royally. I got to this phase, where the paint looks like an absolute mess:

Using the proper "swipe and lift" motions with the soft sanding block w/ 2500 & 3000 Unigrit sandpaper, it took about 15-20 minutes to level the 5-days-cured OEM touch-up blobs.

However, about 12 minutes in, the clearcoat or basecoat started changing color...getting lighter. Very strange. I basically ended up with 2 lung-shaped spots:

.

Keep in mind, the tiny specs you see are like 5-6 multiple mini-chips that were touched up, when one large piece of concrete hit my paint. Total affected area, size of a quarter, really.





I then hit it with m205/orange LC/G110 and m205/white LC/G110 for a short amount of time, but that didn't really do anything. All it did was turn my pads slightly grey, indicating paint removal (I have metallic grey paint).



At that point I stopped, then took it to 2 body shops and 1 personal guy who has body shop experience and does custom flame jobs or something (recommended me by my local Auto Paint supply store).



Estimates $1,300.00 at one body shop (resand, repaint entire door panel), $550 at another body shop (discount through a friend), and $250 for the personal guy. The personal guy would work a 2'-diameter circle and claims he can blend very well. The body shops will dismantle the door and everything, and respray/reclear the entire panel...because they claim the CC will just peel after a few years, and that's why they prefer to work all the way to the hidden edges of panels, instead of affected areas...hence, less chance of peeling or w/e. :wall



Anyway, I guess my question all along has been this: I find it incredibly hard to believe that your paint can look so hacked up like it is in that picture, and yet it polishes out so beautifully in your finished pics. How did the paint go from looking like there wasn't even color...to full gloss black? :nixweiss



Do you suggest that I step it up to M105, and somehow my paint (color) will magically reappear as it seems to have done in your writeup? I'm just terribly confused and (aside from having to spend hundreds to fix), I am doubtful that the body shops can truly match the paint. I mean, my paint is otherwise in great condition, and has seen many chemicals (products) since I've had it. I don't see how any body shop could replicate the aging and wear/tear/all the polishing and products I've used process...and have it match up in the end.



Thoughts?

 

[Accumulator]

Well, I attempted this fix on my '09 Civic, and somehow screwed it up royally. I got to this phase, where the paint looks like an absolute mess...

Oh jeeze, sorry that happened.



It appears this is what went wrong:



You ended up sanding the surrounding paint too much. Somehow your sanding media was contacting that paint at least as much as it was the "higher" touchup paint. That's one of the things that makes wetsanding technique so critical and also one of the things that's not always intuitively obvious.

Using the proper "swipe and lift" motions with the soft sanding block w/ 2500 & 3000 Unigrit sandpaper, it took about 15-20 minutes to level the 5-days-cured OEM touch-up blobs.

However, about 12 minutes in, the clearcoat or basecoat started changing color...getting lighter. Very strange.

I never spend nearly that much time sanding an area that small; When leveling touchups, I can often count the individual strokes (they're that few in number). You really did mean "minutes" instead of "seconds"?!? Even if you meant seconds that sounds like a lot of nonstop sanding. I'd do a few strokes, check the blob, a few more, check the blob, etc. Never more than one-two excess strokes possible that way; the whole thing in the forefront of my mind is "don't overthin the paint".



I think that in general, you just really overdid it. That "clearcoat getting lighter" is almost always the sign that you've gone too far. At that point all you can do is minimize further damage. Been there, done that. The trick is to never get to that point in the first place

..[having a pro fix it]... The personal guy would work a 2'-diameter circle and claims he can blend very well. The body shops will dismantle the door and everything, and respray/reclear the entire panel...because they claim the CC will just peel after a few years, and that's why they prefer to work all the way to the hidden edges of panels, instead of affected areas...hence, less chance of peeling or w/e.

I've done OK with spot-ins, but a LOT of knowledgeable people are surprised to hear that and they think it's because I take such good car of my vehicles.



Having the whole door redone would probable be the "right" thing to do.

Anyway, I guess my question all along has been this: I find it incredibly hard to believe that your paint can look so hacked up like it is in that picture, and yet it polishes out so beautifully in your finished pics. How did the paint go from looking like there wasn't even color...to full gloss black?

The real lesson here is that you can't pay much attention to what you see on the internet. It's a *mighty* fine line between OK and too-far and the just-sanded look that you get from very gentle sanding can look the same as totally hacked paint.



Depending on how you photograph it, very light wetsanding will make black paint look white, but that's just because the person has (only) knocked the shine off the paint by removing *only* a very minute amount of the topmost layer of paint.

Do you suggest that I step it up to M105, and somehow my paint (color) will magically reappear as it seems to have done in your writeup? I'm just terribly confused and (aside from having to spend hundreds to fix), I am doubtful that the body shops can truly match the paint. I mean, my paint is otherwise in great condition, and has seen many chemicals (products) since I've had it. I don't see how any body shop could replicate the aging and wear/tear/all the polishing and products I've used process...and have it match up in the end.

Hope this doesn't sound overly critical, but the fact that you're even considering further abrasion of the area makes me wonder. You've already cut through the clear, or at least that's what it looks/sounds like to me. You seem to have an...uhm...imperfect understanding of the situation and IMO you shouldn't ever do anything irrevocable when that's the case.



Have it repainted. Period. There's nothing else you can do once you've overthinned the clear. No, the repair might not turn out 100% (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't), but there's no other solution; you simply *must* fix the current damage with a paintgun, no way around it. Sorry, but that's where you are at this point and IMO you oughta just bite the bullet and move on (by getting the paintwork done).

..[any other]..Thoughts?

This is a good example of how *SO* much of what you see experts here do is stuff you should think twice about DIYing. "Don't try this at home, kids!" and all that. I don't mean that as some :nono and no it's not rocket science, but when you're doing aggressive stuff it's pretty easy to have an "oops!" even when you completely understand what's going on and you do everything just right. People just don't *post* about every little "oops" that they ever experience, but don't think that they don't ever happen, even to the best people.



Every time I wetsand something (or even just get really aggressive about compounding), I've already decided that yeah, there's a chance I'll mess this up, and if I do I'll have to have paintwork done. It's a risk I accept going in, or else I don't do the work in question.

 

[MichaelSpoots]

Thanks for the comments, Accumulator. For me, this was a lesson in realizing my paint care limits :grinno:, or at least confirming what I thought were my limits.



Reason I wet sanded for so long was because the sandpaper seemed to have no cut at all. The touch-up blobs were leveling maddeningly slowly :hairpull, and I simply spent the 12 constant minutes of swiping to finally get the blobs level (but we also see the side effects I experienced, ha).



I did become very suspicious about 10 minutes in, when the clearcoat started losing its color (in the shape of 2 lungs in my picture), but I continued sanding w/ the 3000 because 1)Blobs still weren't level and 2)I figured "hey, the "color change/loss" I'm experiencing now is only 1/20th the size of the carnage that's depicted here, so I must be OK!:

But apparently (and understandably) the paint didn't really look that bad in person, and the lighting exaggerated the effects of wetsanding (prior to polishing w/ the DA).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Anyway, I do plan to spend the money to have the whole door repainted, which itself is still a risk because (being a car-detail-minded person), repaints on other cars are pretty darn obvious to me because their panels are 2 different shades of the same color, and that would be an even worse situation than the one right now...(to have an entire door that doesn't match, instead of just 1 quarter-sized area of paint that is screwed up). Know what I mean? :hairpull



Thanks again for the info!

 

[Accumulator]

MichaelSpoots- The additional info clarifies things a bit for me. And I'm glad you didn't find my reply so :nono as to be offensive.



When you have touchups that're *that* high, different approaches are called for. Pretty much simple as that, and/but in the future, remember that bit where I asked if you meant *seconds* instead of *minutes* ...I wasn't kidding



If you find a good shop (yeah...big "if" there...) the redo shouldn't be too obvious. Most of my vehicles (and *all* of my silver ones, a very hard color to match) have repainted panels and most aren't obvious to anybody but me. Actually, in real life I bet *none* of them are actually *obvious*. And some are impossible for *me* to see.



Noting again that many experts say not to do spot-ins, I have a repair that size on my silver MPV (right near the fuel filler door) that's holding up perfectly after three years or so, and *nobody* can see it, not under any lighting; it's...dare I say it...perfect. So it can be done.

 

[MichaelSpoots]

Well, there is some comfort in knowing that a good body shop (I believe I've found one) can match my paint very closely when they respray the whole door panel. Only one way to find out, and that's by spending $550.00 .



Also good to know that "spot-ins" can turn out well.

What I'll end up doing is spending the $550 with the body shop (who will dismantle the door and all that), and not the custom flame job buy (who is in the auto paint business, working out of his garage, I presume) who wanted $250 for the spot-in job. Any way you look at it, it's a gamble. I suppose the saying holds: "You have to pay to play."

 

[Accumulator]

... Any way you look at it, it's a gamble. I suppose the saying holds: "You have to pay to play."

Yeah, that's usually the case. Though I will say that my "good" painter is also very cheap. Only charges me $35/hour, whereas the other shop I use, the shop that did the minivan spot-in, charges over $100/hour IIRC (hey, they're Porsche/Audi dealership, nothing there is cheap).



Good luck, hope it turns out great.