Applied Color's paint touch up kit

S

Scottwax

New member
Robert of Applied Colors contacted me and asked if I would like to test out a paint touch up kit his company is trying to put together.



The kit includes numerous bottles of touch up paint and a paint match guide, dozens of paper mixing cups, thinners and thickeners, wax/grease removers, comprehensive instruction booklet, numerous touch up brushes of varying thickness, wetsanding block (but no wetsanding paper), etc.



Mostly I have been trying it out like I would be using a bottle of the factory touch up paint. Sometimes I have had to mix together 2-3 of the same color scale to get a proper match. The plethora of brushes make it pretty easy to find the right one for the size scratch you are fixing-unlike factory touch up paint that has one brush size that always seems too thick.



Here is a shot of the kit:



Applied_Colors_touchup_kit.jpg




I bought my Maxima a few weeks ago and it had a scratch on the passenger side rear pillar. I figured it would be a good test of a more extensive repair involving the touch up paint, wetsanding and buffing.



Unfortunately, it was cloudy so the scratch doesn't look as bad as it actually is, plus the Lustre Grey color hides defects well. Anyway, the verticle part of the scratch is deep into the primer.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_before.jpg




I had to mix two of the silver/grey touch up paints together and it still wasn't quite dark enough when applied so I added a few drops of metallic black and it was very close. I overfilled the scratch a bit to compensate for the wetsanding to follow.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_touchup1.jpg




I then wetsanded with 3M Imperial wet/dry (used it wet) 1500 grit followed by 2000 grit.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_wetsand1.jpg




As you can see, using a folded microfiber towel and Optimum Compound by hand wasn't removing the wetsanding marks-no suprise, just wanted to show that you likely can't remove wetsanding marks without a buffer.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_wetsand_hand.jpg




I then used my loaner Porter Cable 7428 rotary, a Soft Edge orange one step pad (amazingly smooth pad via rotary!) and Optimum Compound. Started off on 2, bumped it to 3 for several slow passes and it came out pretty much LSP ready.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_wetsand_rotary.jpg




I followed with Poli-Seal using another orange Soft Edge pad and finished with the new version of Optimum Car Wax.



My_2002_Maxima_scratch_finished.jpg




It is not perfect, but before it was noticable from 10-15 feet. Now it is more like 2-3 feet, a pretty major improvement for not actually refinishing. There are a couple shallow areas I guess I didn't completely fill, so I'll probably go over them again when I have time.



Overall, the kit seems to be pretty good. Obviously, it won't bring the paint to the level proper repair and repainting would but it does make a pretty big difference. Plus, you wouldn't be charging body shop money either and as long as the customer understands that they can get a very noticable improvement for maybe 10-15% of the cost a body shop would charge, they seem pretty happy.
 
Oh yeah, wetsanding was a piece of cake. I may go ahead and wetsand a few areas of my car where there is excessive orange peel.
 
yea scott looks like you had a good start. Probably could use a better fill. I usually fill let dry fill and wetsand 3 or 4 times before it builds up enough to make it disappear. Not a bad start though. Keep practicing and you'll get to the point where you'll never even know a scratch was ever there from even 2 inches away.
 
Scott,



You'll want to add 20% paint thickener to your paint mix. Apply paint to the scratch. Heat with a heat gun. Repeat. Repeat. Wetsand and buff. This should create a good "base" for one final layer of paint--reduced 20%--and applied carefully with a narrow brush. You won't get 100% fill, but with damage on a quarter panel, you'll get a 50 - 70% improvement on a scratch that would cost $600 - $1000 at a body shop. $600 - $1000 simply isn't in the budget for most vehicle owners and car dealerships. Paying a detailer $40 - $60 for a quality touchup is a logical compromise.



I saw in a different thread that you have rock chips across the front of your car. Did you get a chance to try the wipe on / wipe off method described in the manual? You won't get 100% fill, but at least the chips won't reflect white. Clean the area first with wax/grease remover. Apply the paint liberally, then remove the excess paint with a paper towel, wrapped around the foam block, sprayed with PaintLeveler. You'll likely entirely remove some of the "good paint"--the paint that's in the chip--from several chips. Simply tap these chips with the paint mixture when done.
 
Robert-still playing around with the kit a bit, the weather hasn't exactly cooperated as much as I had hoped...drizzle and 37 right now.



I wasn't sure when specifically I should add the reducer or the thickener, but when I go over that scratch again to get as good as possible, I'll try it with thickener.



Any chance of adding a color chart with the blends of two touch up colors to match colors that aren't on the color scale cards, or is that basically going to be a trial and error deal that one eventually learns to eyeball and just know what colors to mix?
 
You where able to completely remove all tracers with a PC? I usually need a couple passes with a heavy leveler and wool to get the all the sanding marks out.... Looks like a very cool kit, glad your having fun with it...
 
Scott, if you wetsand your own car, go with the megs unigrit as opposed to the 3m. The 3m often is uneven and leaves some scratches deeper than the grit the paper is supposed to be.
 
TH0001 said:
You where able to completely remove all tracers with a PC? I usually need a couple passes with a heavy leveler and wool to get the all the sanding marks out.... Looks like a very cool kit, glad your having fun with it...
Click to expand...



ROTARY!!! I am using William H. Bonney's PC 7428. I used the Soft Edge orange one step pad and Optimum Compound to quickly remove the sanding marks.



Ron-all I had on hand was 3M stuff, but I do plan on going by my Meguiars distributor to get the Meguiars Unigrit paper in the very near future.
 
Anyone heard of the "squeege" paint repair method? I do traditional touch up and SSR and some other guy in town uses this squeege thing.. from what Ive seen it it gets really impressive results when you have multiple chips in a front end. THe SSR rocks the house with individual scratches though but its pretty expensive.
 
The "Detail King" keeps popping up in all my google searches for stuff like this. It looks like an interesting process they offer. A little on the high end if you ask me. But interesting none the less.
 
Our kit can actually be applied in 3 ways:



1. Paintbrush

2. Flowpen

3. Wipe on / wipe off (squegee)



Detail King, SSR, IMAC, Dr. Colorchip, RightLook, Blending Colors, and Applied Colors all use the same "squegee method": apply the paint liberally, then remove the excess paint with an excess remover.



You can review Detail King's process here:

The Color Twin Process



Premiere Paint 2000's process here:

Demo Video



The pic of this quarter panel scratch on the Maxima can be emailed to any of the above companies and none of them will assure 100% fill. 100% fill is the Holy Grail of touchup paint, and as of 12/10/07, it hasn't been achieved.



Consider that the paint on modern cars is applied in 6 stages (3 basecoat, 3 clear) with guns that atomize that paint. No touchup brush, squegee method, buff/polish method, etc. can replicate that process on deep scratches. Only sanding, priming, painting, and clearing will provide a perfect repair.



10-15% of scratches expose bare metal. 50% are at the clearcoat level and can be buffed out. For the remaining 40%, a small amount of color-matched paint provides a significant improvement.
 
PROServices said:
Anyone heard of the "squeege" paint repair method? I do traditional touch up and SSR and some other guy in town uses this squeege thing.. from what Ive seen it it gets really impressive results when you have multiple chips in a front end. THe SSR rocks the house with individual scratches though but its pretty expensive.
Click to expand...



It is mentioned and explained in the Applied Colors manual. I'm going to try it on the rock chips in my hood when the weather improves.
 
I've just recently begun to do 'real' touchup. Discovery of the flowpen ($3.95? at craft store) was an epiphany for me. I'm very close to 4 major dealers, so getting the correct color is simple. What a substantial add on service!



My 'usual' paint tech has become way too busy for me, so he helps out with a few 'secrets'. His squeegee technique is amazing... I gotta get some of that remover!
 
PROServices said:
Anyone heard of the "squeege" paint repair method? I do traditional touch up and SSR and some other guy in town uses this squeege thing.. from what Ive seen it it gets really impressive results when you have multiple chips in a front end. THe SSR rocks the house with individual scratches though but its pretty expensive.
Click to expand...



We have the full paint system from Paint Bull that uses this method. Works pretty well and gets pretty impressive results. We haven't really been pushing these services for a while because the wholesale side dropped out from under us but we were getting anywhere from $35-$75 a car with the dealers to do a full paint touch up when we detailed a car. Really finishes off the detail nicely.
 
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