First time touch-up and wetsanding advice

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imported_blaster3500

New member
I have a 07 BMW 335i and I just got a bad door ding on my car. The only touch up paint work I have done is the dr colorchip but this chip is a little too big for that. I plan on ordering the base and clear from paintscratch.com. I am going to apply a few layers of the base then clear. The part that scares me is the wetsanding. Especially since it is my first time and on a ridge. I plan on getting 2500 and 3000 grit megs unigrit. Here is a picture of the chip any advice would be great! Thanks



 
I had a similar chip on a body line on my '04 Mustang and I only filled in the chip with color using a "00" hobby brush, then *lightly* wetsanded, then buffed with M105 by hand with a foam pad. That pretty much eliminated any risk and the chip disappeared.
 
blaster3500- The 3K might not have enough bite to do the leveling properly, this isn't always a case where you can just "work longer with a milder grit".



Approach it the way SVTContour did, just be *VERY* conservative about the sanding. That's small enough that you might do OK without a block, but for leveling touchups the Meguiar's blocks can be handy as they have nice sharp/regular edges and corners along with good flat surfaces.



I'd use a minimal amount of basecoat and more clear.



And quit sanding *before* you think you've done enough of it ;)
 
Put some masking tape over the ridge on either side of the chip to help keep the sandpaper off it. It does not take much at all to sand through the clear on a ridge like that as the clear can be a bit thinner in that area than on the flat part of the panel. Use a good artists paint brush with a small tip like SVT said, it gives alot more control over the bigger brush that usually comes with the touchup. Build it up in very thin coats of paint and when your clear gets just over the height of the factory clear, stop and let it sit a couple days to make sure it's not going to shrink too much as it dries. If it does, lightly scuff and add more till you get it as close as possible to the height of the factory clear to help minimize the sanding you will need to do.
 
Best advice is to practice on something else. Then when you feel good, go for it. Right when you think wow, that's almost perfect, it just need a little work here... STOP.
 
Heh heh, I'd consider just leaving the "blob" of excess touchup paint. Sometimes I wetsand, sometimes I use Langka, sometimes I use DR Colorchips, and sometimes I just let the raised blob of touchup paint sit there looking terrible. And after a while it doesn't seem so terrible any more.
 
Accumulator said:
Heh heh, I'd consider just leaving the "blob" of excess touchup paint. Sometimes I wetsand, sometimes I use Langka, sometimes I use DR Colorchips, and sometimes I just let the raised blob of touchup paint sit there looking terrible. And after a while it doesn't seem so terrible any more.
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bingo.



Daily drivers have door dings. I've got a good sized chip on my door with my <1000 mile ATS.



It doesn't really bother me enough to wet sand. I spent 30 minuites messing with it trying to fill without blobbing but I'll whimp out tonight and probably just blob it on .
 
While you scratch your head and debate the risk/benefit of leveling it, the touchup paint cures nice and hard. So I *never* mind just living with it for a while if only for that reason. After a good long time curing, you might have gotten used to how it looks. OR, it might've bugged you so much on a daily basis that you're fully determined to level it. If the latter, you'll have had time to think about how to go about it, safely.



CTSV- I feel for you regarding the ATS! I pampered a few of my vehicles to a nutty extent, even by Autopian standards...only to have to-the-metal stone chips (or chips in the windshield) happen anyhow, caused by rocks/etc. that came flying a good long distance *just* to hit *my* perfect car. Finally learned my lesson about cars in the real world....
 
Accumulator said:
CTSV- I feel for you regarding the ATS! I pampered a few of my vehicles to a nutty extent, even by Autopian standards...only to have to-the-metal stone chips (or chips in the windshield) happen anyhow, caused by rocks/etc. that came flying a good long distance *just* to hit *my* perfect car. Finally learned my lesson about cars in the real world....
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Yup, we were much alike. One day I just snapped, and decided to not let the small stuff bother me anymore. The only way it won't happen is if the car is never driven or I blow $3K on a full clearbra kit (which makes the paint look dull imo), and certainly that's no fun, even less fun is spending entire weekends keeping it clean enough to eat off of instead of driving it.



I still 2 bucket wash and polish her up like a good detailer, but now far more sparingly, and I don't let that hardly visible 1" micro scratch annoy the !@#%^@6 out of me.
 
Thank you for all the help. I may decide not to wetsand. I am really anal about my cars and this chip is from the girlfriend she usually is very careful so I could have killed her. I always park far away and dents get taken care of by pdr. The mark is the worse chip on the car and on the driver door so I see it every time I get into the car. I think this may be a little deep for dr colorchip or langka.
 
blaster3500 said:
... I think this may be a little deep for dr colorchip or langka.
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You might be surprised! Noting for the umpteenth time that no touchup will really look all that great (well, hardly ever), don't let the depth thing worry you much. I filled in a simply *terrible* gouge in a plastic bumper cover with Dr Colorchip (OK OK, I know..."flex agent" etc.....but it's a temporary fix on a car that might hit cones) and it filled it in OK.



For regular chips like yours (as opposed to gouges in the underlying surface) I've never had much trouble filling in awful ones with touchup paint. And I've sure filled in worse ones than your pic, and no I never used glaze/putty/primer/etc. (just rust converter/etc. if it's bare metal).



Get a few different touchup paints- if only because no one company gets the match best every time, and see which one you like best. There are diffs in how they work along with the matching issue, so IME it can pay to have options.



CTSV said:
...I don't let that hardly visible 1" micro scratch annoy the !@#%^@6 out of me.
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Well, I'm still off the deep end when it comes to marring ;) At least anything I can fix, though I'll live with some things on the beaters that'd bug me on my good cars.
 
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