how many light coat on average to fill a chip ?

[chip douglas]

Hey all, been doing chip repairs on the car for couple days now, using light coat, to slightly overfill the chip then wetsand etc....i hear all the time it takes many light coats to fill the chip, which makes sense but how many are many actually ? A chip on average isnt something 1/16'' deep(althought there might be a few at times), so figured about 3 coats would do the trick.

The thing is this year is the first year i really attempt to do em chip repairs to perfection. I use match sticks cut at a 45 degree angle, yet the problem is to apply very light coats, one has to dip the stick just a bit, but i found that dipping very lightly just doest let any paint in the chip, so i dipped again a tad more(not that much more though) and applied it to the center of the chip once more, this time it did work, but tended to blob, so all in all, i wonder if artist's brushes(#2 or something) wouldnt be much better at applying light coats.

But basically this post is to know how many coats in a chip repair is considered a good job............i mean i know it has to slightly overfill the chip, but how many coats does it require on average to get there?


Many thanks to all of you and have a nice weekend :beer

 

[Dad_A_Tude]

Hard to put a number to considering each chip is different & every coat of paint is not the same thickness. Touch-up paint can have a tendancy to be a little thick.

Don't think I've ever exceeded 3 coats, but have never counted. I just plug away at it until I can look at it from different views & say, "Ahhh, that's good."

An artist brush may work out better for you, but I personally like the once and done match stick brush that goes in the garbage. Don't have to worry about the bristles stiffing up (or cleaning the brush) in between coats.
Plus, if you're a smoker, they have a dual purpose.

Good luck, it's tedious work.
Rob

 

[CharlesW]

It has been my experience that the "blob" will tend to shrink after a few days. It will quite often take me three "blobs" before I have what I think is enough paint to work with.
Now for the part you won't want to hear. It seems like it takes close to a week before the "blob" has done all the shrinking it is going to do.
Makes for a long drawn out process.

 

[chip douglas]

Thanks guys, i now have a pretty good idea of what i thought made sense.........best regards to you all