Deep scratches in old, single stage paint

[Mike Phillips]

Hi. First time poster. I'm in the process of reviving the original single stage paint on my 1966 Chevy pickup. I've been following Mike's regimen using Meguiar's #7 and the results have been good so far. I even was lucky enough to talk to Mike on the phone recently to get some tips on what to do.

Todd!

You're truck is looking awesome!

The paint is coming back nicely. However, the truck has a lot of dings and scratches. Apparently, it lived a very rough life in a mall parking lot somewhere, which is a shame considering it only has 34k miles on the odometer.

Can these scratches and nicks be corrected (or even just made less noticeable) while preserving the original paint? The rest of the paint is pretty good but this "rash" is really bad all up and down both sides at car door height.

Thanks,
Todd

Here's your other two pictures, I uploaded them into your gallery here on AGO so they could be inserted and thus easier for everyone to see and talk about...







If this truck were mine I would run a compound with a foam cutting pad on a rotary buffer over these effected areas to smooth and shmoo them over to start with.

Then in you want to try to touch them up with touch-up paint consider contacting Dr. Color Chip and see what they can do for you as getting a perfect color match.


See my article on how to use their system and please take my word for it... it's as easy to use as I share in the article...






It's also FAST and EASY.

Doing more, like adding touch-up paint, waiting for it to harden then sanding the area then buffing the area then polishing the area "can" work but it can also lead to turning a mole hill into a mountain.

Here's my article. By the way I see the owner of this Mustang all the time and you really can't see any of the touch up paint or more specifically, you can't see where the rock chips were unless you know where to look and get your nose down by the panel and look real hard.

How to use the Dr. ColorChip Paint Chip Repair Systems


Here's post #2 from the above article....

Three simple steps!
Here is a list of the steps you want to follow in this order, below this list I'll go over each step with pictures.


Step 1 - Use IPA or Isopropyl Alcohol with a clean, microfiber towels and gently clean the rock chipped area as best you can. Feel free to improvise for example use a Q-tip swab to really get into the chip and wipe it clean. It's important to have a clean surface for the touch-up paint to adhere.



Step 2 - Shake up the bottle of touch-up paint to ensure a uniform paint mixture. Then after selecting the appropriate brush, dip the end of the brush into the touch-up paint and dab the paint into the rock chip. After dabbing the paint into the rock chip, use the side of your thumb to lightly wipe over the chipped area and thus level the surface by smearing any excess paint onto the paint surrounding the rock chip.



Step 3 - Use the SealAct blending solution with the included flat surface microfiber towel to wipe off the excess touch-up paint.

Lots of pictures in the actual article...

[Mike Phillips]

Here's a few tips on doing the touch-up paint/sanding/buffing process....




1. When possible, let the paint dry longer. You want the touch up paint as dry and hard as possible before you start sanding and buffing on it.

The problem you can run into when you start buffing on touch-up paint is when you warm it up, especially when using a rotary buffer, you can actually pull the touch-up paint right out of the scratch or rock chip if you're attempting to do this to a rock chip. Then you're back to where you started only now you've got sanding marks in the surrounding paint.



2. Touch-up paint will always be softer than the factory paint surrounding the repair, here's how this affects the buffing process. When you go to buff out your sanding marks, they will buff out quickly and easily out of the touch-up paint because this paint is softer, especially if it's only dried a short time. The surrounding paint will be harder and thus it will be harder or more difficult to remove your sanding marks out 100%

It's easy to sand paint as at it's core that's putting scratches into the paint... the tricky part is getting the ALL out...

When doing touch-up repair work on clear coat paints, what I've seen and experienced is the sanding marks come out of the touch-up paint quickly and easily but not so with the factory clear.

So what a person does is continue buffing the sanding marks in the surrounding clear paint and what happens is you heat the panel up and your buffing pad will literally pull the touch-up paint out of the scratch or chip.



3. You really need a rotary buffer to remove sanding marks 100%

Can you do it with a DA or Flex or even Cyclo? Sure but it will take longer. Again the sanding marks will come out of the touch-up paint quickly and easily, it's the surrounding factory baked-on clear coat that you'll need to be concerned with.

Try to finish sand with #3000 or higher before buffing.



__________________

[rmagnus]

Reviving an old thread here. I just wanted to thank rmagnus for all the tips, if he's still around.

Believe it or not, I am finally getting around to attempting to work on these scratches/dings after a year and a half of hemming an hawing over it. I have had a small amount of PPG acrylic lacquer paint matched to the gas cap.

I was wondering if Mike Phillips might be able to chime in here and give me a list of the materials I'll need to complete the touch ups. I understand it will take sandpaper (by the way, is sandpaper all the same... or do I need a special type of automotive sandpaper?). Can you buy a special fine-tip abrasive tool to remove rust from scratches, like key marks? Seems like sandpaper on a pencil eraser would be too large to get into the scratch. I'm also a little confused about polishing the sand marks out after the touch up. I have a porter cable DA. What kinds of pads and/or compound/polish will I need to get rid of the sanding marks? As I mentioned, I'm a complete novice when it comes to wet sanding and I don't know much about different pad types, either.

Luckily, most of the dings are in a concentrated area, in kind of a stripe down the side of each door. Hopefully the sanding/polishing can be in a fairly confined area. Thanks for your patience with a (slightly nervous) newbie, everyone!

Well another revival. Just wondering how the final product came out. Lots of different ways to conquer scratches as you can tell from the advise. Your truck looks way better. I like old vehicle's and SS paint sadly not enough of them around anymore.

[sodly]

Thanks for asking, rmagnus. Well, truth be told... I kinda chickened out and never did try to touch up the scratches. The longer I've lived with them the more I've come to accept that they are part of the patina of the truck. They just don't bother me as much as they used to anymore. Here's a shot of the more or less finished product.