Best Remedy for fine small scratch

[DeepShine69]

I have a small 2" scratch that is very fine, basically like a ballpoint pen nicked wrote on the paint in a vertical scratch. What is the best solution to remedy this? Buffing it out, since it is so fine? Or a little rubbing compound? Thoughts?

[Rsurfer]

I have a small 2" scratch that is very fine, basically like a ballpoint pen nicked wrote on the paint in a vertical scratch. What is the best solution to remedy this? Buffing it out, since it is so fine? Or a little rubbing compound? Thoughts?

Can you feel it with your fingernail?

[Mike Phillips]

I have a small 2" scratch that is very fine, basically like a ballpoint pen nicked wrote on the paint in a vertical scratch.

What is the best solution to remedy this?

You could do it by hand or machine. Most important is to have quality compound or polish that uses good abrasive technology otherwise you'll replace one scratch with hundreds/thousands of fine scratches.

What do you have for products?

What do you have for buffing tools?

[jamesboyy]

Does your finger nail catch on to the scratch?? if it dont then you may can buff it out by use something like m205 by hand working your way up to m105 if the weaker compound is not work but if your finger nail catch on then you may have to either said if you have experience with that or fill it in with touch up paint

[DeepShine69]

I have the Griot's Random Obital Polisher. Can't recall about the depth, and don't have the car with me. No products yet for this issue, what product(s) do you recommend?

Should I just do the touch up paint if more than just a surface scratch (which I am pretty sure it is)? If so, how much time to wait before doing a full wax and polish?

[Mike Phillips]

Try buffing it out first, don't go nuts but do some buffing.

If it's a "fine" scratch, as in no place to put into it some touch up paint then you can't really apply touch up paint.

No sure what your definition of a fine scratch is?


Here's a straight line scratch that will buff out but there's no place to add touch-up paint because it's very topical.






You don't know what you can do until you try....

[jamesboyy]

I have the Griot's Random Obital Polisher. Can't recall about the depth, and don't have the car with me. No products yet for this issue, what product(s) do you recommend?

Should I just do the touch up paint if more than just a surface scratch (which I am pretty sure it is)? If so, how much time to wait before doing a full wax and polish?

If it was me I would get meguiars m105 and m205( ultimate compound and scratch x) then I would get the car body color along with clear paint I would do the nail test if my catches then I would touch up and after 30 mins of letting the paint dry I would level it out so its flush with ghe rest of the paint but if my nail don't catch then I'll buff if out by hand using the meguiars combo

[Mike Phillips]

I have the Griot's Random Obital Polisher. Can't recall about the depth, and don't have the car with me. No products yet for this issue, what product(s) do you recommend?

Pinnacle
Sonax
Optimum
Menzerna
Wolfgang
Meguiar's
Mothers
Rupes
Blackfire

All of the above offer compounds and polishes that use very good abrasive technology and you can trust the product to do the job right.

Should I just do the touch up paint if more than just a surface scratch (which I am pretty sure it is)? If so, how much time to wait before doing a full wax and polish?

There's a couple of threads on how to use touch-up paint in the "how to articles" forum group.

Here's what I tell people,


You can make doing touch-up work as complicated as you want or as simple as you want and here's the deal, often times more and more work doesn't equate to better and better results.


Often times you can take a molehill and turn it into a mountain.


Try buffing the scratch first and if this is your daily driver, after buffing and waxing if it looks pretty good maybe just walk away and call it good. Daily drivers tend to get damage over time as this is normal.