03 Ford Mustang multiple Paint chips - Help please

[stangr]

Originally Posted by Blackthornone

Yes, but only if the rest of the car is also clear coated. Otherwise, it won't match. In addition, if a car is clear coated, then the level of the color coat touch up must be BELOW the level of the top of the paint, and instead match the level of the rest of the color coat. Otherwise, it will look like there is a little mound of color in the paint.

Yep, did that, srewed up, started over. The 3M kit I bought didn't go into detail about clear coat. Also, at first, I tried a Dupli-color kit and that was horrible. Then I found PPG/APS and they told me about the variations for my satin silver metalic paint. They are close but they took the colors out to my car and we were able to determine the exact match.
I have a larger area to cover - basically the whole lower part of the hood, left to right etc.. and the whole lower bumper all the way across. I really got blasted good. Looks like someone hit me with buck shot other than the big chip that went clear down to the metal on the hood. I'm going to try my best to fix this myself, and may end up taking it to a shop if I can't get it right. At least I won't have to pay them to sand it down etc..since I'll have that part taken care of. The people at PPG were telling me to do it differently than the 3M kit said. So that got me confused. My car does have a clear coat on it. I didn't by any clear this time around because of what happened last time with it building up and even wasn't clear. it added a darker color to it as well. That was the dupli-color kit I tried at first. The people at PPG said their clear coat is clear like water.

I'm going to start sanding tomorrow and sand the whole thing at once rather than just work on one chip at a time I guess since there's so many. MAN, this is a pain in the xxx. I'd rather work on my engine any time rather than work on paint problems like this. I've never had so many chips like this before in my life. I don't mind waxing etc... my car at all. But I sure don't like this problem. This is so screwed up I just hope I can get it to the point where it won't cost me as much to take it to a shop eventually when I have the bucks and have the whole front end re-painted/clear coated.

I read on 3M's website where they have a clear film that you can get put on your car that's like a clear hood protector/car bra. You just can't see it. Has anyone used that process ?

[Blackthornone]

I have seen said clear bra on a Ferrari, and it looked ok. You could see it from 15 feet away, but it's a lot better than rock chips. You can see a subtle line where the bra meets the rest of the paint. It was crystal clear, however, with about as much gloss as the paint itself, maybe a little less.
Make sure you keep mixing the paint frequently when you are touching up the car to make sure the metallic is as evenly distributed in the paint as possible.
You need to do that to get the best match.