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  1. #1
    Regular Member
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    Apr 2009
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    Rock Chip Repair

    Rock Chip Repair

    I have a black Mazdaspeed3. I know rock chips are a part of life, but even the tiniest ones show up on black! Will a polish/compound/pad combo get the tiny ones out? SSR3?

  2. #2
    Mike Phillips
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    Re: tiny rock chips

    Because rock chips are a divot or low spot in the paint, (paint's missing), compounding or polishing won't fix the problem it will just remove the good paint surrounding the chip.

    The only real fix is to somehow add replacement paint to the chipped area and this is usually harder to do and make it look great than most people think.

    Most people want to fill in the rock chips and make it look like,

    • There were never any rock chips.
    • There's no visual imperfection after the chip has been filled.

    Most of the time what happens is a person will use the built in paint brush in the lid of a bottle of touch-up paint to fill in the chip and because the brush head is large and the chipped area is tiny you go from a chipped area that's missing paint to a blob sitting on top of the paint.

    So while the chip is filled in you now have an unsightly blob. The next thing the person will want to do is to sand the blob flat and then somehow remove their sanding marks. This can get complicated because compared to touch-up paint, most modern clear coats tend to be much harder. The result is after sanding it will be easy to remove the sanding marks out of the touch-up paint but difficult to completely remove all the sanding marks, (scratches), out of the clearcoat paint.

    Also, if you buff to hard on the repaired area often times you actually pull the touch-up paint right out of the rock chip so now you're back to where you started only not only do you have the rock chip but you now also have sanding marks in the clear paint surrounding the rock chip.

    Fact is you can make rock-chip repair as complicated as you like and sometimes the more time and work you put into it doesn't net any better results then simply dabbing in a very tiny amount of touch-up paint and then walking away.

    I've seen the Dr.Color Chip system demonstrated in person and was quite frankly amazed at how well it worked and it actually looked pretty easy to use.

    Dr. ColorChip: Automotive Paint Chip Repair Systems


    Another option would be to find a Pro Detailer that offered the Dr.ColorChip repair system as a service and simply let them do it for you.



  3. #3
    Super Member agpatel's Avatar
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    Re: tiny rock chips

    I have used the Dr. ColorChip before and works well. Personally I have found good results by cleaning the ship area first with a prep solvent, clean the chip out with metal brush that is about the size of a ball point pen, apply the paint to the chip. Once the paint is dryed I clean the blob off with 2500 grit paper and then do a final 3000 over the area. This will let you take out the sanding marks faster and less chance of having the paint come out. I have done this on many chips on my hood and plastic bumper and have not had issues with the paint coming off. As always YMMV.

    Also, the blending solution that is used with Dr. ColorChip is very similar to the blending spray painters use to blend paint when they painting a single panel and need to blend the paint because of repairs. If I get some time, I will see how that blending solvent works this weekend on a sample panel if anyone is interested.
    Last edited by agpatel; 08-12-2009 at 12:54 PM.

  4. #4
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    Re: tiny rock chips

    Yeah, that's about what I figured. I'll probably just get the entire hood resprayed when I can't take it anymore.

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