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How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
In my research of different paint chip touch up techniques, from Dr. Color Chip to others... I think that this method stands out as providing the best results:
YouTube
But it requires wet sanding the area around the chip with 2000-2500 grit and eventually finishing off with 3000 grit once the clear is leveled down.
How can I make sure I'm not taking too much clear off during the process? Will a paint meter gauge even be useful, because that still doesn't tell you how much clear there is?
Car in question is a 1998 Porsche 911 with original paint.
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Super Member
Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
@Eric, I’m not an expert but I’m answer.
Yes, the paint gauge will tell you how much clear coat is left. From my understanding 4.0 is where you should stop removing clear coat.
As far as wet sanding, that’s another area I’m learning (one day). Keep at it, but wait for the real pros. God bless
My goal in life is to love God, family and myself. To love others and treat others right.
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Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
What you're trying to do is on the advanced side of the paint correction spectrum.
Mostly because the clear layer of clearcoat is so damn thin. Here's something I've shared in the past on this topic and it's just as accurate today as the day I typed it out.
Read the below carefully, it's not just words - it's real deep info.
Couple of comments to anyone ever attempting to do this kind of repair...
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.
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Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
And here's just one reason, what you're trying to do is so difficult.
Click the link, read the words and look at the pictures. If you really want to understand - do the thing I'm doing in the pictures.
Clearcoats are thin by Mike Phillips
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Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
And...
For most people, most cars and most customers.... I recommend what I show here,
How to use the Dr. ColorChip Paint Chip Repair Systems
You're intentions are noble for sure, been there done this myself over the years. Sad to say, what happens more often than not is,
You turn a Mole Hill into a Mountain
And should you burn through the paint when trying to buff out your sanding marks, here's what I say about that,
Words cannot describe the heart-sinking feeling that overcomes you when you discover you have buffed through the paint - Mike Phillips
See this article,
When to stop buffing - Or - How far should you go to remove swirls and scratches?
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Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
Thank you for the info, very informative!! I think seeing just how thin the clear coat is (post-it note) validated my concerns with wetsanding to do this touch up method. I guess I will have to settle with the Dr. Color Chip and slowly try to build up and fill the chips per your tutorial to get the best results.
Would you say that the end result of the wetsand and clear method I shared in the video of the OP vs. a properly applied Dr. Color Chip would be comparable? Or at least comparable enough to not warrant the risk of the former method?
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Super Member
Re: How to NOT Wetsand through Clear when doing Touch Ups?
After years of owning BMW’s (rock chip magnets) I’ve done all kinds of methods and no matter what I did if the paint doesn’t match perfectly I went from chips to spots. What I mean is when the paint isn’t spot on the repair looks like repairs, if you have metallic paint it’s more noticeable. I agree with Mike about making about an ant hill to a mountain reference, if you have 20 spots you have 20 times to mess up. What I do now is the sandpaper on a pencil erasure trick to level of the impact area and fill to level, in a month or so I’ll lightly polish the area and walk away.
A repair is a repair and most times it looks good from a distance
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