help a newb out with touch-up paint/wet-sanding

**bentz69** · 09-21-2015, 09:41 PM

Whats the best way to tackle these deep scratches? They go all the way down to the plastic. I have the oem touch up paint in hand.

I was assuming that trying to fill them with touchup paint then going at it by slowly wet sanding would be the best way??

with flash

without flash

**DaveT435** · 09-21-2015, 10:01 PM

That's going to be tough. I would go with Dr Colorchip. With the location of those scratches I think you may end up with a ores problem than you started with. Not saying it can't be done, filling in very slowly with a toothpick one very thin coat at a time, or just get a thin layer of paint over the white and call it good.

**DragonHawk** · 09-21-2015, 11:02 PM

I think this is one of those trial and error situations. If it were me I would spray paint it. Try brushing some on and see how it goes. You can always wipe it off real quick and then adjust your technique of you need to. You'll need to paint it thin and then feather the edges best you can to blend it. Then lightly sand and compound it a little.

**bentz69** · 09-23-2015, 09:34 PM

So it's better to start slowly filling in the scratches first and go from there.

I was wondering if I should wetsand the whole area first with a very high grit then compound and polish to see if I can remove the scratches on the lower portion without using touch-up paint. Will that work?

**DragonHawk** · 09-23-2015, 10:45 PM

A lot of scratch repair kits come with a putty filler and paint leveler liquid. You basically rub the paint into the scratch after the filler dries and use the paint leveling solution to wipe the access paint off around the scratch. Try doing some research on that.

**Setec Astronomy** · 09-24-2015, 06:28 AM

Originally Posted by bentz69

I was wondering if I should wetsand the whole area first with a very high grit then compound and polish to see if I can remove the scratches on the lower portion without using touch-up paint. Will that work?

No.

This is a common misconception. The paint is very thin, you don't want to remove paint, you want to add paint back that's been scraped off. You will wind up over-adding and then need to sand the new paint back down to the level of the "real" paint.

Now it may be that when you get to sanding and polishing that the faint scratches that are too shallow to really touch up will come out, but IMO you don't want to start by sanding.

Most threads that contain "newb" "touch-up" and "sanding" in the title don't turn out well, let's not make this one of those threads.

Also, try to keep in mind that likely the only way this will come out perfect and looking like new is to get the bumper resprayed--trying to get perfection in these situations usually results in the opposite. You want to remove as little paint as possible, as there isn't much there to begin with.

**7PaintGuns** · 10-07-2015, 06:18 PM

Touch up is not going to help you at all in this situation. What kind of results are you looking for? It wouldn't cost much to have a professional glaze and spot in that small area. I would call around and see who gives free estimates in your location before you make a bad situation worse. It wouldn't hurt to get a few prices.