Few things in life a more frustrating than a scratch or damage to your car paintwork. This can happen at any time, maybe driving down the road or even simply parked at a shopping center your car could get scratched. When this happens it doesn’t necessarily mean that you must spend thousands of dollars though. At this point though you have one of three options to take You can just ignore the scratch and carry on like normal You can pay someone to have it done which is generally quite expensive You can do it yourself which can either be a nightmare or can save a lot of money.
This article is designed to help the reader to get the most of painting a car by themselves. It may seem like a massive undertaking but if it is done in a logical and organized manner the process can even be fun. So what do you need to sort that scratch out? Well, firstly you need to ascertain how severe the scratch or mark is if your scratch is not that severe than you probably can sort out in a few simple steps. Below are some tips that you can follow to fix whatever damage might have occurred. You will need Protective clothing, gloves, and old jersey and jeans Goggles Respirator Compressor A spray gun Sandpaper preferably between 300 and 500 grit Turpentine Old rags Method Use soapy water to wash the damaged area and then let it dry completely. Take very fine sandpaper and smooth the area. Take a toothbrush or a small brush and clean any excess dust out of the scratches. Apply a car body flattening compound to dull the surface. Take a very good quality primer and paint over the flattened surface. At this point depending on how that the scratch is you might need to smooth the affected area out with body putty. Sand the affected area down again till you cannot see any cracks or bulges if you need to then add more car body body-putty and flattening compound. The last and final step is to add the paint this is probably the most tricky part of the everything because it takes a degree of skill to get very good paint finish at this point you might want to ask someone who knows how to use a spray gun or perhaps get some lessons just until you get to feel of how to use it properly. It would be a good idea to get some training on something that isn’t as expensive as your car, runs can be a nightmare to fix, once you are ready then go ahead and apply the final coat is your car as a metallic finish will require a clear coat. Before you put this clear coat on you all need to sand your first coat down and add another, this will ensure that there is a good bonding between the two coats.
Once you have applied that second layer then you can go ahead and put two or three coats of lacquer or clear coat onto the affected area making sure to sand between coats. A final word of advice is if you are just spraying a damaged panel it would be a good idea to keep that panel on the car instead of taking it off, that way you don’t have to worry about mismatched color the only problem with this is that you will have to match the color the right up to the next crack, for instance, if your rear fender was scratched then you will have to do the complete rear fender right up to the crack between the rear door and the trunk.
