touch up paint specifics
 

How exactly does touch up paint work? does it just go over existing paint and clear coat?

does it have its own clear coat?

how do u make it smooth.. ?


i got a ding today.. really pissed that people are so inconsiderate.. why the heck do they ahev to park next to me in a huge ass parking lot...

sigh

are there other things i can do to remove ding? zaino? claybar? those weird products on late night infomercials? sigh

i'm sad... :crying: :( :anger: :scared: :rant: :eek:

touch-up paints for clearcoat colors sort of have their own clearcoats (although you can also get touch-up clearcoat).

As for application, it all depends on how anal you want to get with hiding the chip/scratch. You can just put a little touch-up over the flaw, and it should be invisible from more than 3-4 feet (and outside of 1-2 feet you may need to know what you're looking for, but you'll be able to kind of see it)

If you want it really invisible, you're in for some work with sanding down to primer around the flaw, then laying down a couple coats of touch-up, then wet-sanding with 1600 grit paper (little to no pressure applied on this step) to blend, then touchup clearcoat, then wetsanding the clearcoat smooth, then re-clay and re-polish the area. This is best only attempted if you have some experience or don't mind risking having to get the whole panel re-painted (the good and bad news is that a lot of body/paint shops will charge for this to touch up a gouge or scratch before or after you screw up a DIY attempt, so if you're willing to pay the shop, there's less downside to trying it yourself).

If its just a ding with no paint damage, you could try a paintless dent repair shop, or just park the car in direct sunlight until the body is very hot in the area, then put an ice cube against the spot where it's dinged (the thermal shock can sometimes make the ding pop back out, or so I've heard...).

hrm.. its not really a ding.. more of surface scratch... i have titanium grey...

the scratch part is a little whiter... sigh

I'd like to know too...and what are the best touch up paint products out there.

with regard to repairing chip damage

there is nothing better

I was told from someone who repaired some dings on my car that if there's a real deep scratch, you should take the touch-up paint in a syringe and fill the scratch that way. That way you avoid getting the paint on non-necessary parts surrounding the scratch. This advice was to fix a deep scratch from when someone had keyed my car :(. I have never tried it, but sounds like it would work.

have you used this stuff personally?

hrm... if i use that i still have to wait for my touch up paint... when are they gonna send it?!@#?

I bought this stuff, but didn't have a chance to use it myself, as on my last car, the touch-up paint was wrong and I sold it before I got the right touch-up paint.

I gave it to my ex-ex-boss, who used it on his yellow SLK230. He's recently become super-anal about doing the best thing.

Using the Mercedes Benz touch-up paint, he ended up trying the following:

1) Langka Blob Eliminator with a fine t-shirt wrapped around the card. Result: touch-up spots looked too dark. A little lower than level, as well? Possible diagnosis: the touch-up paint is a special paint that has some oils that come up after application to give it shine similar to the stock paint w/ clear coat. It seems too much of this shined portion was taken off, making the spots look darker.

2) Langka Blob Eliminator with a 280-count cotton sheet, wrapped around the card. list price $40, on sale for $20. Quite a bit better. Paint not as dark but still not as good as he'd like. The removal still makes a little crater, but not as bad as before. Diagonsis: blob eliminator is a little too harsh. Maybe doesn't interact too well with that particular Mercedes-Benz paint?

3) 280-count cotton sheet wrapped around the card with Meguiar's Scratch-X. Best result. Takes a while to smooth out the touched-up paint, but takes much much longer to crater. The result leaves a little, barely visible bump that still needs to be smoothed out by polishing for perfection. However, touch-up paint matches the best with this approach.

So, really, for my friend the most useful thing out of the Langka kit was the flat card. However, that's his paranoid self with his particular paint.

Overall, I would recommend trying it, along with a very fine cotton sheet for blob removal (don't use a shirt).

hrm.. thanks for the tip.. how much is that scratch x stuff? and can't i just use an old credit card or something?

You must make sure that the card is very flat and has no bumps. I don't know whether you could use an old credit card, maybe you could. I noticed that the Langka card is more flexible than your average credit card. It's akin to a club membership card that's less thick and has no bumps, just printed text.

you can get scratch-x locally. i think its under $10

you think one of those cards they send with the credit card applications would work? it sure would be nice to find a use for those things!!!

if there's no bumps on it (like the fake printed name). ... looking at my wallet, my "Bob's Store Card" seems like it would do the trick.

great! i have those!! now do you use the flat side (with the printed name) or the edge?

If that's all it is, then the scratch is probably just in the clearcoat (it gets whiter because the scratch makes the clearcoat less clear).

If it is just in the clearcoat, then a body/paint shop should be able to just sand it out in about 5 minutes using a wet "sanding sponge". The shop that did this on a previous vehicle refered to it as "color sanding" the spot.

Check the instructions on Langka site... but instead of blob remover, apply some scratch X.

You basically wrap the card in a cotton sheet, tightly, so that the flat surface is very flat with no wrinkles. Then you rub over with the flat side. The idea is that the card bends and conforms to the surface of the car's panel and as you slide it over, it levels the blob off to conform with the panel's shape.

BTW I take no responsibility for the Scratch-X approach. I know that the blob eliminator can completely remove your touch-up paint so you can start over, but I don't know whether Scratch X can remove as much paint, if you spread it too much. So try to put on very little touch-up paint (minimize the bump) to begin with, don't glob over a huge blob.

I have used Scratch-X with the credit card and a very soft old t-shirt. Worked great!!!

I also use the end of a match (from a book of matches) cut at a really severe angle to apply the touch up paint. I find it works really well to control the paint.