Paint Chip...can I get it any better than this?

[Nathans_Dad]

First try at repairing paint chips. I am trying to refurbish the finish on my 84 targa without resorting to a total repaint. There are several paint chips, a few of them large which I am trying to repair. The one pictured below was about 1/4 of an inch and down to the gray primer. I filled it with the touch up paint and have sanded it and used rubbing compound. I have not polished the paint yet or waxed it. The mar underneath and to the left of the chip is my fault, got a little aggressive with the wet sanding...I am hoping that will not be as noticable once I polish and wax it. Should I try another coat of paint and another round of sanding or leave it as is? It is metallic paint which I know is harder than others but I was hoping for a little better result. Am I too obsessive?

[Don Plumley]

It is a bit obsessive - I was in this camp but am rapidly moving into the "drive it like you stole it" camp.

Anyway, I consider a great resource at Car Care Specialties - Paint Chip Repair. I mostly followed the instructions and couldn't find some of my chips after I finished.

Are you putting clear on top of the color paint? I put in a couple of coats of color, then enough clear so the surface looked like this:

_O_

Then used a 2000 grit sanding block to level, then polished out the scratches.

Good luck!

Don

[Nathans_Dad]

Yeah I tried using the clear but it darkened the paint to the point you could easily see the repair. The instructions say that the clear will darken the color somewhat, I guess it is the work of 25 years of sun. Anyhow, the color match is better without the clear so I left it off...

[Don Plumley]

I'm guessing that without the clear, you won't get a clean match.

About paint - I went to a local high-end auto paint store, had them look up the codes and make small quantities of two-part paint and clear. It was a PITA, but the clear matched invisibly.

[Nathans_Dad]

I bought the paint from paintscratch (or paintchip) .com. They sent the base and clear based on the Porsche paintcode. I am sure it matches the original slate blue metallic, just a bit dark for my 25 year old sun faded slate blue metallic...

[89911]

If you don't feel up to it, your local car dealer has people that come by the lots to fix these. They custom mix up the shades and can match up obvious scratches pretty good. I've used this stuff http://www.langka.com/ with varing degrees of success. It's basically a fine comound that can remove touch up paint slowly without scratching like compound of sand paper can. I guess it has some solvents in it that soften the paint enough to remove the overpainted area's. One of the best tips is fill only what is needed using as fine an instrument as possible, (toothpick or pin.)

[Wavey]

Also check this thread for the balsa wood/lacquer thinner method:

Paint Chip Repair question