Repairing Paint Chips

What to do to keep your car looking and running like new, inside and out.
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watkins
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Repairing Paint Chips

Post by watkins »

Someone on the Mazda3 forum want to quote this to here since I have no interest in signing up:

http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=95560.0
Werty
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Re: Repairing Paint Chips

Post by Werty »

Tronix102 wrote: Repairing Rock Chips on your Mazda

By: Tronix102
Email: tronix@xenonflux.com
Web: www.xenonflux.com

Tools & Materials needed:

- Touchup or color matched paint - google touch up paint
- Clearcoat (optional) - auto parts store
- Primer - auto parts store
- Rubbing Alcohol - cvs
- Small sanding block or piece of wood
- 1200, 1500, 2000 grit automotive sandpaper - auto body or parts store
- Small bowl
- Compound – 1000 grit remover, 2000 grit remover (optional) - some auto parts store has them or auto body has all this
- Orbital Buffer (optional – but makes it easier) - look online
- Paper cup
- Toothpicks

1.) Start by cleaning the chip and surrounding area with rubbing alcohol to get rid of grease, dirt, etc.

2.) Depending on what kind of paint you have you will need a paper cup to hold some. Since I have a spray can, I sprayed some in the cup. If you have touch up paint in a little bottle you don’t need a cup :chuckles:
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3.) Break the toothpick so it doesn’t have a sharp point anymore and dip it in the paint and let it drip into the chip. You can do the same for this if you have a brush for the touch up paint bottle.
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4.) You will want to repeat this process several times so you form the paint above the chip like in the picture below: **Note, if you want to use clear coat, use clear coat before the paint *blob* goes above the surrounding surface, and just build up clear coat to sand off like you would with just building up paint. The clear coat will be what you sand off and not the paint so make sure you only do a few coats of paint and the rest clear if you desire this.
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5.) If you are worried about getting paint everywhere, you can tape around each chip:
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6.) Yah I have a lot of small chips as you can see.

7.) Next comes the sanding. Make sure you soak your automotive sandpaper for 24 hours in water prior to using.

8.) Take your block of wood and wrap the sandpaper around it shown here:
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9.) You will want to sand in a back and forth movement until the “blob” of paint is no longer visible and the surface is smooth again. Take your time, as this process is time consuming. Keep the surface wet, and dip your sandpaper in water frequently to clean off paint and to keep it wet.
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**See picture above, I didn’t put enough paint so you can still see the chip after sanding

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10.) At this stage you can either apply clear coat to the chip area and re-sand or just buff the scratches out which I did because I don’t have patience.

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11.) If you buff by hand, apply compound to a micro fiber and rub back and forth until the surface is glossy again.

12.) And there you have it, a complete how to repaint paint chip guide. Some things I didn’t use was primer. If the chip is down to bare metal, you would use the same process as dipping the tooth pick in primer and putting a drop on the chip so the paint will stick.

13.) Put a nice coat a wax on after you buff since it will remove all wax that you “buff” off the car.
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For all those that would like a PDF version, I have made one available here for download. http://www.xenonflux.com/Repairing_Rock ... _Mazda.pdf

Good luck all, I hope this helps.
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AHTOXA
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Re: Repairing Paint Chips

Post by AHTOXA »

I need to do this. I was washing and waxing my car a few weeks ago and there are so many rock chips on the front, it's not even funny.
'19 Toyota 4Runner TRD ORP
'12 Suzuki V-Strom 650
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