siegelion

I notice my car had a small paint chip (085 Eminent White Pearl). about 5mm x 5mm in size. So I bought a touch up paint that had 3 paints. (basecoat, midcoat and clearcoat)

I realize the small chip is starting to rust. And the paint instructions have things that discusses removal of rust and apply a "primer".

I am planning to use a sand paper to sand down the rusts, does anyone know what I should do with the primer stuff? Should I buy some primer as well? Anyone has any recommendations?

thallium

I hope you don't mind if I piggyback on your thread. I have a similar issue and may be some help and hopefully this will get some others to chime in. Did you find help with this elsewhere?

I had a chip about the size you describe across the edge of the rear door sill so the chip was not flat but was covering two planes. I have Starfire Pearl and got some touch up paint in little bottles, base, pearl and clear. The paint seemed to have cleanly broken off leaving clean primer with no steel underneath. I got a fiberglass abrasive pen to "sand" the area and to bring down the edge and also there was a gap where the paint had come undone from the primer.

I have never done anything like this and was slightly impatient and in the end I ended up making the spot a fair amount bigger to get back to clean solid paint. Trying to use the included brushes with the touch up paint was not feasible because of the smallness of the chip. I ended up trying some tiny little brush applicators but their little brush fibers would come loose in the paint. I finally settled with some tiny art paint brushes. I soon realized that trying to apply base, pearl and clear was very hard to control the thicknesses and ended up having a huge mound of paint higher than the rest of the existing paint. I also had several missteps and had to repaint it two or three times. In the end it was very messy and looks bad but from six feet it's not that noticeable now so, oh well.

I have another bad chip that is in possibly the hardest spot to reach on the whole car. It is right on the leading edge of the roof, in the center just above the windshield. The only spot I can get to that is comfortable to work on it is to open the sunroof and stand in the back seat to reach. This chip is about 1/8" inch and has rust in it. It's been there a long time, since I got the car two years ago. It does not seem to be getting worse. I'm in Phoenix so rain and staying wet is not that much of an issue luckily. I have wanted to tackle it for a long time but have had a hard time getting up the nerve.

I got some auto primer in a can that I wanted to apply to the metal once I get rid of the rust. I planned to spray some in a cup and use a brush to apply it. Problem I'm trying to figure out is how to sand such a small chip without damaging good paint.