I do suppose the easiest thing to do is ignore them.
However I cannot... sadly.
RED93 has a few tiny rock dings that have caused paint hole in the front end.

A good buddy of mine is a picture framer who owns a frame shop. Recently while there in his shop I noticed he was assembling quite a few frames with a brad gun. The brads made tiny holes in the black frames. He then took out a small pot of what he called "Framers Wax".

Framers Wax, is a pigmented wax that is sticky. He took a small stick, picked up a gob of the black wax and swabbed it over each of the brad holes. He then buffed the area with a rag. Low and behold the holes were invisible. He then coated the area with a beeswax and buffed it again. All residue was gone and the holes were essentially invisible. My jaw dropped....

I got to thinking... will this work on RED93??

Hey Ron, I said, you got any of that in RED? "sure here take a tin, red is not a common color for frames" So now I have a small tin of red framer's wax. I will try this out on some of the tiny rock dings and see if it can fill them in. After I buff off the excess I will coat the area with some Zaino and see what happens.

I will let ya'll know how this works out. Fingers crossed. Sometimes these little tricks or products from one industry have great applications in another. We'll see.

 

Best bet is to go to the drug store, buy some vasaline. Then apply the it to your *** and go to the dealer and buy some touch up paint for your color.

Use the brush of the touchup paint and apply small dots to the chip. Let dry. Keep repeating this untill you have completely filled the chiped area. Then let it cure in the sun for a few days to make sure it's good and dry. Then take 1500 grit sand paper (called wet sand paper) and sand the touched up area down smooth - remember to sand it w/ water hence the name. When done, buff the area out w/ polishing compound. It might be helpful to wrap the sand paper around a carpenters pencil or other firm, flat object, to keep your sanding uniform.

Volia, chip is now blended in w/ original paint. No one will ever be able to see it was there, unless you use a magnifying glass and see the slight shade diffference in the tiny spot.



Keith

 

What about scratches?

My entire car was recently repainted by my insurance. My car is black (no clearcoat), but when the bodyshop did it, they said they can't put a warranty on the paint job unless they clearcoat it -- so they clearcoated it.

Anyhow, not less than a day after I get it back, somebody put a 5-inch scratch in it. The shop touched it up, but it's still noticeable. The scratch is on the rear-quarter panel, so the entire rear-half of the car would probably have to be repainted (if it were to be repainted). Any ideas how to fix it (without an entire repaint)?

 

hmm you could try some touch up pain and then some Megiar's Clear Coat Wax....

Speaking of wax what is people's favorite?

I like Megiar's... but maybe that's just my ignorance

 

Zaino Showcar Polishes of course. Super stuff. Not a wax. It builds up and makes your paint look wet and deep. First application takes forever. After that its cake.

www.zainobros.com

 

I've been using Meguiar's also. It's easy to use and not real expensive. I might have to try Zaino and see how it is.

 

I use Liquid Glass - expensive as hell, but the bottle lasts for ever and gives a great shine.

 

for the big nicks on your paint:
1. buy the factory touch up paint.
2. use no blob by http://www.langka.com/ if you are squimish about using sand paper to your paint.

to get that smooth finish on your car
1. use the clay magic clay bar (fine).
2. follow up with clear coat which can be purchased at http://www.tsservices.com/
i would suggest buying by the gallon since it's $29 a pint (gallon is about $60-$70..comes out to about $9 a pint if my conversion is correct..been awhile since i bought it).

 

I was in detailing aways back, i've used Zymol for years and have been very happy with it, but I use Malco Flash for quickie waxes, I can bang out the whole car in minutes, but it'll only last a couple weeks. The Zymol, however, is extremely durable. For everything else I use either 3M or Malco products. My IROC had a $3300 Spies Hecker Urethane paintjob in Black (same paint as a new Benz if you didn't know already) that someone keyed in the quarter panel down to the metal 2 weeks after I got it back. I spent about 15-20 filling, wetsanding, compounding, filling, wetsanding, compounding, but when I was done you couldn't tell the repair had been done.

P.S. - I found out 3 full years later who keyed that car, turned out it was over a girl believe it or not, anyways I paid that guy a visit with some friends, I hear he still walks with a little bit of a limp...

 

Oh, and the Strawberry Metallic Explorer 4dr. I just picked up a month ago was keyed on both left doors a couple days ago, there's a high school near here, and the punks all walk down my block on the way to and from school, one of them was probably just screwing around, but now I have a mark on the side of my truck that looks like the Loch Ness Monster, you know, undulating.

 

How do you get insurance to pay for a new paint job? I have like three inch-long scratches on my passenger door, one deep gash in my front bumper, and a bunch of scratches on my rear bumper (all came with the car). They really really annoy me and I don't feel like paying $3000 or so to have a factory-quality repaint. My insurance policy is through AAA and supposedly very extensive. Would that be covered? Moshlub, what'd you say to get it repainted? Thanks!

 

I had a recent accident (more like a crash) ... they had to replace the front bumper, the whole passenger side (front to rear) and rear bumper. Since my car was black, Lexus doesn't clearcoat it. But for the shop to put a warranty on the paint job, they have to clearcoat it. I told them I don't want to the car to look funky. And since they had to repaint most of the car anyway, they went ahead and did the whole car. The original job called for them to repaint everything except the driver's door and driver's front fender. Total job was $12k, which Allstate paid. They weren't about to total my car, cause it's still worth $25k.