Paint Chips & Scratches

[shed]

Hi all,

I have a couple of reasonably deep and very obvious scratches (courtesy of airport parking - be warned) on the passenger door of my Kingfisher Blue 4.0 coupe.

I was wandering what you would recommend, short of a trip to a specialist, for touching them up and preventing any further damage?

Thanks in advance.
Ed.

[almcl]

Ed

Are the scratches just in the clear coat? Or have they gone into the base colour as well?

If just in the clear coat and provided nothing like Autoglym's nasty white powder products have got into them it's possible to get some air dry TPA clear and, after rubbing down with 1200 grit wet and dry, to get a reasonable finish.

If the colour coat is damaged then the challenge is matching it, not impossible but much more difficult

[shed]

The scratches are deep, in to the paint itslef.

To be honest, I'm not too concerned with matching the paint colour exactly, more worried about preventing any further damage. The car's not concourse, you have to be realistic about these things.

Ed

[almcl]

Well, there are specialists (like chips away &c) who will come out to the car, take one look and say 'go to a body shop' or you can rub down, using progressively finer wet and dry, use acid anti rust of choice (I used to use Jenolite but it's unobtainable round here now ) then prime, colour coat and clear coat from aerosols (or spray gun, if you have one.)

The club runs a refinishing seminar at Mancat now and again which you might find useful.

Results tend to depend on how much time you put into the preparation and how good a quality paint you get...

[GlennH]

Hi Ed,
I would say your most cost effective (and time effective) solution is to make a note of your VIN number and Paint code (should be on a plate mounted on the A post or B post) and pay a visit to the Jaguar parts store. They can supply you, at a very reasonable cost, with a touch up paint pack that will contain a base colour and clear coat touch up pot. With a bit of care you can touch up the marks to be near invisible from all but the closest examination. Done it for years on my cars.

Cheers,
Glenn.

[Brakebuster]

i agree with Glen on this one,

apart from a full repaint of the panel , the only real way to hide deep scratches is to use a touch up kit, as available from jaguar ( halfords and such like do not sell matching paint for Jaguars )

clean the scratch ( sounds silly, but needs doing) and get ready to paint , but before you do , you will need a few more items to get the job done correctly, i very fine paint brush , ( 000 ) or something, and some very fine wet-n-dry paper, only a small bit is needed , a rubber sanding block and some paint thinners,

use a piece of paper to put some of the touch up paint onto , and thin it ever so slightly with the thinners, as it will flow much better , use the '000' brush to fill the scratch with paint, do this several times until the scratch is full of paint and even slightly proud of the original paint , then , when dry , use the wet-n-dry to gently smooth out the paint with very gentle motions, use some washing up liquid in some water , as you will get a better finish,

then , if there are any little areas that need filling with paint again, do the same as above,

once you are happy with the filling of the scratch and the rubbing back it should almost be invisible,
i personally don't use the lacquer , however , its up to you, all i do is get some high quality car polish and apply over ( the now dull area that was rubbed back ) to bring the shine back, you may have to put several coats of polish on ,

this whole job should take no longer than 20 mins to do , and will render the scratch near invisible from a standoff view

hope this helps

BB

[shed]

Thanks all. Will give it a go...

Ed.