I'm sure we've all had those annoying dings on our cars. This one is from a fairly big rock and is on the drivers side of the hood. I bought one of the touch up paint pens/brushes from the dealer, but it doesn't give any suggestions for application (Nor does the dealer have any advice). Below are two pictures of the ding. It appears fairly deep and that the paint was removed. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated for how to use this touch up paint. Thanks.

 

Brush the paint into the chip. It may take 2 or mire coats to fill it in well. After it's fully dried, wet sand the area to smooth it down. Polish the sanding marks out with the polish of your choice. You need to machine polish, not by hand.

 

^ Yep, clean the area well first also. Isopropyl rubbing alcohol is your best bet. If the edges are rough, which it seems like they are, you can also do a light wet sanding before application of the pain. That way you wont have a chunky application of the paint near the edges of the ding.

Good luck! Post pics when you are finished.

 

Make sure to get really fine sanding paper. At least 1500, but I'd start even higher to be safe. Also, put some masking tape around the area so you don't inadvertently damage the good paint.

It also helps to soak the sand paper over night. For that small of a section, i'd cut out a small circle and superglue it to the eraser side of a #2 pencil. It won't take much sanding to get to the point that you need to polish.

 

I have never seen so much good feedback in three concise posts. LOL! You're welcome.

 

would this process be the same for chips on the bumpers?

 

Yes. The same.

 

thanks for all the info guys

 

Thanks for the help everyone. I did my best here, but I can tell that it takes a bit of practice to perfect this craft. Just like sheetrocking, the first attempt is a bit bumpy (pun intended). I followed the advice you guys gave, thank you! If there is anything else you guys think I can do to smooth it out, I'd be up for trying. Regardless, it looks much better than it did and it'll protect the car from rusting.

 

That touch up paint doesn't seem to match very well. It looks like you might need another coat then sand and polish.

 

Blue Slate is a pain in the nuts. I have that color and will never touch up paint anything on it again... I didn't wet sand or polish though. May have to take Betty's advice and give it a try. Any recommendations on polish?

 

Meguiar's Professional M95/105/205.

 

So I took your advice black betty and I went back out and put on another coat. I think I did a better job sanding and a much better job polishing this time. I think it looks a bit better than before. (pics are from a bit further back because the flash was distorting the image a bit)

 

I don't think you're giving it enough time to fully dry before sanding it.

 

It looks a lot better. What brand of paper and grits are you using for sanding? What machine/pad/polish combos are you using?

It looks like you need to polish your whole car - unless you're the mayor of Swirl City.