Paint Question

[Cyberbilly]

OK. I need some help from the painting experts.

I got my driver's door keyed a few weeks ago (at least it looks like it was keyed. ). Anyhow, I wet-sanded the original paint down, starting with 800 grit, and working my way to 1000, 1500, and finally 2000 grit to get rid of the scratch.

I then shot it with a rattle can of paint from Paintscratch.com custom mixed to the factory paint color. (The temperature was in the high 60s, and the humidity was fairly low.) So far, so good. The color matches perfectly.

But when I apply the Clear Coat, I'm not getting that deep glossy shine like the original paint; it is more like a matte finish. (Yes, I did buff it with rubbing compound.)

I'm suspecting I did not put on enough coats of Clear Coat. Any thoughts?

[Brandon1]

Have you wetsanded the new clear like I suggested yet Billy? That should do the trick!

[Cyberbilly]

Originally Posted by Brandon1

Have you wetsanded the new clear like I suggested yet Billy? That should do the trick!

Not yet, but I'll try that this weekend.

[zippeay]

Honestly you probably won't get the same shine as with spraying clear out of a gun. I've never seen clean in a can work very well but hey if it works, more power to ya...

[eharri3]

It's tough using a spray can vs. a gun. I've tried the 'do-it-yourself' panel repaint before on an older truck with rattle cans. I too was never really able to get any kind of factory shine back and it looked like crap until I traded the truck in. I got more of a matte, non-gloss finish no matter how many coats of clear I piled on. I think it has to do with technique (ie, holding the gun a uniform distance from the surface at all times and spraying even coats) and also the spray pattern of the rattle can vs. the spray pattern of a gun. If you're not spraying nice and even with the can always the same 6-10 inches from the panel and overlapping each new line by about 50% of the spray pattern you won't get an even coat of clear and that could definitely affect the gloss.

IMHO I think you would have had better results filling in the scratch with touch-up paint on a match stick, then clear, then wet-sanding in a thin line just along the scratch. It still wouldn't be perfect but at least the blemish would be only one thin line instead of a whole painted area and it would be more tolerable until you could pop for a door re-spray.

Like I said, Ive done the whole parking-lot repray thing before thinking, how hard could it be to sand it down, spray new paint and clear-coat, and make it look almost factory? Ended up turning one small area of minor damage into a whole problem panel. Amazing how that happens. Learned my lesson. I'll dab in touch-up paint, wet sand, and buff small damage areas but I anything big will go to a bodyshop.

[eharri3]

how big of an area did you do? Just right around the scratch or did you redo a big piece of the panel? It's tough using a spray can vs. a gun. I've tried the 'do-it-yourself' panel repaint before on an older truck with rattle cans. I too was never really able to get any kind of factory shine back and it looked like crap until I traded the truck in. I got more of a matte, non-gloss finish no matter how many coats of clear I piled on. I think it has to do with technique (ie, holding the gun a uniform distance from the surface at all times and spraying even coats) and also the spray pattern and design of the rattle can vs. the spray pattern of a gun. If you're not spraying nice and even with the can always the same 6-10 inches from the panel and overlapping each new line by about 50% of the spray pattern you won't get an even coat of clear and that could definitely affect the gloss. The bigger the area you hit with a rattle can, the harder it will be to make it look right.

Looks like you may have made the same mistake I did, overkill. You started out with what should have been the last resort. Always go from least to most aggresive abrasives, least to most drastic repair techniques. The goal should be to make the scratch as unnoticable as possible without spreading the repair to any other part of the panel. Paying 50 bucks to have a bodyshop guy go at it with a buffer might have even done the trick. Plus, more basecoat or clear may not have even been necessary depending on how aggressive you got with the wet sanding and how big of an area you hit. If you did a light wet-sand just around the area of the scratch until it was gone, you may not have even gone through all the clear. You could possibly have brought the original shine back with just buff and polish. Regardless, if it's only one scratch and there's rattle cans involved you've kind of already set yourself up for failure.

When I do scratches I start with wax-removal, then go to a polish, then go to a buffing compound. And if I can still see it when all that is done I put base-coat and clear only in the scratch itself, take the highest grit sandpaper I can possibly get my hands on, let it soak for 20-30 minutes, then rub just along the scratch to flaten it down to the level of the rest of the paint surface. Better to have one line of barely noticable touch-up than a whole part of a panel looking poorly matched.

Like I said, Ive done the whole parking-lot repray thing before thinking, how hard could it be to sand it down, spray new paint and clear-coat, and make it look almost factory? Ended up turning one small area of minor damage into a whole problem panel. Amazing how that happens. Learned my lesson. If there has to be a spraygun involved it goes to a bodyshop.

If you only have one layer of clear on there, go ahead and spray one more. Then wet sand with very fine grit paper, buff, polish. IF it still doesn't look right after that go to a bodyshop.