Instructions for paint spraying.

[charles]

there is also "Chips Away" which I've used on my car.

[ARW]

Depends on the quality you want.

It was only this year that I sent the old pug bus (a red 307) down to the local garage for a paint job after the fence post attacked it whilst she was reversing into the drive.

£60 for the repair.

It's a £600 car and so I really do not care. An insurance co would have written it off.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A repair it isn't obvious is a repair?

[Fredxxx]

Which depends on the level of scrutiny required to discern it is a repair?

Which then brings us back to 'quality'.

[Andy Burns]

Judging by the chipex demo video, it wouldn't qualify then

[Martin Brown]

Metallics are notoriously tricky. But I don't see any advantage of using that over the base coat & clear overlacquer that the manufacturers provide in their typical touchup stick package. The problem is mainly the chunky brush provided which is way too large for most scratches.

If you are really that sensitive to getting an as new appearance then you have to disguise the paint transition along some bend in the metalwork so that the eye cannot easily compare colours.

I'm content to merely stop paint chips from rotting the bonnet which now since it is plastic composite is largely irrelevant.

The small kit that Aldi/Lidl do from time to time isn't bad for taking out minor cosmetic scratches and blending in minor repairs. I have never had much luck with the supposed solar UV cured resin scratch repair stick. It failed to cure. Maybe not enough sun up north or something.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If I had an old banger where the quality of the repair didn't matter, I'd leave the dent as is. Unless actually dangerous. Nothing looks worse (to me) than a poor repair where the paint or whatever doesn't match. YMMV.

[Muddymike]

Or do what WTWNFI and I used to do when we ran old bangers. Get the

4inch brush out and re-paint the whole car in whatever gloss was knocking around.

Mike

[MrCheerful]

you get a nicer finish with a gloss roller.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

When I were a kid, a local house painter had painted his Ford van black with Dulux house paint. Looked excellent.

[Cursitor Doom]

Well, if we *ever* get to leave it, I won't need to any more.

I recall back in the day (70s) there was pretty much only two choices: cellulose or 2-pack (a very nasty cyanide based paint made by Parsons). The best cellulose IMHO was manufactured by Glasurit (you may remember the tins all came with their parrot logo on the front) and it was only about a fiver a litre at the time. Very reasonable indeed.

[Cursitor Doom]

Blimey, that must have looked a sight!

[Cursitor Doom]

Only because you were a kid at the time, I suspect. If you could go back in time and view it again it would look a right mess.

[charles]

A friend of mine used Valspar on his vehicle.

[Ade]

I had a Transit for many years. I sprayed it occasionally using a mixture of paraffin and white gloss household paint.

Used to get a lovely tough finish to it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Oddly, everyone in charge of this country seems to realise what a stupid idea it is.

Metallic paints were pretty rare in the '70s. And think you'd find they cost rather more than a fiver a litre.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not so. Coach painting was done using a brush and paints not that much different from house paint. All down to the skill of the painter.

[Cursitor Doom]

Well, an experienced painter *could* get a perfect finish using a high quality brush and specifically brush enamel which did exist for cars back then, but it would take a considerable amount of hard work afterwards when dry: flat off with wet & soapy wet'n'dry at 700-800 grit, then again at 1000-1200, then buffing with something like Fireclay (sp?) then T-Cut then a final waxing. Lot of graft and time involved. And that only works with solid colours, not metallics. Thank god for sprayguns!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Oh indeed. But when I were a lad, there were no low priced domestic spray sets. Or rather that I knew about.

Not sure you can cut back and polish an ordinary oil based paint in the same way as you can with cellulose.

As it happens, I've had the old Rover resprayed. It's plain black. They used a water based paint which was baked on and a clear coat. The original paint had gone dull - and although a compound and polish made it look OK again it very soon went dull again.

[tabbypurr]

Household gloss does work. It fades a bit over time and of course isn't as tough as good car paint. The main issue is that it tends to be used by total bodge merchants who make a horrid mess of it.

NT