[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by Ray3768

I seem to be getting some decent results with a touch-up paint kit bought from paintscratch.com. The kit includes a base coat paint pen, a clear coat paint pen, a small bottle of lacquer thinner, and a plastic squeeze pouch of rubbing compound. Their website has plenty of instructions and some youtube research proved helpful. The first week I had my car the driver's door managed to get away from me and lightly tapped the other car in my garage. That car has a cover on it and my first thought there's no way that damaged anything. Then of course I get out of the Camaro and discover that the edge of my door is chipped. That's some great paint you got there GM.

In addition to the touch-up kit, I also bought some 2000 grit wet/dry sand paper and a larger container of lacquer thinner. I already had some 1000 grit wet/dry paper in stock.

On Saturday, I applied some of the base coat to a white paper plate (white because my primer is white) to check the color match. It is spot on. The paint pen tip was cleaned in lacquer thinner.

Yesterday afternoon I began the repair. Some blue painter's tape was applied to limit the work area. A small strip of 1000 grit paper was wet and I gently scuffed the area of the chip. The sanding debris were washed away with some ammonia glass cleaner on a folded up paper towel. I hit the work area with a small heat gun to evaporate any remaining glass cleaner.

I pressed the base coat paint pen tip on my paper plate to discharge some paint. The paint was applied to the chip with a tooth pick, just enough was used to fill in the chip. The heat gun was used to accelerate the drying so a second coat could be applied. The second coat was dried with the heat gun as well.

At this point the base coat was not real smooth. I went against all advice and gently sanded the base coat with dry (the base coat is water based, wet sanding would remove the base coat) 1000 grit paper to smooth it out. From what I've read, sanding the base coat, especially when it's metallic paint, is not good. It looked okay to me so I applied three coats of clear with a tooth pick, drying them with the heat gun in between applications.

The three coats of clear stick up slightly above the factory clear leaving enough material to be wet sanded with 1000 grit then 2000 grit. This should knock it down to the level of the factory clear coat. A final polish with the kit supplied rubbing compound should make this repair nearly invisible. I decided to let the clear coat dry overnight so the final sanding and polishing has not been completed yet.

Sorry to hijack the OP's thread, but I felt this info may be helpful. Finally, here are some pics of the progress. Note that the last picture makes it appear to be complete but it is not.

Ray, this is a great job, thank you for sharing. I understand that the chip will not be invisible in the end, but still, this is probably the best DIY one can do.

I would not advise against sanding the basecoat with high grit sandpaper when one can't apply it smoothly enough, ie it is not coming from a paint gun or at least a quality spray can. Since you cleaned up all sanding residue and then polished the clear after application, the basecoat should look almost as good as factory.