Repairing friend's paint, need advice

[Klutch9]

So a friend of mine scuffed the paint badly on the front bumper, passenger side, just in front of the wheel. It's on the bottom edge of the bumper, and is about 9" long and 1.5" high. In some spots the paint is still there but scuffed bad, and in other spots the paint is gone completely. Car in question is a white '12 Fusion, FWIW. There is a good chance I'll be fixing it, but I want some advice because it's been quite a while since I've sprayed and blended areas of paint. Please critique my steps:

1) Lightly sand the area down until surface is smooth and even, ready for paint.
2) Tape off wheel and tire, and greater surrounding area, but leave a 9-12" gap around the repair area uncovered so that I can blend the paint after the work is complete.
3) Several light layers of vehicle-specific paint color.
4) Several light layers of clear coat.

Note: On steps 4 & 5, I'll spray slightly overlapping/fading onto already good paint for later blending.

5) Wait for everything to dry thoroughly, then use clay bar to remove overspray from surrounding area.
6) Use polish to blend repaired area to the rest of the paint - maybe a 2-step process, starting with Scratchx, then moving to something more mild like Ultimate Polish?
7 Apply a good coat of wax

Anything I missed? Is it necessary that I use primer before the paint?

 

[JHZR2]

youre doing this outside or something?

 

[razel]

You may have to wait awhile before applying wax. How long is controversial. Apparently at shops, if they bake it, you can wax. If you can smell the paint or clear-coat clearly don't wax yet.

If it's baked or you can't smell anything, it is safe to use carnauba wax. To be extra safe, I'd use carnauba spray wax liberally and frequently until after 30 days. I did this recently on my car that was painted and blended after an accident. No issues at all and I discovered how convenient and wonderful spray waxes are these days.

 

[dave123]

I would blend color but not the clear just clear the whole panel.

 

[Klutch9]

Originally Posted By: dave123
I would blend color but not the clear just clear the whole panel.


Clear the whole bumper for just a little scuff? No way. And to answer the other question, yes this will be done outdoors.

 

[Trav]

This is a pretty good guide, i always use blending clear spray when i do touch ups with the small top feed touch up gun.

http://www.pc.dupont.com/dpc/en/US/html/...-19301S_TDS.pdf

You need to plastic the surface of any area that is down to the plastic base.
Sand it with an orbital sander then spray 2 light coats of this..

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accesso...ier=460112_0_0_

Spray the area with SEM or Plasticoat bumper and flexible parts primer. For white light gray.

http://www.amazon.com/PlastiKote-467-Fle...flexible+primer

Mask off any hard body lines like fender joints and headlights then about 20" around the repair with a rolled edge on the tape.
Do not spray anywhere near this masked of area. spray the damaged and primed area with color do not make longer strokes than necessary.

When the color is there leave a little paint in the gun cup and add plenty of thinner to this paint making a very thin lightly colored mix.
Turn the gun flow down and the fan up as far as possible,lightly fog the area around the newly painted area working your way around but not to the taped off area. Let it flash off.

Spray the clear in the repaired area only with 2 medium coats.
Turn the gun down again and fog pass close to the new tape but not right up to it.

Immediately remove the tape and give the area around the taped off area a very light spray of the blend clear, 1 coat also spraying slightly into the new clear. Walk away and come back in a few hours to unmask.

The blending clear can do some freaky stuff so you don't want to watch it in action, it melts the new clear into the old surrounding clear then levels it all together perfectly.

Being the side of the bumper you can probably just shoot the whole side of the bumper using the rounded corner as a blend point, this is much easier.

 

[dave123]

Originally Posted By: Klutch9
Originally Posted By: dave123
I would blend color but not the clear just clear the whole panel.


Clear the whole bumper for just a little scuff? No way. And to answer the other question, yes this will be done outdoors.


you ask for opinions we give answers that's how it works if you don't want advice don't ask questions.

 

[qwertydude]

No matter how you touch it up, if you don't paint the whole part around the transition area you'll always have a dull or matte halo.

With metallic paints it's dead obvious where the transition is. Metallic never lies the same whenever its resprayed.

If this is plain gloss white you can get ok results but no matter what if you don't respray the whole part you'll always be able to spot the repair job no matter how good you try to blend or feather the edges.