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Paint & Body Work Forum For those people interested in the specifics of doing paint and body work repairs and/or enhancements.

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Unread 03-01-2013, 01:33 AM   #1
Rich Z
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Default Paint rock chip repairs

The last few days I've been working on trying to fix the paint chips on the electron blue C5Z, as it has accumulated quite a few of them in it's lifetime. I'm thinking I'm going to have to get the car repainted anyway because of the abuses inflicted upon it over the couple of years it was away from home, so this is the perfect opportunity for me to experiment and get some experience doing this kind of repair.

Currently I am working with the Dr. Colorchip repair system. I've got the front end of the car mostly done, but I'm going to have to go back to catch some small chips that I missed the first pass. But overall the paint job is looking a lot better as long as you don't get right up on it to take a close look. Right now instead of white colored chips in the paint, I have blue colored chips. The Dr. Colorchip product appears to be better suited to small shallow chips, as it just doesn't seem to fill in larger chips very well. So the larger the chip, the more noticeable it is, even after being colored in. So although the chips are colored to match the actual paint, there are still craters in the paint where the chips are located. They just aren't as easy to see now.

Perhaps heavier treatments with the product will fill them all in in multiple stages, but I'm thinking my strategy will be to use the Langka chip repair system (blob remover) with some touchup clearcoat. That way I can try to fill in the chip craters with the clearcoat, and use the Langka blob remover to smooth out the excess clear paint so that the craters are filled in and smoothed to match the surface around it. Theoretically, anyway. The point of doing it this way is to make sure the bottom of the chip craters are colored to match the paint, and then have the clear coat fill in so that hopefully it will leave a smoother finish that will look decent at even a close inspection.

I took a small video of one section I did with the Dr. Colorchip, but didn't turn out all that well as I didn't use enough light. Therefore the video is too grainy to be as useful as I had hoped. And I should have backed off more instead of trying to get a close up shot. Oh well. I may post it later on anyway.

But I did find a video on YouTube that shows both products and somewhat how they are used that should be instructive about what I am doing myself.



I didn't try the finger in the paint method shown in the video, as I instead painstakingly used a small brush to dab at all the small rock chips individually. But I think this method might work pretty well on the fender well lips where there is a lot of road rash. I would suggest using some sort of floor covering, though, as I think this could get pretty messy dabbing the paint like that.

So, I'll just have to see how this all turns out, I guess.
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Unread 03-01-2013, 07:39 AM   #2
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Rich, have you decided what color you're going to go with when you paint it or are you going to stay with the original color? I had thought about a black cherry color with mine, but mine had a red interior so it was either black, white, or some variety of red.
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Unread 03-01-2013, 12:12 PM   #3
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Well, I really like the Electron Blue, but apparently not all "Electron Blues" are created equal, because I have seen some that I didn't care for the shade on a particular car. So apparently even trying to get the car painted the same color might have a risk of it not being exactly what I want attached to it.

I would consider another color if I could find one that I really liked, I suppose. Maybe a deep indigo metallic blue. I like the effect on the C6 Z06 we have with the Cyber Gray Metallic paint. It has flecks of blue in the paint that really looks nice in the sunlight. So I might be interested in a similar effect with the C5Z with some off color flecks in the paint.

Problem is, it's hard to tell what a particular color will really look like on the car just looking at paint samples online.
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Unread 03-01-2013, 12:20 PM   #4
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any high end paint shop, knows that there are different variations in the paint colors. normally 2-4 depending on how many different vehicles were painted with that specific color....

MOST of them, if the customer request for an EXACT repaint, will mix a small batch of the different variations and spray test panels, and then compare them to the factory paint. once they find a variation that is exact they then mix the entire batch for the car's paint.

IF you request a complete color change, you can request for them to spray test panels before the car is done for your approval. while this is not common, it may cost more due to the extra time to verify that the color is what you want, BUT how much extra is it worth to make sure the paint is exactly what you want the first time.....
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Unread 03-01-2013, 01:27 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Z View Post
Well, I really like the Electron Blue, but apparently not all "Electron Blues" are created equal, because I have seen some that I didn't care for the shade on a particular car. So apparently even trying to get the car painted the same color might have a risk of it not being exactly what I want attached to it.

I would consider another color if I could find one that I really liked, I suppose. Maybe a deep indigo metallic blue. I like the effect on the C6 Z06 we have with the Cyber Gray Metallic paint. It has flecks of blue in the paint that really looks nice in the sunlight. So I might be interested in a similar effect with the C5Z with some off color flecks in the paint.

Problem is, it's hard to tell what a particular color will really look like on the car just looking at paint samples online.
Agreed. I remember when Chevrolet intoduced the Marina Blue color. My cousin had a new 1967 327 Chevy II that he de-stroked to a 302. That was the first "hotrod" that I ever rode in. 4 speed with cheater slicks. Beautiful color. Another friend had a 69 Chevelle SS the same color. But I've seen variations of that color since then that didn't look right. Seems that when they went from lacquer to enamel and base coat/clear coat they lost something. Back in the 70's when I painted airplanes and cars the guy that mixed the paint (lacquer) showed me the formula book and told me that if he even changed the order that the colors were added, it made the paint come out a different color. And it's pretty amazing how they arrived at certain colors. For instance, the yellow color that was on 1967 Firebirds starts out with a black pigment. I don't even think you can get lacquer paint now. It was easy to paint with though.
I think the only way to choose a color is to see it on someone elses car and find out what it is.
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Unread 03-01-2013, 01:37 PM   #6
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Yeah, but heck, even knowing the name of a particular paint probably won't do me much good, since there will be variations in just how it is mixed. And what are the chances that a paint project for this car won't turn out to be a fuster-cluck like the engine replacement was?
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Unread 03-11-2013, 05:21 PM   #7
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Well, been spending the last several days working with the Dr. Colorchip stuff, and it seems to do a pretty decent job on the rock chips painting them in so they aren't so visible. But the paint doesn't really FILL in the chips, just colors them so they don't stand out to the eye at a distance. And it appears that the color of the touchup paint is actually much darker than my original Electron Blue.

















Perhaps more applications would eventually fill in the large chips, and perhaps this just works the way it is supposed to with VERY small ones.

And it really didn't help with the sanded down scratches at all, since it apparently wiped right off with the blending solution.

So I'm moving on to try out that Langka solution using clear coat to fill in the chips and use the Langka solution to remove the blob of clear coat paint that sits above the actual paint surface. Perhaps the Dr.Colorchip would work in the same manner if blobbed into the chips, but I want to have clear coat there to hopefully make the surface more uniform when I get to the point of polishing. This is all just one big experiment anyway, so I don't really know what is the best procedure to use with something like this. Hopefully I won't just ruin the paint and have to accelerate my plans for a complete repaint of the car.
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Unread 03-11-2013, 05:59 PM   #8
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So today I put spots of clear coat over most of the rock chips on the hood. I know I will have to do a second and third pass (maybe more) before all is said and done. But I sure do hope that Langka stuff works, otherwise I'm going to have a hell of a mess on my hands. It's hard to see in the photos, but my hood looks like it has chicken pox with all those paint blobs all over it. But it does seem that the clear coat fills in the paint chips nicely and reduces the visibility of the chips quite a bit from a reasonable viewing distance.

However, on the cracks, not so much. Not sure what exactly to do there, but I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out when I feel like I have done all that I can do.





















The instructions say to let the touch up paint dry from 2 to 24 hours, so I may start using the Langka blob eliminator stuff later this evening and see how well it goes. I honestly doubt I would have had the guts to do something like this except for the fact that the car is facing a complete paint job anyway. It looks pretty damned scary when you first start doing this.
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Unread 03-11-2013, 09:03 PM   #9
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Arghhh. Well, that didn't go as well has I had planned.

I let the clear touch up paint globs set for three hours, then went over to try that Langka stuff on them. It actually was going pretty quickly, as that stuff really dissolves those blobs in a hurry. Well, my technique just sucked. I was being too aggressive with applying the cloth wrapped around the plastic card and I wound up not only taking the clear completely out of some of the chips, but the blue Dr. Colorchip paint as well. Apparently you have to use a VERY light touch just letting the Langka fluid do the work, and you just move it around over the blob till it dissolves. Keep the cloth tight on the card, but just barely touch the surface of the paint and only work on one chip at a time. I had to put my view at an angle so that I could clearly see the blob in the glare from the lights. The trick is knowing when to STOP. As soon as the blob is pretty much gone, stop with the Langka and then wipe the area clean with another soft cloth to clean off the residue and also pretty much finish reducing the blob to be flush with the surface.

Too bad it took me most of the hood to figure this out.

So I've got to go back and put the Dr. Colorchip color back into those chips I made white again. And I'm thinking maybe I need to lighten up my touch with the Dr. Colorship blending solution as well. Maybe even use the plastic card like it is recommended with the Langka product. Keep a flat level surface against the paint and it might retain more of the color paint in those chips.

And I may just allow the clear paint to set for a full 24 hours so maybe it won't come out of the chip indents quite so easily.

Light touch and knowing when to STOP seems to be the key with working with this stuff. I think perhaps even stopping too soon might be preferable to stopping too late. I'm planning on going over the entire area with 2000 to 4000 grit sand paper anyway, and then polishing with compound afterwards. That certainly would take off any extra paint globs that remained without having to do the color step over again.

Oh well, I knew this was going to be a learning experience.
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Unread 03-13-2013, 01:35 AM   #10
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I did the Dr. Colorchip thing again today to fix those rock chips that had the color pulled out of them by the Langka product. Obviously the Langka blob eliminator is a whole lot more aggressive than the Dr. Colorchip blending solution is. You've really got to work with the Dr. Colorchip solution whereas the Langka starts removing the paint blob almost immediately.

Supposedly the two are not interchangeable in application, though. I know the Langka will remove the Dr. Colorchip paint, but I haven't tried to see if the Dr. Colorchip will remove regular touch up paint. According to Dr. Colorchip's website, the touch up paint they use is special for the application using the blending solution, and the blending solution won't work with regular touch up paint. But I may try it anyway, just to see.

This time I changed my technique with the Dr. Colorchip blending solution. Instead of just putting the blending solution on a rag held loosely in my hand and rubbing off the excess paint in broad areas, I use a plastic card wrapped in a cloth similar to what Langka recommends. I also concentrated on much smaller areas than before. Seems like this left the paint chips looking better than my first try. I took it real slow and easy, and just removed the paint to the point to where it was nearly gone and didn't go an further with it.

Tomorrow I'm going to put clear on only the worst of the rock chip pits and be a LOT more careful about applying the Langka blob eliminator so I don't cause any collateral damage with the surrounding minor chips. I'm also going to let the clear paint set for a full 24 hours before I apply the blob eliminator fluid. I REALLY don't want to have to apply the color into those chips again. I'd much rather do 10 things the first time than 1 thing OVER AGAIN.

I don't think anything is going to color over those cracks I sanded down. They probably need to be BELOW the level of the surface of the paint in order for the touch up paint to hide them, but I'm not really willing to gouge into the paint, tracing the cracks, in order to do that. So I'll just have to see how that looks when I get done the entire hood to figure out whether a new paint job needs to be sooner rather than later. If it's sooner, then I may quit with the paint touch up completely, since it won't really matter much to keep working at it. I think I got enough experience just with the hood with this touch up stuff and don't need to do any more of the same drudgery. With the number of rock chips I've got, this is TEDIOUS, to say the least. Leaning over the hood is a real killer on the back.

BTW, if you do get the Dr. Colorchip kit, get the smallest one they have available. I got the largest kit they offer and have done a ZILLION rock chips, most of them twice, and still have half a bottle of paint left. The blending solution didn't go as far, but I think that's because I was far too liberal and aggressive with it the first time I used it. A small amount will go a lot longer than I tried to make it go.
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