Removing fine scratches- advice please

Caesarmp

Caesarmp

Member
I attach a photo of an area of fine scratching on my car, close to a door handle. I have a few such. They can be felt when I draw a fingernail across them. Lots of proprietary products claim to deal with this sort of scratch, but I am sceptical, and I do not want to use abrasives and find that they do no good. Has anyone experience of a good product to use, or a technique for repairing the scratches? It may be that this is covered in another thread here, in which case I apologise but would be grateful for any advice.

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If the scratches can be felt through the finger nail it's possible the top paint coat has been breached and the only solution is a respray sorry.
 
It's very true what the above has said, you can try to disguise the scratches with a wax of a similar colour.
Others will be along to elaborate further
 
You MAY be able to just spray the immediate area that is scratched with a well matched aerosol can, let it harden then machine polish off all the overspray, followed by lacquer and polish.
 
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You may find that like on my Skoda the red paint has a lacquer coat!get a touch up lacquer and “paint the scratch’s”Do it a few times then use a cutting compound.if it doesn’t have a lacquer coat do the same but with matching paint.I found on eBay a company that supplies small tubes of matching paint with integral brush.
 
Fully agree with the proper solution being a re spray however this has its own issues especially on red which fades much more than other colours
There is a turtle wax product that is a polish with colour pigment in it. The colour pigment remains in the scratch and disguises the scratches
It’s not perfect but may well look acceptable and it’s only about £10 a bottle so not a lot lost if your not happy with the results
It does take a few applications as the pigment builds up each application

Paul


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Paint over the scratches with a touch up stick. Let it harden for a few days and then flat it back with 1800 grit wet and dry. Machine polish this and finish with a wax. Will be almost invisible then.
 
Try taking a hi res pic of the scratches, then look at them on the biggest screen you can find, and enlarge them. You are looking to see if it's just the lacquer (clear coat) or the colour coat as well.
If it's just the lacquer coat, then Google how to fix lacquer peel, and follow the hints carefully.
If it's through the colour coat, ie you can see the primer, then you can follow the lacquer peel process, until you get to the lacquer spray stage, Then with touch up paint very carefully, and with the tiniest amount of paint on the brush, apply enough paint to hide the primer. Allow it to dry overnight. Then continue the lacquer peel process. Don't be tempted to sand or flatten the touch up, it'll only remove the colour coat where it isn't (wasn't) damaged.
The result will be as good as a cheap respray, not as good as a good respray, but, much cheaper then both, If you're not happy at the end, you only spent around £15.
Mac.
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. I shall start with coloured wax and see how that goes, as I am not a perfectionist, but I am interested to see that there are paint solutions short of a respray. Cesare
 
Caesarmp said:
Thank you all for the suggestions. I shall start with coloured wax and see how that goes, as I am not a perfectionist, but I am interested to see that there are paint solutions short of a respray. Cesare
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I think used this many years ago on a red car, memory vague, but take note of the instruction to wear gloves - I ended up with red fingers for a week! You get a bottle of wax and a lipstick type tube with red crayon. Okay, after it looks a bit better but soon washes off.

Andy
 
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All polishes/waxes are for fed days...

Take a look at it closely how deep scrathes are. Maybe they are in clear coat so fine touchup would be the solution. I don't like this type of scrathes as they are too big to polish with compound but too small to make nice touchup and blend it to the surrounding area...
 
Looks to me that is down to primer and thus tiny 'trenches' you could fill with paint in a couple of applications of touch up paint and lacquer. A high quality artists brush gives much better control of fine lines than you can achieve with the rubbish brush found in a in touch-up set. In addition you can steady your hand with a stick at an angle under the heel of the hand (held in the other hand). Technique good enough for the old masters then good enough for the A2.... Red is more difficult to match with spray so I would avoid a cheap spray job. atb
 
If you can get past the slightly cheesy presentation this video is quite good. I used this on a scratch on my wifes kia (first time id done a propper paintwork repair)


Combination of wet and dry, compound and and polish.
 
Thats propably same type of scratches Caesarmp have. Problem with this type of scratches is that you are making the clearcoat really thin in this area which can lead to peeling off.

Also one tip - if you are going to do touch up job don't use supplied (nail polish) brush on the cap. Buy some syringe and needles and shorten them to aprox. 1 cm. Thinner the colour/clearcoat accordingly to needle size put it in syringe and here you go. Precisely ;)
 
My first step has been to use Turtle Wax Color Magic red, and I am pleased with the result. It is not perfect, but a very great improvement with little effort. I imagine it will need refreshing from time to time, but as I said the effort using it is minimal. I attach a photo of the area I showed before, now treated. Ciao a tutti
 

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Caesarmp said:
I attach a photo of an area of fine scratching on my car, close to a door handle. I have a few such. They can be felt when I draw a fingernail across them. Lots of proprietary products claim to deal with this sort of scratch, but I am sceptical, and I do not want to use abrasives and find that they do no good. Has anyone experience of a good product to use, or a technique for repairing the scratches? It may be that this is covered in another thread here, in which case I apologise but would be grateful for any advice.

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White toothpaste is a brilliant no cost solution - but NOT if you can click scratch with fingernail
 
No one one here seems to be advocating T-Cut or similar..... is that sort of thing a definite no no? I have some fine scratches on our castellrot that I wanted to have a go at..... any expert advice/experience gratefully received
 
I’ve also used the Farecla on a black car and it really did bring up some pretty nasty haze and some light swirling scratches to a nice mirror finish.


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