Paintwork touch up

[Hop]

I wanted to consult the Pistonheads oracle in relation to a paintwork query I have;

The car in question is a 1981 Copper Fire Turbo Esprit - a very rare beast - pretty much identical to the Bond car used in For your Eyes Only - minus the Ski racks of course, I cant ski.

The paintwork is original and in good condition save for the odd chip and blemish. However on the side of the car there are a series of small nicks that have gone down to the fibreglass and the bare white underneath is now glaring through. very small but obvious nonetheless.

It does NOT need a full respray and I'm not willing to allocate the budget or importantly time to get this done. I'm thinking as a temporary fix if anyone could recommend a Lotus/Fibreglass sympathetic bodyshop in the W London, SW London or NW London area that may be happy to undertake the work or It has been suggested that I get some touch up made and fill them myself; where can one get a suitable touch up? - Halfrauds do not have the Lotus Copper Fire metallic - long shot I know but worth a punt! any ideas where I could have some made?

I am aware of the online companies that will try to match a colour - not convinced by this. The car needs to be physically present to match the colour as I doubt this could be done by sending off the filler caps for example.

your thoughts and assistance would be most welcome.

Regards,

Jon

[Winky151]

I think the best for touch up sticks is Chipex (not cheap but...). Many people have used them (including myself) & got a good colour match straight off. Obviously if you're car has been repainted at any time or is badly faded it might not be as good a match but then possibly worth having the rest of the paintwork machine polished.

HTH

[scratcher_]

Have you got a photo to demonstrate the extent of the chips?

As above, I use Chipex for all touch up work.
The colour match has always been spot on for me.
Machine polishing will help to restore the entire finish, giving a much better - even finish.

[Summit_Detailing]

As above a Chip-ex kit should be a good starting point, always seem to be a good colour match and a machine polishing step being optional depending on how good you are with the touch up and blend and the location of the touched in areas.

cheers

Chris

[swisstoni]

Body shops aren't really interested in messing about with chips - they'd have done a whole panel in the time it'd take you to do a decent job on 1 or 2 chips. But that's their problem!

With a bit of practice and some good old YouTube tutorials you can take your time and get excellent results.