Scratch Repairs

[JTBUSH]

Being rather tired and clumsy this morning, I managed to scratch one of the butress' while getting the roof out of the boot. The strengthening bar things which you put in first, were a bit tangled within the soft top and as I was getting them out, I managed to scratch the inner buttress with the end of one.

The scratch has gone through to the white of the undercoat, but it isn’t a very wide scratch, for the majority only being about 1-2mm wide, maybe a bit more at one end. Whats the best course of action for this?

[tricky 100]

Full respray , costly accident

[JTBUSH]

Oh Fcuk! Reckon I could do a decent job with some aerosols. The front has plenty of stone chips so needs doing anyway!

[JTBUSH]

Where is the best place to get paint from. Mine is Calypso red according to the supplied documentation.

[JTBUSH]

Where do you find the paint code on an s2 elise?

[21TonyK]

Sounds like a chips away or at least a smart repair job. But then, maybe I should keep my mouth shut about these things.

[JTBUSH]

About how much are these things?

[crackthatoff]

got one of them touch in pens from bell and covlin? think thats how you spell it, anyway they are very good, you need to apply it at least 3 times before the colour looks perfect, pretty impressed for 8 quid really, test it somewhere inconspicuous

[JTBUSH]

Anyone tried one of those tcut scratch repair stick things? Like a wax stick which you rub into the scratch!

[21TonyK]

I used one years ago on a dark green car. Hid chips well, not so sure about a large'ish scratch. Might be worth a try though, if it doesn't work it can always be cleaned up again and paint repaired properly.

[JTBUSH]

Worth a crack seeing as it is only about £8. Will have a go this weekend!

[jondude]

I used the...what is it called....Turtle Wax Chipstick and ...Color Magic, that's it!!

This is a thickish coloured wax which fills the scratch and colours the area.

It works either very well, or crap, I find.

The chipstick is rubbish - it is a bloody crayon. But hey, they throw it in for no extra, so worth a go.

If your car is garaged, it will hide the scratch for quite some time, but rain and wind will eventually wash it away. Just bung some new on.

Worth a go.

Another thing I did with great success was to fill a scratch with touch-up paint, taking ages to add coat after coat. When it was higher than the scratch, I then polished it back with Autoglym Paint Renovator ( a product which will also take the sting out of a scratch before you do anything )

You will 100% sure be able to clean it up well, especially as it is in an area which doesn't get 'in-yer-face' as much as say, the front clam.

[Tin Hat]

My experience of Chips Away is that their paint is as soft as butter - my plant leaves in my driveway scratched it (genuinely).Respray seems the best investment

[Anatol]

Tin Hat said:

My experience of Chips Away is that their paint is as soft as butter - my plant leaves in my driveway scratched it (genuinely).Respray seems the best investment

That is likely to have been the 1k solvent-borne paint and lacquer system called PC52. Due to its high VOC content, Euro regs have outlawed it. ChipsAway now use a waterborne paint system and 2k lacquer. Once fully cured it has similar durability to original factory finishes, or bodyshop repairs.

HTH

Tol

[JTBUSH]

Managed to get rid of the scratch with a fair few applications of t cut. If you know its there, you can still see it, but you have to really look. Ive asked a few people now, and they couldnt see it, until I pointed out where it was.

Quite suprised, as it had gone through to the white undercoat, but the t cut sorted it! Nice