Clear-coated overspray on bonnet - tips?

[oktapod]

Hi folks.

Last weekend I re-sprayed the nose of my car, followed by a clear-coat the following day. The resulting colour match is nearly bang-on, but not quite (typical, huh?).

Anyway, I am left with a slight edge to the end of the sprayed paint, where the masking was. I had hoped to blend it a bit better but haven't quite judged it right. The base coat, being metallic, required the clear-coat so I have applied this and this has covered this edge. The last clear-coat layer was applied on Sunday around 11am, so I am giving it until this weekend to harden properly before the next step, which is hopefully the 'finishing off' stage (with a proper wax following in around 12 weeks).

I am wondering what the best plan of action would be to manually blend or remove this line? A medium rubbing compound? 1500- or 2000-grade wet sand? T-Cut :-) ??? If I get it blended, should I then apply a little more clear-coat around the 'blended' zone to ensure that any removed clear-coat is re-added?

Overall, I'm about 90% happy with the work I've done thus far, but the key thing now is this one blend, so any tips would be recommended.

Thanks,

John

[Anatol]

Rubbing out the blend would essentially involve using abrasives to remove the clearcoat, and then flatten down the edge of the paint blend.

You *will* then have to overpaint the whole thing. Any abrasive action on a metallic blend edge will make the edge more visible not less. The spray area will be larger this time around.

Depending on how overcoatable your products are, and whether or not you think you'll get a better-than-90% finish if you have to redo the entire job but on a larger scale, you might be better off sticking with what you've got...

Tol

[7even]

Tol has about sumed it up, points to add, the blend that you are talking about should have been atempted at the time and not afterwards, I think thats perhaps where your going wrong, yes/no? Did you full coat laquer to the masked line or did you attempt to lessen the product used towards this line? If you have tried this then theres every chance you could get away with 1500/2000 then mop, unless of course its a dark metalic If it was a case of welly the paint and clear to the masked line its a bit of a rework if you want it 100%

There is another solution though....
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apply a pinstripe

[oktapod]

OK, just for reference I have taken a photo of the bonnet - it's here:

http://tinyurl.com/bmwbonnet

...and the red arrow should show you the slight line I'm talking about. On the other side, the line isn't visible, and any other lines or defects you see are just tricks of the light. As you can see, the colour match is good and the line is hardly a disaster, but it's still not as good as I had hoped it would be.

To answer the question: I did feather the clear-coat so that it will be much thinner around the line, so perhaps 2000 grade wet & dry with soapy water and a light touch might work.

All this said, I've shown it to a few people and whilst everyone could see it when pointed out, nobody felt it was particularly obvious nor something they'd have spotted without really looking. So if I have to live with it, it's not the end of the world. In balance it's a better overall finish as the bad stone chip repairs to the 'septum' are history and it appears much neater, line aside...

[7even]

TBH you could get away with saying you had paint protection film applied

From the pic it doesnt look too bad, but as you say pics can be deceiving.

[paintman]

Big flat panels - bonnet & roof especially - are notoriously difficult to achieve a satisfactory and invisible edge loss to a partial repair unless you have a hard edge such as a swage line to work to and are best dealt with by completely respraying the panel thereby giving yourself no edges to blend.
If you must attempt it hard masking is a no-no & back taping is at best chancy. You MUST blend the edge as soon as the final clearcoat is applied. The panel should have been well scotchpadded - trizact (or similar) pads would be better - esp into the intended blend area & obviously the clearcoat must go beyond the color coated area or you will be unable to polish the join as the colour coat will be exposed.
You could try careful flatting of the edge followed by gentle compounding & hopefully you might get it to an acceptable state but going by your picture I think it's going to be an issue & a full panel spray will be necessary.

Edited by paintman on Thursday 23 April 22:10