Fixing small dents needing new paint at home

OK, I know there will be jokes about Rattle Can repairs and people saying I am crazy, but I have been able to fix some small dents at home with really nice results. I wrote this description for another Prius Poster, but The Thread seems Dead, and I don't even know if the OP will see this, so I though I would go ahead and start a new post to prove I have way too much time on my hands and so everyone will have a chance to poke fun at me.

Also, I scuffed up the bumper cover on my 2007 Silver Pine Mica, so I will be fixing that and posting photos for any potential nay sayers in a few weeks. Or I will go away, and show up with a new name. Especially if the area is inconspicuous, you might prefer it to paying you deductable or living with the damage. I don't recommended attempting a very large area like a hood, but I did get away with doing a complete bumper cover with great results.

A small dent like the one in the illustration picuture will cost about $85 to fix, and maybe 6 hour X2, or twice as long as whatever you think it will take you (Murphy). If you like to work on your car, are good with tools, do woodworking or frost cakes, you can do this.

The key is to buy good paint, not "Duplicolor", or other cheep / bad paint. My great results were with spay cans ordered from Paint World Inc. They sells very good color matched spay can paints, clear coats and paint blender spay at www.paintworldinc.com.

A tale of two bumpers - I have painted two complete bumper covers, one with Duplicolor, and one with Point World spray paint, becuase the duplicolor was not available. The difference is night and day. Duplicolor bumper cover looks like crud, and the Paint World Inc. bumper cover looks just like the factory paint. I am not lying. I will try and take some pics to add later.

Here are the steps and a marked up photo.

Materials List:
1 Non wax bassed rubbing compound, $4.00
1 Wax and greas remover, $5
1 can reducer (auto paint thinner), $6
5 sheet dry saandpaper variety pack (50 - 150 grit), $3.50
5 sheet wet sand paper (black coated) 320 grit, $3.50
1 Bondo Body filler, $4.00
1 tube spot putty, $2.00
1 set body filler spatulas, $3.50
1 cans Primer Surfacer (close to your top coat color), $12
1 can cheap contrasting color primer, $5.00
1 can top coat color, $15
1 can clear coat, $15
1 can paint blender, $15

1. Push the dent out as much as posible from the back. If it pops out completely, presto, paintless dent repair. But if there is paint damage of a crease left continue, in the illustrated situation, pull the bottom of the fender back down as best as you can. it will have gone back most of the way when you pushed the dent out from the back. For difficult dents, hammer and dolly technique is a whole different thread. Remeber, body filler should only be applied about 1/8 thick maximum, so working out the bulk of the dent is critical.

2. Use wax and grease remover before any sanding, or you will grind wax into your work area and this can cause problems with the painting later.

3. Rough up the paint in the dent and slightly beyond with approx 50 grit sand paper. Then clean again with Paint Reducer (Fancy name for Auto Paint Thinner).

4. Mix colored hardner into body filler per instructions and mix very well so there are no streaks. Mix fast as you will have 3-5 minutes to work with it. Fill the dent with body filler smooth it as close to shape as posible. When it begins to harden, you must leave well enough alone and finish the work with scaping, sanding, and additional applications of the filler. Sand it to shape and smooth with progressively finer sand paper. Start with 50 grit and then move toward 150 grit. Re-apply small amounts of body filler in any obvious low spots and repeat as needed. Featheredge any damaged paint edges (so that it tapers from full thickness to very thin, to bare medal, if needed).

5. Use Gray or Dard Red Surfacing Primer depening on your finish color. Which ever is closer to the color like gray for the illustrated car that is silver or white. Spay a light coat and let it tack up, followed by two or three wet coats that are allowed to tack up in between. The primer area will be slightly larger than the repaired area, perhaps up to the gray line I added to the picture. This primer is designed to fill small scratches and build up the surface. The primer is an opportunity to practice spaying even coats. If you see a dry rough area beween passes, you are not putting enough paint, too far back or something.

6. Let it dry for about an hour and then spay a very light overspay of the other color cheap primer, dark red, over a larger area, overlaping onto the car paint beyond the repair, up to the dark red line in this illustration. This is an "indicator coat" that will let you see any low spots when you sand it off. Let this dry for two or three hours. Don't be tempted like me to use any old color paint laying around, becuase you will pay later in sandpaper and elbow grease when you need to sand it off.

7. Wet Sand the primered area with 360 grit sand paper on a rubber sanding block. Wet sanding is when you wet the surface and keep a small stream of water running over the surface and your sanding block the whole time.

8. When most of the red color is gone (like I show on the picture by the wheel well, you have sanded enough. There will be some low spots and pin holes in your repair and maybe some chips in the undented paint area that will show up as red dots. If you sand down to any body filler (pink area below) keep going because you will be adding more primer later. If you sand down to bare metal, stop and evaluate. Typically, you might see some low and high areas at the margin of the repaired area, where it meets the non repaired paint.

9. If it feels almost flat, fill the low areas, including all the way around bare metal areas. If bare metal area is way too high, you need to tap it down first and then refill this plus any other low areas with more body filler. For the tiny pin holes, spot putty can be used.

9. Repeat 5-8 until you can sand down to a Gray Primer without any red pin holes, bare metal or body filler.

10. Use rubbing compount without wax in it to thoroughly compound a larger area around the repair up to the pruple lines in the picture. This will help the new paint stick on the area where you will be blending it into the new paint. Try to plan areas where the body panel is narrower for blending if posible, or if there is a seam, you can mask to the seam and forget about blending in that area.

11. Clean with Reducer and wipe it dry.

12. Mask off areas not to be painted. You will probably want to mask of some of the door jam too, up to an inconspicous area inside.

13. On a nice temperate day (around 65 - 70 F, in the shade, and no breeze, spay a light tack coet of color paint covering the repair, and up to the yellow lines (an narrow area like this makes the blending easier. When it tacks up, spay two wet coats. You want them to be as wet as posible, without running. You want to see the grainy appearance of the paint surface start to flow smooth, but not too much. Stop when you see the paint just start to flow. If you are non experienced with painting, you might want ot have a test metal peace near by, same temp and primer as the car surface. As you are adding more paint, add to the test peice first, and if it runs, stop adding to the car repair area before it is too late. Let the wet coats tack up in between. If there is a clear coat, spay two wet coats of clear.

14. One the color and clear coat tacks up well, spay the blender spay over the edge of the new paint and overspay in the old paint up to the green lines. This will blend the new paint into the old.


Later, I may tweak my description based on others questions, comments, criticisms, indignation, etc.

Have fun!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(apriusfan @ Jun 23 2007, 12:48 PM) [snapback]466937[/snapback]</div>

Good point. I have not owned many dark cars, so I don't have that experience. The masked off area is the door, a different panel, so I was trying to keep the blending area down to a minimum, but you are probably right, and most likely have more experience trying to match dark colors.

Also, I may have exagerated the area needed to blend. My repairs always end up getting larger than I want, but it may be posible to keep the repair area smaller.