I had read that some people wait for the clear to completely de-gas which, if you have a run, could take a little while? I figured I was in no rush so I'd rather give too much time than too little, but if you don't need to give it that much time then I can get it done sooner

Agree, 2 weeks is an unnecessarily long wait. We do denibbing next day and overall wet sanding the second day. You want the clear cured, but not so hard that it becomes too difficult to get the sanding scratches out.

Don't use blending thinner on base coat. Learn to blend in, rather than out. One of the tricks I use with blends is to mark the masking where I want the blends to be. Even more important on 3 layer pearls and factory candies.

As for doing a SMART repair on a roof, I wouldn't even try.

Thanks Chris, I too the surprise from PainterDave as advice and went out and sanded it down. It got pretty close to perfect until I sanded through the original clear about 10 minutes ago...you know how, sometimes, you know you need to leave things but something just compels you otherwise? It looked good too...oh well, get to try again I guess.

But why don't you usually do small/medium repairs on roofs, just out of curiosity? Do you just sand the whole thing down and re-paint it?

Do you have any tricks for blending? My local paint shop said that blending a pearl (for the basecoat) you start in the paint in the middle of the repair and work out to the edge, where the pearl coat you start at the edge and work in. That sound right?

i would never blend that roof... but the time youre done blending edges and polishing them (and praying it dont fail) you could just paint the whole roof in half the time.

PainterDave wrote:i would never blend that roof...

Blend the base and pearl coats. Easy. Clear the whole thing.

sailnaked6842 wrote:But why don't you usually do small/medium repairs on roofs, just out of curiosity? Do you just sand the whole thing down and re-paint it?

Because, as Dave says, they come back to haunt you. Blending base and pearl coats is something we do every day, so no real problem there. But finishing a clear coat half way across a panel means that the thickness of the new clear diminishes towards the edge, to the point where it can no longer perform the function it was designed to do, at the DFT specified in the TDS. So, again as Dave says, while you can make it invisible with enough work, after a while the edge will become visible again.

Honestly, I did a Bentley with a scrape around the rear wheel arch a couple of years ago. Because the quarter joins seamlessly into the roof, to do it properly meant that I should have cleared the whole roof and the quarter on the other side. Not wanting to do that (and not being paid for it) I ran the clear up the C pillar and melted it in. Beautiful - truly invisible.

Recently the owner scraped the same quarter again and when I looked at my clearcoat blend it had become quite visible. This time I cleared quarter, roof and quarter.

SMART repairs are ok for bars or side panels down low. They never work long term up higher on the car.

sailnaked6842 wrote:Do you have any tricks for blending? My local paint shop said that blending a pearl (for the basecoat) you start in the paint in the middle of the repair and work out to the edge, where the pearl coat you start at the edge and work in.

Almost everybody who blends out ends up turning the gun at the end of the stroke, resulting in overspray all down the panel. Blending in means that you've already started moving the gun and have it perpendicular to the panel before you gradually pull the trigger. Doing this means that you can control your blend to exactly where you want it.

You can get away with blending out on simple metallics and pearls but once you start to deal with 3 layer pearls you really need better control. Tomorrow I'm doing a Soul Red Mazda (that's the factory candy), blending up the guard and into the front bar. Having to blend primer, base and coloured clear means that I'll need to plan and execute the blend exactly. Overspray of the metallic layer will show up as a bright ring around the repair while going too far with the tinted clear would result in a dark band where the overlap is. No room for error in a job like that and the bar is off the car, so I'll need to ensure that each coat is the same thickness so I get a match at the panel join line.

Wet beds help in cases like that, as does reducing the strength of the base as you go further out.

my hat is off to you guys that do the tri stage blends and now with tinted clear wow!
I wish I could be their to see it being done
Jay D.

Oh, it's fun, believe me.

The clear is the good bit. You need two guns, one with tinted clear and one with normal clear. Take the tinted clear out to cover your base coat then extend out to the edge of the panel with the normal clear, overlapping a little but not too much. If you use just one air hose then there's a lot of gun swapping. Easier to use two hoses, one to each gun and then just swap hands. I've seen one painter who does one section with his left hand and then just continues on each stroke with his right. Not me. My left hand hasn't finished 1st year apprentice yet.

for a beginner its great youre trying out blending, it takes practice,