I recently touched up a nice size scratch on my driver side door. I followed all of the steps and made sure to take my time. I have to admit that the touched up area looks great. BUT here is my problem.

As I was sanding down the excess paint, I seem to have sanded some spots around the touched up area. Now my problem is that I can't seem to get rid of these sanded spots that surround the touched up area.

I have tried McGuires (sp) rubbing compound and the scratches still won't come out.

Do I need to purchase a motorized buffer for this job? Or is this a matter of reapplying clearcoat to the sanded area. The reason I never clearcoated the touched up area is because the touch up paint is a clearcoat mix. I was told that a clearcoat would not be necessary.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am getting really tired of looking at this dull rubbed spot on my door!

Thanks!

Mmmm, it may be that you sanded too far and are through the surrounding clear (leaving a dull basecoat spot visible). If so, then you can't sand or buff further, of course. What grit did you use to sand with? If you're through, you have to recoat unfortunately, with either clear or the clear/color mix. It's tricky though, it becomes a blend job to match the rest of the paint. There's been good discussion on this forum on how to do that (or what to expect a shop to do for you).

Chris

I used a 1500 and 2000 grit wet sandpaper. I even soaked the sandpaper for 24 hours and still used plenty of water while sanding.

I was going to try to purchase a motorized buffer and a heavier compound specialized in pulling out scratches that 1500 sandpaper would leave behind.

I just don't know how to tell if I went through or not. The scratches are so fine that I can't even feel them when I rub my finger over them, they are just very visible. The area looks like a greasy smudge that won't rub off.

Does that mean I went to deep?

What you're describing is almost certainly a burn through to the basecoat. You need more clear, or ideally a little base over the burn mark and clear over the whole area, then polish a little more carefully next time.

Thanks for the help but I do have one more question. How many coats of clear do you reccomend?

You can get away with 3 on the right base but if you're not able to limit orange peel and used to color sanding then you should probably put on 5 or more.

So let me ask this as well. How long should I wait to dry in between coats? I can't colorsand the base because it is a metallic paint. I will just have to hope that the paint goes on as good as it can and that no dirt ends up in the paint during the drying process.

And by the way, this board is awesome! I have found sooo much information from all of the previous posts!

15-30 minutes.

Yeah, this board is the best I've found, and it doesn't have much of the clique community bull**** that most forums have, just info.

Thanks! I will let you all know how it turns out! I'll try and take some before and after pictures.