Hey guys newbie here

My friend has a shopping cart damage dent on his door. The damage is two inches from the end of the door close to the driver door. I assume the driver door needs blending and clear all together. Someone else told me being the size of the damage I may not need to blend? I attached a picture of it

you'll need to blend onto both doors. be sure to look at the alternate cards and get the best one. do this outside in the sunlight and shade at different angles. pay attention to the primer color on the car, this is what I go by and it always works. no more than you need pick a good quality base coat. I can't see how far the door goes to the rear but you'll probably need to go to the rear quarter, then clear the doors and rear quarter. if you were experienced you could probably stay on the rear door (need to see).
Jay D.

By the time you repair that dent and feather out the paint you're going to be very close to the edge of the rear door. Generally I work on an absolute minimum of 200mm to blend, but with silvers you really need more.

Do the repair and then blend in to the front door, over at least 1/3 to 1/2 its length and curving the front edge of the blend down. On the rear door, blend to about 2/3 of its length. If you keep your repair tight you should not have to go above the body line at the top of the door, using the different angles of the panels to hide any variations.

Blending is a bit of an art form. Practice first. You need to be able to get a transition where you cannot see where it starts and finishes. Use a wet bed for the basecoat to try to reduce the possibility of the edges standing up. The older way of doing it was to blend in towards your repair, i.e. moving the gun before gradually pulling the trigger and extending each coat a little further out. The new way, with a wet bed, is to extend your furthest coat first and then blend each subsequent coat within the previous coat. Arguably a better result but a bit more difficult for those without experience.

Having said all that, if you are inexperienced then why are you offering to fix your friend's car? The risk factor here is very high given that that dent appears to have a split in the metal, is very deep and, with the colour being silver, will need to be repaired absolutely perfectly. Do you understand dent repair - how to pull that out and weld the split and how to reduce the high ridges around a dent like that?

Here's one I have underway right now. Similar damage, albeit a bit longer. Lifting that crease took quite a bit of effort and more than a little light hammer work to get the highs down.

thanks for the tips guys I'm learning and my friend is letting me work on it to learn. I have painted a few cars and motorcycles. the only metallic I sprayed was a gunmetal grey metallic my first time I had some tiger stripes on the hood but I fixed them and learned. I work in a shop and they throw small repairs at me but I'm a long way from getting in the booth hahaha. just doing some work at home to practice and get better. I scored an 80 gallon air compressor from a guy who became disabled and was selling a bunch of equipment.

badsix wrote:you'll need to blend onto both doors. be sure to look at the alternate cards and get the best one. do this outside in the sunlight and shade at different angles. pay attention to the primer color on the car, this is what I go by and it always works. no more than you need pick a good quality base coat. I can't see how far the door goes to the rear but you'll probably need to go to the rear quarter, then clear the doors and rear quarter. if you were experienced you could probably stay on the rear door (need to see).
Jay D.

the quarter too?!!?!?!

ask questions and keep at it that's how you learn. and yep I think you'll need to go onto the rear quarter. without pictures it looks like your going to use up half of the door for your repair that doesn't leave much for the blend out.
Jay D.

For me, if I have to clear both doors and the qtr panel, I'd just as
soon paint the entire side. then I don't have to worry about blending
for a match. It's really not any more work when you're talking about just a fender more.
(it just never ends, does it!)

there you go JC right on top of it. much simpler.
Jay D.

JCCLARK wrote:For me, if I have to clear both doors and the qtr panel, I'd just as
soon paint the entire side. then I don't have to worry about blending
for a match. It's really not any more work when you're talking about just a fender more.
(it just never ends, does it!)

Haha much simpler. Not sure if the quote “keep it simple stupid” will fall in my experiment but I’ll give that a shot. Once again thanks to all of you for the input!!

JCCLARK wrote:For me, if I have to clear both doors and the qtr panel, I'd just as
soon paint the entire side. then I don't have to worry about blending
for a match. It's really not any more work when you're talking about just a fender more.
(it just never ends, does it!)

But the rear bar adjoins the quarter, the roof adjoins the cant rail and the bonnet and front bar adjoin the guard.....

That damage to OP's car is in the first 200mm of the rear door. There is absolutely no way that there is any need to do the quarter. On that door the first third will be the new paint, the second third a transition from new to old and the last third the original paint, plus clear. On the front door, rearmost third new paint, middle third transition and front third original.