Hey guys, we have a pearl white '22 CRV that we bought about 9 months ago. About 2 months ago my wife went to open the driver's door and her wedding ring scratched the door right down to the bare metal.


Having used a touch up pen before and knowing that it would still look like crap after just using that - I thought I'd try and "feather" it in. I mean, Chris Fix showed how to do it in like 20 mins right?! (Go ahead and insert your slappy emoticons here )

Anyway as you can see in the photo below I've still got some work to do here but I'm afraid to sand any further because the part I want to keep sanding is circled in orange. However the part below it is now extremely dull. I THINK I'm starting to get into the primer here? That's basically my question though - what should my next step be? Just keep working the area outlined in orange that I'm actually trying to fix or am I at the point now where I have to apply paint to that "faded" part as well? So far I've been using 800 grit (although its this thin sponge kind of thing so its quite difficult to be extremely precise). I also have 1200 and 3000 grit. All the sand paper is 3M Automotive.

Thanks in advance guys.

Sorry, any attempt to touch it up is going to end badly. Even a pro, with good equipment, spraying it, will have a hard time matching and blending it. Forget doing it with a brush, or spray bomb!

You've already gone through the clear and the pearl coat.

That will now need to be resprayed which means the door and the adjacent panel because that scratch is way too close to the edge to be able to blend and contain the repair to the door only, without a colour difference between the two panels.

I know that Youtube channel and I've watched a few of his videos, all of which contained poor advice. I'd suggest you unsubscribe.

Everthing looks easy on videos! I've seen 1000 hour + projects done in less than 30 minutes... Do yourself a favor... Unless you want to learn a new hobby/profession with this scratch just find a good local shop and have them do it. Have them show you some examples of their repair/blend work. A tri stage like this is not something to "learn on."