Touching up paint

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My 2002 Prius (~85k miles now) has got some paint chips and light scratches in the body paint and a deeper scratch in the B pillar that is worrying me due to the beginnings of rust. I'm thinking about working on these myself, mostly to keep the rust from being a problem, but I don't want it to look like crap. I don't have an air compressor or paint gun. Is it worth it to have a go with the 3 stage paint pens, or am I asking for heartache?

― Jaq, Thursday, 10 May 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link

jaq, i have an airbrush. could that work?

― lxy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

We should turn it into an art car!

― Jaq, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:38 (seventeen years ago) link

rust so quickly??

Actually, most of the scratches will buff out with a good polish (preferably applied via random orbit buffer).

― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Seattle :( And, that scratch has been there for close to 18 months.

I'm not sure about the scratches buffing out - Mr. Jaq was delivering mail from this poor car and wasn't careful with mailboxes banging the door. "Light scratches" is possibly not accurate - a few scratches where the blue paint looks like it's down to the gray primer. I'll try that first though.

― Jaq, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:59 (seventeen years ago) link

and then i will HAPPILY turn it into an art car! just pick a theme!!

― lxy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link

It would have to reflect us, our us-ness, so vinyl and books and food and wine would all have to be part of it. I have this vision of halved LPs and 45s glued like a bristly mohawk down the center of the roofline.

― Jaq, Friday, 11 May 2007 19:55 (seventeen years ago) link

sounds great! just have mr. jaq let me know when it would be convenient for me to come over and start halving records, okay?

― lxy, Friday, 11 May 2007 21:07 (seventeen years ago) link

two months pass...

Well, I finally caved and bought the paint pens to try. Should have them by the weekend. I was always pretty good about staying in the lines in elementary school.

― Jaq, Tuesday, 17 July 2007 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

I finally was home long enough to try these out. Very cool, like using sharpies on your car. I got the primer coat on and two layers of color. I need to put at least one more layer of color on tonight, then clearcoat.

Also, how does the inside of all the glass in the car of non-smokers get so smudged and dirty???? You have to get hslfway upside-down to clean all the way to the bottom of the windshield and the back glass. Detailers earn the $ they charge, I think.

― Jaq, Monday, 13 August 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I used to have a job doing that. It was fucking murder.

― stet, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

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