# 50+ stone chips on Merc AMG bonnet sorted!



## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

When the sun made a brief appearance earlier this week I took the opportunity to closely inspect my bonnet which appeared to have picked up quite a few stone chips after some recent high speed motorway driving.

There were a few 'regular' size stone chips which obviously needed taking care of, but I also noticed quite a few tiny white 'dots' on the bonnet which weren't exactly chips as such but needed taking care of as they were noticeable under sunlight on a black bonnet.

So I headed off to my local Car Colours store and picked up 30ml of touch up paint and some 2000/2500 Unigrit. I also visited a Hobby Craft shop to buy a paint brush suitable for putting down the tiniest amount of paint.

Then I got home and set to work, wiping the bonnet down with some BH Cleanser Fluid to remove the LSP and any dirt lurking inside the chips, then painting in the the 'normal' chips first before working my way around the bonnet covering each and every one of the tiny white dots with an equally tiny amount of paint. I lost count at 50 or so.

I left the paint 24 hours to cure and then, the following day, I set about wet sanding every one of those 50+ tiny blobs flat in between frequent rain showers (how I wished I had a titanium block as it would have been much easier and faster to have shaved the paint flat instead).

Here's a few pics of the wet sanding 'in progress'...



















When I finished the wet sanding process I grabbed my rotary with a blue Scholl polishing pad and some S2 and polished out the wet sanding marks...










Then I refined the finish with an Orange Scholl finishing pad and some S40 polish, before giving the bonnet a final wipe down with BH Cleanser Fluid and laying down two coats of BH Auto Balm just as the the sun decided to make a brief appearance for 'final' photos....




























Definitely a job worth doing and I hope this might inspire some of you to take care of any stone chips you might have lurking on your shiny ride!

Thanks for looking. Questions and comments welcome :thumb:


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## danwel (Feb 18, 2007)

Awesome awesome job


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## james_death (Aug 9, 2010)

Superb Job...:thumb:


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## snoopin (Jul 26, 2009)

That's pretty impressive mate nice work


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## nath_cuddy (Dec 12, 2012)

Good effort mate! Great results! 
How long would you say it took?

Nathan.


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

nath_cuddy said:


> Good effort mate! Great results!
> How long would you say it took?
> 
> Nathan.


It probably took about half and hour to paint the chips, an hour and a half or so to wet sand them flat and then an hour or so for the polishing and LSP application - so about 3 - 3.5 hours in total


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## luke w (Dec 11, 2012)

Wow mucho respect to u mate! Top work!


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## Leebo310 (Sep 30, 2013)

Wow mate, amazing job!


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## James Bagguley (Jul 13, 2013)

Awesome result, your efforts really paid off, nice one :thumb:


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## Bartl (Apr 3, 2013)

Superb job.


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## efib (Sep 18, 2012)

Amazing job :thumb: !!


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## svended (Oct 7, 2011)

Very nice work.


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## Rayner (Aug 16, 2012)

Looking good mate :thumb: 

Your going to cringe every time you hear a 'ting' now though!


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## hjl (May 6, 2011)

Great job! 

Did your paint have laquer mixed in it? I got a touch up set once but the paint was in one bottle and the laquer in another, I'm guessing the 2 bottle set up would be more difficult to use in case when you were sanding back you went through the clearcoat on the touch up area.


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## steviebabe0 (May 14, 2013)

Job well done :thumb:, hows the front bumper looking if youve that many on the bonnet?


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## Lloydy (Jan 13, 2009)

hjl said:


> Great job!
> 
> Did your paint have laquer mixed in it? I got a touch up set once but the paint was in one bottle and the laquer in another, I'm guessing the 2 bottle set up would be more difficult to use in case when you were sanding back you went through the clearcoat on the touch up area.


I was going to ask this as well

Fantastic job though! hard work has paid off :buffer:


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## DMH-01 (Mar 29, 2011)

Good job :thumb:


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## dekerf1996 (Sep 9, 2008)

Looks a great job

any close ups of the chips or are they completely invisable?


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Great work there, it's this kind of thing that sets your car high above the rest with regard to condition. Looks superb in the after shots!


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## GrantB5 (Nov 6, 2011)

I have a few stone chips on my bonnet I really wanna give this a go!


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## shakey85 (Aug 20, 2013)

Fantastic job, looking like a brand new!

I had loads of stone chips aswell and used a chipex kit but the results are no where near as good as this, might give it a go. 

Do you think the polishing step could be done with a DA and MF pads as I am a novice and really dont want to try a rotary at the moment?


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

hjl said:


> Great job!
> 
> Did your paint have laquer mixed in it? I got a touch up set once but the paint was in one bottle and the laquer in another, I'm guessing the 2 bottle set up would be more difficult to use in case when you were sanding back you went through the clearcoat on the touch up area.


I considered this but decided against it for this job simply because the majority of chips were so tiny they only needed a tiny pin point of paint on them to cover them so I didn't think it was necessary. My decision had nothing to do with the wet sanding process, it was just less hassle using only base coat.

Having said that, if the chips were larger than they were I probably would have added some clear to the base coat.


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

shakey85 said:


> Fantastic job, looking like a brand new!
> 
> I had loads of stone chips aswell and used a chipex kit but the results are no where near as good as this, might give it a go.
> 
> Do you think the polishing step could be done with a DA and MF pads as I am a novice and really dont want to try a rotary at the moment?


I don't see why you couldn't use a DA and MF pad to do this job. It'll probably just take a little longer to achieve the final finish :thumb:


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

steviebabe0 said:


> Job well done :thumb:, hows the front bumper looking if youve that many on the bonnet?


I sorted the front bumper back in the summer using the excellent technique provided on here by Reflectology http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=217520&highlight=stone+chips and so far it seems to be holding up pretty well. But give it time and it'll need doing again I'm quite sure of that


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

dekerf1996 said:


> Looks a great job
> 
> any close ups of the chips or are they completely invisable?


Yes they've completely gone and you wouldn't have known they were there, so I went for an overall reflection shot of the bonnet instead of shooting a small close up patch.


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## dekerf1996 (Sep 9, 2008)

Matty77 said:


> Yes they've completely gone and you wouldn't have known they were there, so I went for an overall reflection shot of the bonnet instead of shooting a small close up patch.


Thats great to hear, need to do this to the Mrs car and would hope for a finish like yours


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## GarveyVW (Jun 28, 2013)

Great job!


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

Nice work, Matty. Well worth the time.


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## wleszczynski (May 10, 2012)

Hi,

Looking nice. I would love to see before/after closeups if available. If not just afters would be nice too...

Wojtek


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## TonyH38 (Apr 7, 2013)

Superb job


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

wleszczynski said:


> Hi,
> 
> Looking nice. I would love to see before/after closeups if available. If not just afters would be nice too...
> 
> Wojtek


Sorry I didn't take any 'Before' pics but I'll take some close up 'Afters' tomorrow (its been raining all day today)


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## scratcher (Jul 20, 2010)

Fantastic result  well done.
What did you use for the touch up, one of those kits or just the colour match and a fine brush?


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

scratcher said:


> Fantastic result  well done.
> What did you use for the touch up, one of those kits or just the colour match and a fine brush?


Thanks. Yes I just used the colour match (mixed while I waited) and a very fine brush


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## steve from wath (Dec 12, 2008)

that looks like a fantastic result

very good polishing there

sometimes i use a ****tail stick to apply the smallest drops of paint


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## bazz (May 15, 2007)

great job fella looks much better


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## jamesgti (Aug 9, 2007)

Good work.


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## martin_46 (Aug 7, 2012)

Great job!


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## srhutch (Aug 2, 2009)

Great Job, but how do you manage to keep the sanding marks so small?


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

srhutch said:


> Great Job, but how do you manage to keep the sanding marks so small?


I cut an old credit card into strips of about 1cm wide x the length of the card and wrapped the unigrit around that and used as a makeshift sanding block


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## srhutch (Aug 2, 2009)

Matty77 said:


> I cut an old credit card into strips of about 1cm wide x the length of the card and wrapped the unigrit around that and used as a makeshift sanding block


Thanks :thumb:


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## Bkjames (Sep 13, 2006)

Awesome work looks great :thumb:


Brian


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## Doc943 (Mar 27, 2011)

If this technique would work on glacier silver then I'd be a happy man! Silver is impossible to touch up and get your results.


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## Matty77 (Nov 7, 2012)

Doc943 said:


> If this technique would work on glacier silver then I'd be a happy man! Silver is impossible to touch up and get your results.


Yeah I've read about the problems people have with silver repairs.


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## steveineson (Jan 2, 2010)

Brilliant work, well done.


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## Powerff (Aug 9, 2013)

great effort mate, 
I have gone through 20 max chips on my A6 but never took any before and after shots, but my mate is coming with Touareg with a lot of theses so will try to post it and see how it came out, hopefully as good as yours )
Well done again mate


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## CrippleRacer1 (Oct 31, 2013)

Pukka work. Well worth the effort.


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## devonutopia (May 29, 2006)

For areas that small I wouldn't imagine there's much issue using a single digit to apply the wet & dry to the surface. It's only one contact point, unlike when doing larger areas when doing by hand is not the best at all.


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## Barchettaman (Dec 16, 2007)

Awesome work.

Looks about a gazillion times better than my efforts on the Vectra, but then I lost count at 250 stonechips and would still be sanding down / refining now if I was as motivated as you....


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## lukesaunders91 (May 8, 2011)

Looks mint mate!


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