# Touch Up Paint seems darker than paint



## jason2_uk (Apr 8, 2010)

Hi All,

So I have some paint chips, as well as quite a large section on bonnet where lacquer has peeled(roughly 4cm x 2cm)

I purchased 30ml of touch up paint, as well as a fuel flap to test it out on.

I put a scratch in the fuel flap, and filled it using a touthpick with paint, over several applications, before wet sanding it, applying one layer of lacquer, and wet sanding again.

The end results are shown below.
Post Wet Sand - PrePolish




























The scratch is completly filled and smoothed, but there is a distinct difference in the colour.
Is this normal that touch up will always be different/noticeable on these kinds of touchups, is it just a bad batch of touchup paint?

I also applied some in a discreet area of the car, just to check it on the car.








Appreciate your thoughts


----------



## jason2_uk (Apr 8, 2010)

Adding in one more image - those others don't show the difference as well as this one.








Cheers!


----------



## Sicskate (Oct 3, 2012)

The touch up paint will be mixed from the standard shade, so you'll come across issues like this often. 

In my opinion, repairs like this are mainly to take your eye away from the original damage. 

Place you new fuel flap down and have a look from a few meters back, see how it looks now. 

Sent from my FRD-L09 using Tapatalk


----------



## rob267 (Nov 27, 2015)

Try again. But dont wet sand the paint. Only wet sand the lacquer. I had this with my volvo touch up. When i sanded the paint it appeared darker. 
May work buddy.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


----------



## enc (Jan 25, 2006)

Consider too...this is metalic paint. The metal flakes in the paint need to lay in the same direction as the original paint... a very difficult task to achieve and one of the reasons metalic paints are notiuriously difficult to match/blend. I think the best you can hope for is "as close as you can get " it will never be invisible. What will you do about the clear coat peel?


----------



## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

You're having problems for 2 reasons:

When a paint is sprayed a very thin layer is applied, the metallic particles in the paint all 'sit' correctly on the surface and like tiny mirrors they reflect the light to make it look silver/glittery.
If you use that exact same paint to touch-in, no-matter how careful you are, you apply it as a thicker layer. The metallic particles sink, don't reflect the light and the paint appears much, much darker and dull.

If by luck there were any metallic particles doing their job properly then by sanding the paint they will get damaged, and once again can't reflect the light.


----------



## Slammedorion (Apr 13, 2014)

Thicker you apply the paint the darker it’ll be
The thinner you apply it the lighter it’ll be
You’ll never touch that up and be happy with it tbh
Your better off tiny amounts of basecoat if needed then fill the hole with clearcoat 
Allow to dry and flat back and polish 
It worst it would look like a basecoat fault :detailer:


----------

