# Help! DW Newbie :)



## [email protected] (Sep 30, 2013)

Morning everyone,

Im new here to Detailing World, so hi everyone, and thanks for any help in advance.

Got a bit of a problem - its my first attempt at rust repair on my wife's Vauxhall Tigra Wing; didn't get on too badly considering it was my first time with filler.

I started by getting rid of the rust, sanding back the 3 affected areas back to bare metal with a wire wheel attachment on a drill. Whilst the rust hadnt gotten all the way through, it left the areas fairly cratered - so to work with the filler. After letting that dry, I worked on it with increasing grades of wet and dry - and once the surface was nice and level, I used 3 layers of primer, with more increasing grades of wet and dry in betwen - before I was ready to paint, the areas affected were 'very' smooth.

And heres the problem part - I masked off everything around it to prevent any paint falling on the non-affected parts of the wing, so I go to work spraying 3 layers of Halfords 'Star Silver 2' which is the colour match for my wife's 82L paint code Tigra. I then apply lacquer, given that its a metallic coat I understand this is necessary to create the final finish.

Its the WRONG shade :wall: Its FAR darker, and now looking at the reviews of this paint shade online from Halfords, someone else has said the same thing too. Id expect a slight difference due to the existing paint's age, but nothing this extreme. My question is - when and IF I do obtain the right paint, where do I go from here? Can I just sand the paint to give it a key so the new paint adheres to it, or do I sand it back down to primer best as I can tell, and then use the new paint?

Help.


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

your going to have to paint the whole wing. what do you think about the masking lines? they wont disappear with a perfect paint match. good luck with it


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## CD Cornwall (Aug 12, 2010)

Darkness isn't just caused by the shade of the paint - the application also affects shade. The variables other than the paint colour include air pressure, distance and speed of application. You need to blend the new paint into the old avoiding the panel edges, then apply the lacquer over the entire panel. I wouldn't recommend doing this job using aerosols.

Cheers
David


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## paulb1976 (Nov 2, 2012)

bodyshop that one


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## [email protected] (Sep 30, 2013)

XRDAN said:


> your going to have to paint the whole wing. what do you think about the masking lines? they wont disappear with a perfect paint match. good luck with it


I'd love to bodyshop it; given that Id like to do a cheap a repair as possible, Im going to do this myself - the car isnt really worth that much! Its not going to be great with rattle cans, I know..

Ill be doing the whole panel, I've made a mess of it, and with all the tiny chips on the rest of the wing I may as well do the rest.

With most of the original paint on the wing still, with the exception of the repair area - what is the best way to go forwards with doing it all by hand? This is my interpretation of it, and I'd welcome criticism/guidance with it:

-Lightly sand with wet and dry (which grit? something coarse like 180-240?) to give a good 'key' for the primer
-Remove dust/contaminants
-Build up several layers of primer, sand with 320-400 wet and dry, then more layers, then 600-800 wet and dry
-Several layers of paint/base-coat, 1200 wet and dry in between coats
-Remove dust/contaminants again
-Apply lacquer/top coats to aid in the metallic finish for Silver


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## Aaran (Sep 18, 2007)

when doing a repair like that you never mask along an edge

sand the entire panel with p1000 first to remove all the gloss or sand using a grey scotch pad.

get a proper can of paint mixed off your cars year and reg AT A PAINT FACTORS not on the shelf at halfords. cars shades can change over the years depending on whom supplied the dealer factory the paint (fords are sods for this)

you need to primer and flat back the area you put filler on and only that area.

once the primer is sanded level with the existing paint you spray by fading out. ir: first coat just on the repair area (do it very thin on every coat)

do another coat but do a slightly larger area, then again doing an even larger area. this is called fading out or doing a fade out. so not mask and if you have to use soft edge masking tape or fold normal tape down a third

you never sand the basecoat, esp a metallic color. once it looks ok get the clear and clear the entire thing (this will cover all the p1000 marks as well)

if you were doing a larger panel on the car then you would be using a fade out thinner where the new clear ends and the old clear starts.


silver is the worst color you can paint, have a look for guides on here as the bodyshop users have posted up plenty of blends and smart repairs before


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

Good concise guide.


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## Glaschu (Sep 16, 2012)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the chances of matching Star Silver, or any light metallic for that matter, with a rattle can is virtually zero.

If you are insistent on having a go then you'll need to do the entire panel with a decent quality paint, either the OEM Vauxhall cans (at around £14 each) or, as mentioned above, the ones that many paint suppliers/factors will mix for you, which are probably around the £20 mark these days.

The panel needs flatting back completely, I'd suggest 600 rather than 1000 grit for a proper key, and you'll probably need a fews cans to get decent coverage.

By the time you add up the cost and hassle, if available, a secondhand wing in the correct colour would probably be a cheaper, and quicker, option....


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## Grant-s3 (Oct 13, 2013)

Hi mate how's it going, I've been a panel beater for 6 years so fingers crossed I can help lol. Basically colour matching silver is a nightmare. You buy a can of silver paint but never matches. We do things called shade cards where we take a paint code, of which can be over 10 diffrent shades of that one code, spray onto metal card and test them all against the body to get a perfect match. You will need to paint the full wing but it most likely wont match as the doors and maybe bonnet will have to be blended. Basically painting the wing and "flicking" paint 1/3 down the door then lacquer the lot. So it looses the colour and won't be a solid silver to slightly lighter silver. If you want to still try it at home watch some you tube videos on blending and get some information. Hope I was of some help to you mate and best of luck.


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## [email protected] (Sep 30, 2013)

Thanks for the replies guys, especially Aaran. Instead of doing the whole panel, I did everything south of the 'line' which runs clearly across the top half of the wing. Armed with a rattle can from a bodyshop, I set to work.

So as it was with the picture above - instead of using thiners, I sanded down most of the paint and primer on my botch repair job. I used primer on the repair area, and flatted that back with 800 w/d. I then flatted the remainder of the wing with 1200w/d, and them used the method of folding back the masking tape to create a less visible edge on the line on the top of the wing. I blended outwards from the repair area with paint, starting by concentrating my efforts on the repair area, and working outwards, and not going too far into the folded masking tape area. Finally with the coats evenly and thinly applied, I used about 3 coats of clear coat lacquer this afternoon.

With that done, it looked a bit 'dry', so I knocked it back with P1500 and P2000, finally giving it some cutting compound to bring out the shine. The match and the finish surpassed all my expectations.


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## vek (May 3, 2011)

that looks ace,especially from cans,bet you are well chuffed.:thumb:


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## XRDAN (Feb 28, 2012)

are you sure you didnt get it paineted?! :lol:

nice job mate:thumb:


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

Great Job! You must be as chuffed as a .... chuffed thing.


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## [email protected] (Sep 30, 2013)

Thanks for the feedback 

Yes, I am very chuffed! Now for the rest of the car...


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## K600RYS (Feb 28, 2008)

That looks amazing compared to the first picture!


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## MB-BTurbo (Nov 27, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> Thanks for the replies guys, especially Aaran. Instead of doing the whole panel, I did everything south of the 'line' which runs clearly across the top half of the wing. Armed with a rattle can from a bodyshop, I set to work.
> 
> So as it was with the picture above - instead of using thiners, I sanded down most of the paint and primer on my botch repair job. I used primer on the repair area, and flatted that back with 800 w/d. I then flatted the remainder of the wing with 1200w/d, and them used the method of folding back the masking tape to create a less visible edge on the line on the top of the wing. I blended outwards from the repair area with paint, starting by concentrating my efforts on the repair area, and working outwards, and not going too far into the folded masking tape area. Finally with the coats evenly and thinly applied, I used about 3 coats of clear coat lacquer this afternoon.
> 
> With that done, it looked a bit 'dry', so I knocked it back with P1500 and P2000, finally giving it some cutting compound to bring out the shine. The match and the finish surpassed all my expectations.


Could you not delete pics on help request threads please so others could benefit from it as well? I would love to see what is achievable so as to know whether it is worth the effort on similar tasks.


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