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 (sixteen years ago) link

jaq, i have an airbrush. could that work?

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

We should turn it into an art car!

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

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

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


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