DIY Tech

QUICK SCRATCH FIX! Fix Paint Damage Yourself With AutomotiveTouchup

By Jim Smart

Any time you have damaged paint, the imagination goes wild wondering what a body shop is going to charge to fix it. And, blending paint color? That’s where touch-up gets tricky and dicey at best.

Paint damage can run into hundreds of dollars depending upon how bad the damage is. Some colors are challenging to blend—especially metallic. Of course, there’s always body damage that only a professional body shop should handle and do it properly.

What we’re dealing with here are minor scrapes and scratches you can handle yourself via AutomotiveTouchup. With a longstanding history of mixing its own proprietary formulas for body shops and collision centers, AutomotiveTouchup has become a highly respected provider of specialty automotive aerosol spray paint cans, touch up bottles, pens and other self-help products. You’re going to like what these folks can do for you. What’s more, there’s a professional staff on the other end of the phone, ready to help you.

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AutomotiveTouchup offers a wide variety of touch-up and repair options, including ½-ounce and 2-ounce touch-up bottles, touch-up Paint Pens, Spray Paint, Sandpaper, Rubbing Compound, and more. AutomotiveTouchup’s ready-to-spray paint for spray guns include urethane base coat, acrylic lacquer clear coat, urethane clear coat and synthetic and acrylic enamels for some older vehicles.

AutomotiveTouchup’s team coordinates a precision-driven process for the formulation of 60,000 OEM colors from its state-of-the-art facility on the Gulf Coast in New Orleans. We’re talking over 300,000 custom-mixed formulas and pharmaceutical-grade scales calibrated to precise tolerances. AutomotiveTouchup formulates each color by using only the highest quality auto paint from the most credible names in the industry.

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We’re using AutomotiveTouchup’s 2-ounce bottles of Primer, Basecoat Color, Clearcoat, and Rubbing Compound to work these nicks and scratches. Because these are superficial nicks, very little prep is required.

Each product AutomotiveTouchup offers has been designed for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to do the job correctly yourself. Most AutomotiveTouchup products are custom tailored to perform at the highest level possible for your specific application. The brush inside every cap of its ½ oz. and 2 oz. touch up paint bottles features a special filament that is soft, angle cut, and solvent resistant, which makes application easy. Their proprietary clear coat formulation sets the industry standard for gloss quality and ease of use. AutomotiveTouchup’s pro-grade aerosol spray tip delivers a gentle, finely atomized, even (but wider) spray fan that is as close to spray gun quality as possible.

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The hood of Ray’s 2017 Mustang GT has picked up minor stone chips that need to be eliminated. Your only real option is to micro-fill these nicks. To work them with sandpaper only makes the problem worse. We’re going to clean these imperfections with Dawn dishwashing liquid to remove any contamination and allow them to dry.

AutomotiveTouchup’s tech support people are standing by, in the event you have a question, and its experienced and knowledgeable staff of professionals take time to answer your questions and to help you get it right. We’re at Full Throttle Kustumz in Fillmore, California, working with Ray McClelland’s 2017 Mustang GT coupe, which has minor nicks and scratches which need to be worked out. Technician Brian Short took the time to show us how you can eliminate tiny scratches and nicks on YOUR Mustang’s surface.

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Brian begins touch-up with a super fine dab of AutomotiveTouchup primer, then, allows generous dry time. The goal is to fill the nick, then do a finite sanding job with 320-grit paper. Even sanding is discouraged because it only makes the problem larger.

Any time you have damaged paint, the imagination goes wild wondering what a body shop is going to charge to fix it.

This is a 2-ounce bottle of AutomotiveTouchup in Ford’s Grabber Blue for 2017. Note the fine-hair brush tip that enables a finite nick fill.

A tiny amount of Grabber Blue is dabbed from the lid. We need so little.

The beauty of the AutomotiveTouchup Micro-Dabber is the pinpoint accuracy of this touch-up tool. The nick is filled with Grabber Blue and allowed to cure.

You can micro sand the Grabber Blue basecoat, which sports an element of risk, or dab clearcoat over the blue. The choice is yours. AutomotiveTouchup has provided us with rubbing compound to finish out and blend the clear.

Ray’s GT looks terrific and the touch-ups are virtually impossible to see. You can do this type of touch-up, then have a professional detailer rub out the finish to where your touch-up work blends and cannot be seen.