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Over the course of driving your vehicle, you're going to end up with a few paint chips from rocks or road debris,
sort of like what's on the front of this car,
and maybe a dent or two from a minor accident,
or even some rust like down here from driving your vehicle through the winter or near the ocean.
In any case, fixing up the body of your vehicle so it looks nice again can be done right at home.
Hi, I'm Scott Cusey, and welcome to Car Care Seminar.
This tape will cover several different, what I call, minor body repairs,
although the same principles can be applied to fix and repair major body damage too.
We'll be working with Randy Bailey from ColorWorks Auto Body.
He'll take us step by step through each repair and explain each specialty tool that we're using.
The repairs demonstrated on this tape include minor abrasion or surface scratch removal,
rock chip repair or touch-up, auto repair an area of peeling paint,
restoring an area that is rusted out, pulling out a dent,
and also a section totally dedicated to final paint finishing techniques
to help blend the surface of the new paint into the surface of the old paint.
Right now, let's go meet Randy and get started with our first repair.
In this first chapter, we'll detail removing minor surface abrasion and scratches.
Randy, what are you going to show us here first?
Well, we want to try to take out some minor abrasions, abrasions that are on the surface of the paint,
abrasions that are caused by maybe too many times through the car wash with some coarse brushes
or possibly maybe a tree branch has fallen on the car, just minor abrasions.
Okay, so this is a type of abrasion that I wouldn't need to paint to actually fix.
No, you wouldn't have to paint. This would be something that anybody could do with very few products.
Why don't you show us what we need?
Well, what we need to begin with is just basically some coarse rubbing compound,
some fine rubbing compound, and a couple of soft rigs.
We're going to start out with some coarse compound.
Okay, by coarse and fine compounds, what do you really mean?
Well, coarse compound, I guess the only way to describe it is feel it.
Okay.
Can you feel the grit in there?
Yeah, I can feel a little substance in there, yeah.
Okay, what we want to do is start out just putting our coarse compound on.
Okay. Is there any particular motion I should use when I'm putting this on?
I don't know that it really makes any difference.
I think the idea is to get the abrasion out no matter what it takes.
It is going to take a little bit of elbow grease doing it by hand.
Okay. Are there any conditions that are ideal for doing a job like this?
Well, you definitely don't want to be under direct sunlight,
and you don't want to be doing this on a day when it's real windy,
when you have a lot of dirt or dust in the air.
Okay, so how about the surface? I probably want to start with a clean vehicle too, don't I?
Absolutely, absolutely. Clean a vehicle thoroughly with a good detergent.
Well, that's looking pretty good already.
Okay, I'm going to take off a little bit of the residue right now.
I'm just going to flip the rag over here.
Okay.
Off a little bit of the residue.
Well, what do you think that looks like?
Boy, she's looking pretty good, looking pretty good already.
Okay, now we've got the major abrasions rubbed out with the coarse compound.
What's next?
Well, we want to go to the fine compound now.
Okay.
We're going to change rags.
Okay, put that on a different rag than you started with.
Clean rag.
Okay. Now, how do I tell the difference?
Well, feel this compared to what the original compound was that we started with.
I feel little or no grit at all in this stuff here.
This is more of a polishing compound.
Okay.
We're going to apply this the same way as we did the other compound.
Okay. Now, as far as surface area, should I go over a little bit farther what I did with the first stuff?
Yeah, and that's what we're doing here.
We're overlapping a little bit.
Okay. Kind of fill in and take out those scratches from the coarse compound.
Absolutely. That's exactly what we're trying to do.
Just take out the scratches from the other compound.
Now, should I wait for this to dry before I wipe it off or anything like that?
No. On the compounds, actually, it's better to leave them a little bit moist and not let them dry.
Okay.
Now, I'm going to take off a little bit of the residue like we did the first time around.
Okay.
Flip the rag over.
And Scott, why don't you follow up with a brand new clean rag.
Okay. Yeah.
And give it a little polish.
This will bring the gloss level back to its original condition.
That does really look nice. I can feel the smoothness already.
Okay. Now, once I've gotten that done and I can feel the smoothness and everything, is that it?
Is that all I have to do to the finish?
Well, you've taken all the protection off of the finish by using abrasives.
Okay.
And you're going to want to put some protection back on.
So now you can go back and re-wax or put some more protection back on.
Okay.
Okay. There we go.
I got her all waxed up and the finish is all protected.
Shines real nice, too.
In this chapter, we'll show you how to repair or repaint rock chips.
Right now, we're back visiting with Randy Bailey from the Color Works.
He's going to show us how to cover up some of them unsightly rock chips you end up with on your vehicle.
Randy, where do we start?
Well, Scott, one easy way of doing this is to purchase one of these touch-up bottles with a little brush inside with the correct paint to match the car.
All right.
The one thing we want to do is make sure that you shake the bottle up real good before we start, too, right?
Correct. We also want to make sure that our area is very clean.
I'm going to use a little bit of wax and grease remover to come in here and clean off any wax or grease or tar that might be present.
Okay, but if we didn't have wax and grease remover, we also could use some hot, soapy water and rinse it off thoroughly, too, correct?
Correct, and then you'd also want to make sure that it's very dry before you apply the paint.
Okay.
I'm also going to use a little piece of cardboard here.
I'm going to take my brush, kind of dab some of the paint on here first.
The reason for this is so I don't get a big glob of paint to start out with.
Okay.
Sort of act as a test panel to show us if the color's right, too, won't it?
Yeah, and it looks like we've got a real good color match here.
Just dab a little on there.
This is also one good way to protect the chip from rusting in the future.
Okay, which could possibly end up with a major rust out.
That's correct.
Great.
Looks good, Randy. Thanks for the nice tip.
Well, thank you.
In chapter three, we'll show you how to repair an area of peeling paint.
Hi, Randy.
Hi, Scott.
What are you going to show us here today?
Well, today we're going to do some refinishing.
We've got an air deflector here on this station wagon that the paint has kind of flaked off.
Okay, I can see it's up here on the top and the bottom side also.
Mm-hmm.
All right, where do we get started?
Well, the first thing that we want to do is wash the car thoroughly with hot water and salt.
And then we're going to go back over it with some wax and grease remover.
Okay, so that's not actually just water in that bottle you're using.
No, this is an automotive body shop wax and grease remover,
and this is taking off any of the residual wax or tar or grease that might be on this that the water won't take off.
Is that special tar you're using to do that with?
These are just paper towels, and you can use just a regular shop rag as long as it isn't abrasive.
Okay, and most importantly probably that it's also clean.
It has to be clean, absolutely.
All right, then what?
Our next step now is to sand the panel.
But before we sand it, would you hand over some three-quarter inch tape?
Sure.
What I want to do is take a little bit of masking tape here
and just go around the areas that we're not going to sand to protect them
so that sandpaper doesn't overlap these areas and we end up having to paint any more.
Okay, so that's not actually our final taping.
This is just to protect it from sand.
This is something that we're going to use just to protect,
and we'll be doing this throughout our auto body repairs.
Okay.
Now I want to take some sandpaper, and we've got some 320 grit sandpaper and sheets,
and I want to take this paper and I'm going to fold it in half and tear it into half sheets.
I prefer to use half sheets.
I'm going to take a sponge pad, insert it inside of the sandpaper.
Okay, what's the reason for the sponge pad then?
Well, I don't want to leave sanding marks from my fingers in the panel.
The pad will give us a padding so that we won't do that.
Okay, what's special about that paper you're using?
Well, this is a 320 grit open sandpaper recommended to be used while it's dry,
but we can also use a 320 grit wet or dry sandpaper if you prefer,
and we can use this either wet or dry, doesn't make any difference.
Okay.
So now we're going to go into sanding this, trying to feather this paint out.
I'm going to start sanding right here.
Okay.
Is there any special notes we want to remember when we're sanding?
Well, you want to sand back and forth in a straight line.
You don't want to go in circles,
and what we want to try to do is feather this paint out here where it's broken.
Okay, what do you mean by feather out?
Well, we want to try to get rid of the rough edge
and make it a gradual transition into the paint.
Okay, so our primer and stuff like that will probably take up a little bit of that too.
Yes, absolutely.
And what we're going to do is sand for a little bit here,
work our way down to the end of the air deflector,
and I'm going to flip the sandpaper over, use the other side of it.
And you can see now that we're starting to get this broken paint feathered out,
feathered out to a point where I can run my hand over it and not feel an edge anymore.
Well, this should pretty well do it for sanding.
Okay.
Scott, feel this edge here.
Oh, yeah, I can see where the paint was originally there,
originally chipping off, and it's nice and smooth now.
It feels pretty smooth.
It should be pretty close to ready for primer now.
Okay.
I want you to step back just a minute.
We're going to blow some of this dust off of here.
All right.
Now, you can do this at home with a vacuum cleaner or just wipe it off with a towel.
Okay.
And now what we'd like to do is wax and grease remove it again.
Okay, with the same stuff that we used earlier.
Same exact stuff that we used earlier.
All right.
Well, let's go ahead and do that.
And what this is doing is just removing the residue from the sanding dust.
And now we're ready to mask and prime.
Now, we're just finishing up removing the masking tape that we had on here from sanding.
One thing you want to make sure you do when you're removing it
is take your time, be nice and slow and gentle with it
so you don't pull any extra paint off and have to paint that surface.
Get the last one off there.
Okay, I'll hand you the tape.
Thank you, Scott.
And you can go ahead and start masking off for priming now.
Okay, you're getting it all taped off here with paper and everything like that.
The tape that you're using, is there anything special about the tape?
Well, this is a special auto body type tape that we use.
And so is the paper.
This paper is specifically designed for the auto body shop.
But you can use any type of paper that you would like to use.
Newspaper works fine, maybe double it up.
You just want to use a paper that the solvents from the paint won't penetrate through.
Okay, you're going to get another piece here of this other special paper.
How far should we probably go out and cover an area
to keep it from getting overspray on it?
We want to go about 18 inches out
so that the overspray doesn't stick to the rest of the car.
Of course, our machine here applies the tape to the paper automatically.
Okay, now if we were outside,
we would most likely want to probably tape off even a larger area, wouldn't we?
Definitely, if you've got any kind of wind blowing around.
Probably wouldn't recommend even doing it if you have too much wind.
Try to do it in as much of a calm area as you possibly can.
Now that we're all done taping, I'm going to tack this off.
Okay, what do you mean by tack it off?
Well, what I've got here is what they call a tack cloth,
and it's a cloth with a sticky substance on it used to take off any dust that's left over.
Okay, another measure to ensure we've got a clean surface for priming and painting.
Yes.
Okay.
And now we're going to prime.
All right.
Shake the can.
How long are you supposed to shake a can like that?
Well, the directions say that you should shake it a minute after the steel ball starts to rattle.
Because primer surfacers, heavy product,
it wouldn't hurt to shake it for a couple minutes or maybe even three minutes.
Okay, is there anything special about the primer that we're going to use here?
This is a primer surfacer, a sandable primer.
Okay, which is important for in between coats so we can sand it and make the surface good and smooth.
And we're using it as a filler.
Okay.
All right.
Now, you told me also about a test panel.
I've got one here to show us how we're supposed to use this and why it's used.
We want to shoot out a test panel so that we can assure ourselves that the nozzle is working properly.
Okay.
And now we have the right product.
All right.
And it looks good.
Looks like it's working well.
All right.
Next thing that I want to make sure that everybody knows is when priming or painting any surfaces,
you want to make sure you use one of these.
It's a dust respirator.
It keeps the fumes and dust and stuff from painting out of your lungs and out of your nose.
What Randy will be using is actually a professional one that they use in the body shop.
Okay. Let's go ahead and start priming.
Now, whenever using spray primer, make sure you're holding the can about 12 to 16 inches away from the surface being primed.
And don't cover with a continuous spray or release the button every once in a while and overlap your strokes.
Remember, light coats are better than heavy coats.
Once your first coat of primer has set up tacky but appears dry, apply the second coat.
Several thin coats are best to help fill any small sanding scratches or imperfections and to build up the thickness of the primer for final sanding.
Again, when the second coat is tacky but appears dry, apply the third and final coat of primer.
Additional coats may be needed, but most often three coats will be sufficient.
Okay.
We've got the surface all primed now.
Randy's beginning to sand the surface.
Is there anything special that we should remember about sanding at this point in time?
Well, we're using the same procedure as we did before when we were prepping the panel.
Basically, sand back and forth in a straight, even pattern.
All right. I noticed you're using the sponge method as earlier.
Yeah, we're using that again so that, again, we don't leave any finger marks or we're digging grooves into the primer with our fingers.
So we're using the pad in between to help absorb that.
Okay. How about the grit of our sandpaper? What grit are we using now?
320 grit again. Same thing as we started out with.
Works very well for painting over.
Okay. Now, I could do this wet or dry?
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Of course, wet, you want to use the wet or dry paper.
Right.
And dry seems to work a little bit better with the open coat paper, but you can also do that with the wet or dry paper also using a dry.
Okay.
Okay, it looks like we're getting there.
Yeah, we're just about done here. This looks pretty good.
Okay.
Feels pretty good to me. How about you, Scott?
Yeah, it's nice and smooth.
Now, how come it is that we're always feeling the paint instead of just looking at our surface and saying, yeah, it looks good?
Well, we want to, in body work, feel everything that you do because if you can feel an imperfection, you'll probably be able to see it through the paint.
Okay, so you're sometimes basically saying an imperfection I can feel I might not be able to see.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Why don't you step back just a minute and I'll blow this off.
All right.
Okay, now I want to tack it again.
Okay.
And then we're ready for paint.
Here's the tack cloth.
And again, we're just taking off the residual sand, primer sand.
Dust.
Okay.
And we're ready for paint.
Okay, we've got our surface all prepared and it's ready to paint.
But before we start painting, make sure you spray a test panel like we did here.
There's a couple of reasons for that.
For one, you can check to make sure that your paint is mixed up well and that it comes out of the nozzle all right.
And secondly, you can actually match it up to the side of your vehicle to make sure you've got the right paint to match the vehicle.
Okay, I think we're about ready to go, right?
Yep.
All right.
We're going to start painting.
Now while you're painting, make sure you hold the can about 6 to 10 inches from the surface.
Press the spray button all the way down and paint in several steady even strokes.
To avoid runs and sags, don't apply heavy coats. Spray light but wet coats and allow the paint to become tacky in between coats.
Just as we demonstrated during priming, you'll get the best results by applying several thin coats of paint.
Here, we're applying the second coat.
After the second coat is tacky yet not totally dry, we'll apply the third coat.
Remember to use smooth even strokes when painting.
In our case, we chose to apply a fourth coat of paint as our final coat.
Again, the number of coats of paint will vary with your specific repair.
Once the area is painted, it's been allowed to dry for a couple of hours, you can remove the masking tape and papers we've done here already.
But make sure to be careful when you're removing it just in case the paint is still a little tacky.
Then, once a paint has been allowed to dry for about one day, you can wash it with a mild soap such as a car wash soap.
Once a paint is set up for at least a couple of days, you can use a rubbing compound on the painted surface and the surrounding surfaces to smooth out any texture in the paint and to help blend the new paint into the old.
Then follow the rubbing compound with a glazing or polishing compound to remove the swirl marks.
Lastly, you'll want to seal a paint with a good coat of wax, and most waxes do a pretty good job.
It's usually up to your personal preference when deciding which wax to use.
But make sure to wait at least 30 days from the original day you painted the surface before waxing it.
In Chapter 4, we'll show you how to repair a minor rust-out area.
Today we're here at the ColorWorks Auto Body Shop, where Randy's going to show us again how to fix up the body of our car.
But the first message I want to point out is whenever doing power grinding or power sanding, make sure you wear to pay your safety goggles like this and a protective dust respirator like this one here.
Randy, what are you going to show us here first?
Well today, Scott, we want to repair this little bit of rust that's at the bottom of this door.
Then I suspect that after we grind this, we're going to have a small hole here.
Okay, so we're going to have to fill the hole up. Where do we get started?
Well, the first thing I want to do is tape off the outlining area with some masking tape to protect it from the grinder.
Okay. What did you do to the surface here to repair it before we started our repair?
Well, first we washed it thoroughly with hot water and salt, and then I went back over it with some wax and grease remover to get rid of the excess tar and wax.
Okay.
I'm going to use an air grinder to grind this away, but at home you could use an electric drill with a grinding disc attached to it.
Okay. Well, how coarse is the grinding disc that you have on your sander there?
Well, Scott, this is a 24-grit disc.
Okay. Why don't we put our masks on and get started?
Okay.
It looks like you got it all ground out there.
Yeah, that looks pretty good.
Okay. I noticed little black spots here in the middle. What are those black spots here?
Those little spots are actually where it's rusted through, and what I want to do now is take a pick hammer and pick those down, kind of sink them a little bit.
Okay. What's the purpose of the pick hammer?
Well, the pick hammer is going to sink it a little bit so that when we put the filler on, the filler has something to grab onto.
Okay.
You can see as I'm picking, I'm actually going right through the metal in some areas.
Now you can see, Scott, that we've got some pretty good holes here that we're going to have to fill up with our filler.
I'm feeling this again now to feel that I've got this sunken in a little bit.
Okay, I think I have this picked out pretty good.
Now I'm going to run my hand over this just very slowly because we have some sharp edges here and I don't want to cut myself on it,
but we've got it indented enough that the filler should take hold pretty good, and the rest of it feels pretty even now.
Okay. Why don't you open up the door there and we'll take a look at how severe the rust damage is.
Put my hand behind there.
Look, you can see your finger through there.
Sure can, sure can.
It's hard to believe that such a small rust hole or small rust spot ends up being such a large hole.
Yeah, it doesn't take very much to expand it out, and we want to make sure that we get it all so that we can get it all covered and won't come back.
Okay. What do we do next here?
Now we're ready for filler.
Okay.
The first step is to mix up the body filler.
We chose to use a lightweight body filler like the one I'm holding.
I've already mixed this stuff up in the can, like so, and we put a small amount of it on Randy's mixing board.
Randy, why don't you tell us a little bit about mixing it?
Well, Scott, what I want to do now is supply about a one-inch ribbon of cream hardener to approximately a golf ball-sized portion of body filler.
Okay. Then you're going to go into mixing her up here.
I want to take and knead this together with my spreader.
I don't want to stir it because I don't want to create any air bubbles in it.
Knead it together until I get a uniform color.
Okay.
We're starting to get a pretty uniform color now.
Now we're ready to apply, and we have about five minutes maybe before this sets up.
Now we're ready to apply the filler.
Okay.
I'm going to use this little spreader that came with the filler kit, and I'm going to apply it like so, even strokes.
I notice that you're building a little bit extra up on there, it looks like.
Yeah, it will shrink back a little bit, so you want to put a little bit more on.
We may even have to come back with a second coat.
Of course, the smoother that you apply it, the easier it's going to be to sand.
Now if we were doing a larger rust out repair, we might choose a rust repair body filler like this one here, which is fiberglass reinforced.
At the same time, we'd most likely use a piece of backup screen like I'm holding here to hold the filler in place while it's drying.
The other thing I want to mention is this type of repair is most likely only a temporary patch.
The only way to make it a permanent repair would be to cut out the rust spot, weld in new metal, or to replace the panel itself.
Okay, now we've let our body filler set up for about 10 minutes here.
Randy, how do we actually tell when the body filler is ready to sand?
What we want to do is scratch it, and if you can see the white underneath there when you scratch it, it's ready to sand.
Okay.
What grade of sandpaper are you using here right now?
This is 40 grit.
That's basically to take off the large imperfections on the surface.
Now what we're trying to do is level it off now.
I'm going to stop for a minute here and just feel this.
It's starting to level off pretty good, but we're not quite there yet.
Now what I want to do, Scott, is I want to feather this edge out here a little bit.
You can feel that there's kind of a ridge there.
Yeah, okay.
You're going to smooth that out so it blends in a little bit easier on our next steps.
I'm going to do this with a DA sander or dual orbital sander just to speed things up a little bit,
but at home you can do this with your 40 grit sanding block.
Okay, let's put our masks on and get started.
Okay, what we've done here is we've finished feather edging the area out,
and then we blew the dust off from putting the body filler on from sanding,
and then we taped off the area like so to protect the other surfaces,
and then we wiped the area that we're going to prime and paint with a wax and grease remover.
Where do we go from here, Randy?
Well, now, Scott, we're ready for priming.
The first thing we want to do is spray out a little test panel.
Okay.
We want to make sure that our can is working properly and our nozzle isn't plugged.
It looks pretty good to me.
We're going to give this two coats.
We're going to put one coat on and we want it to flash off.
And now you're mostly just priming the area that we fixed.
Yes.
Now, we'll let that flash off a little bit.
What I mean by flashing off, we'll let some of the solvents come out of it
until it gets to a dull look again, and then we'll give it another coat.
So basically, when it dries, then we'll give her another coat almost.
Right.
Well, Scott, now you can see that the primer has started to dull out a little bit.
Now we're ready for our second coat.
We'll let that dry again now until it becomes dull.
Now we're ready to apply some glazing putty.
But first, let's explain a little bit about what glazing putty really is.
All it's for is to go over these fine scratches that we've left with the 40 grit sandpaper
in the body filler and fill those scratches in.
We don't want to apply our glazing putty any more than about an eighth of an inch thick,
just to fill in the minor scratches.
All right, let's go ahead.
Now there's no mixing required or anything like that with the glazing putty.
No, this just comes right out of the tube like this.
Okay.
We're using a rubber squeegee to apply this with.
Again, you want to try to get it on as smooth as possible.
The smoother you put it on, the less sanding you'll have to do later.
We're probably only like maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick here.
The first thing to remember whenever doing your own body repairs
is to take your time and don't rush it.
You want to make sure that all your materials have dried before you go on to the next step.
In our case, we decided to leave our glazing putty dry overnight
to make sure it was ready to sand.
Why don't we go ahead and start, Randy?
What grit sandpaper are you using there?
Well, Scott, we're going to use a 120 grit sandpaper with a hard rubber block.
First, I'm going to put my mask on.
Okay.
Is there anything special we should remember when block sanding?
Well, you want to go in a straight line fashion
and continue to feel your body work like we talked about before
to make sure that everything is leveled out.
Okay.
Okay, I think we're doing pretty good now.
I'm going to feel it just to make sure that we're level, and it feels pretty good.
How about you, Scott?
Yeah, so really all the glazing putty is used for now is to fill in the sanding scratches.
Just the sanding scratches. You don't want to use it as a filler.
Okay.
And I think I'm going to blow this off now, and then we'll run over it with a tack rig.
All right.
Again, that could be done at home with like a vacuum cleaner or something like that, too,
if they didn't have air pressure.
Yeah, okay.
And now we're ready for primer.
One thing you want to make sure you do whenever you're using paint or primer
is to shake your up good for a couple minutes before you start.
Generally, once the ball rattles, about a minute or so will be fine.
I think I got this one good enough, Randy.
Okay, Scott, let's spray a little test panel first just to make sure that everything's working properly.
Okay.
That looks pretty good to me.
Okay.
Let's spray a coat on, and then we'll let it flash off, and we'll do another coat.
All right.
Whenever priming, make sure to use smooth, even strokes, periodically depressing the spray nozzle.
Apply only thin coats each time.
Once each coat of primer has set up tacky but appears dry, apply additional coats.
Several thin coats are best to help fill any small sanding scratches or imperfections.
Well, Scott, our primer looks pretty good.
It looks like it's set up pretty good.
Now, we're going to sand it with some 320-grit paper.
Okay.
What do you have inside the paper, then?
Well, I'm using a sponge inside of here.
I'm using this as a pad so that we don't get any finger marks as we're sanding.
We want to have some kind of a pad in between our work and our hand as we're sanding.
Okay. Let's get started.
Now, we're done sanding now.
It feels pretty good.
We got a nice edge feathered out here.
I'm going to just finish tacking it off, and we're ready for paint.
Sounds good.
Okay.
Do you have any extra tips that we can remember to use before painting?
Well, make sure, Scott, that you shake the can vigorously,
and when the ball breaks loose, that you shake for at least two or three minutes after that.
And always shoot a test panel out before to make sure that the can's working properly.
Okay. Let's go ahead.
Lastly, make sure you're wearing your dust mask whenever it comes around to painting.
It looks like our can's working pretty good.
Just as we demonstrated during priming,
you'll obtain the best results by applying several thin coats of paint.
Here, we're applying the second coat.
Make sure when you're painting, spray several light coats.
Hold the can about 68 inches from the area that you're painting.
Once each coat has dried, lightly wipe off the area with a tack cloth.
This will remove any dust or dirt particles between coats.
In our case, we chose to apply a fourth coat of paint as our final coat.
Again, the number of coats of paint will vary with your specific repair,
but most commonly, four coats will cover the area that you are repairing.
Once the area painted has been allowed to dry for a couple of hours,
you can remove the masking tape and paper as we've already done here.
But be careful when you're removing it because the paint might still be tacky.
Then, once the paint has been allowed to dry for about one day,
you can wash it with a mild soap such as a car wash soap.
Once the paint is set up for at least a couple of days,
you can use a rubbing compound on the painted surface and the surrounding surfaces
to smooth out any texture in the paint and to help blend the new paint into the old.
Then, follow the rubbing compound with a glazing or polishing compound
to remove the swirl marks.
Lastly, you'll want to seal the paint with a good coat of wax,
and most waxes do a pretty good job.
It's usually up to your personal preference when deciding which wax to use,
but make sure to wait at least 30 days from the original day you painted the surface before waxing it.
In Chapter 5, we'll demonstrate how to repair a door dent.
Randy, what do you have to show us here today?
Well, Scott, looks like we got a pretty good dent in this panel here,
probably caused from a parking lot, somebody opening their door.
And then you end up with a dent like that.
I notice the crease of the dent goes across this body line.
How's that going to affect our repair?
Well, this is going to make it a little more difficult,
but we'll have to restore this body line through here.
Okay. Now, we've already washed off the vehicle.
You've got another additional step you'd like to perform.
I'd like to go back and put some wax and grease remover on here
to remove any excess wax, grease, or tar.
Okay. If you're doing your repair at home,
just make sure you wash it off real good with hot, soapy water
if you don't have a wax and grease remover like we're using here.
All right. Where do we go next?
I would like to tape off this molding to protect it from the grinder.
Okay. If there's any molding or any pinstriping as such up here
that is near the area that you're going to be grinding or sanding off,
make sure you put a couple of layers of masking tape over it to protect it.
And we're basically ready to start grinding.
Now, if you've got a power air grinder there that you're going to use,
how coarse is the disc you're using on that grinder?
I think we'll start out with a 24-grit disc.
Okay. That's basically to remove our layers of paint
and get it right down to the bare metal, actually, correct?
Correct. And we want to follow this with going around the area
a little bit further than just what the damaged area is.
Okay. If you don't have a power grinder at home,
you can do the same area by hand.
We're going to obviously use the grinder to speed up our repair a little bit.
The other thing I want to mention is if you're using any power tool
or grinding or sanding,
make sure you wear a protective dust respirator like this here.
And also, whenever using power tools, make sure you wear safety glasses.
Why don't we get started here, Randy?
One thing I want to add is that with the grinder,
we're going to produce a lot of heat, and the heat will distort the metal.
So we want to stop and make sure that we aren't getting the panel too hot.
Well, it looks like we've got it now.
And you can see that I've gone a little bit past the damaged area here.
Okay. Why is that, Randy?
I want to remove all the paint so that the primers and the fillers that we use
are not going to be over the top of the paint.
They don't adhere very well to the old paint.
Okay. Why don't we clean this up a little bit?
I'm going to take an air blower here and blow some of the dust away.
Now, if you're at home and you don't have an air compressor
and an air blower like what we used here,
you can use an old vacuum cleaner or a shop vac to kind of clean your area off.
Well, now we're ready to rough this down to out.
And there's a couple ways that we could do this, okay?
One way is to spend some time to remove this inner door panel
and see if we can have access to it from the back side,
taking a hammer and actually working this metal flap from the back side.
Now, you mentioned that there's a safety brace or something built in this door,
so you already know that we can't get at this dent from the back side.
How are we going to approach it then?
Well, we're going to use a different method here because of its nature as a blind dent,
and we're going to use a dent puller on this.
Okay. I happen to have one down here.
It's a consumer model that you can buy in the stores to use.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about how this works?
Well, this dent puller utilizes a sheet metal screw
which has to have a hole drilled into the panel
and insert the sheet metal screw into the hole
and then using the hammer part of the dent puller to work the dent out.
Okay. So I turn it into the hole and then slide the hammer like this
to start pulling the metal back out.
Correct. And as you're doing that, you would like to use
what I would call body hammer here to hammer on that metal around to work it flat.
Okay. Now, drilling a hole in the metal, does that affect our repair?
I personally don't like to drill holes in the metal if I don't have to.
If you have to drill a hole, I recommend that you weld it shut again.
Okay. Or use maybe a fiberglass filler?
Correct. Because the reason is when you put your primer fillers over an open hole like that,
it has an opportunity for moisture to come in through the inside of that hole
and possibly leave an impression in your final paint later on.
Okay. Now, you've got a method that's normally used by professionals.
Why don't you tell us about that?
What we're going to use today is what I call a stud gun.
And we're actually going to weld a small stud to this panel
and then utilize a dent puller very similar to the one that you just had here
and pull on that stud, consequently not having to drill a hole into the panel.
Okay. Why don't we put them in here?
And I'm going to add a stud right down here in this body line,
right at the crease in the body line to see if we can't restore that body line.
Okay. So you've got the studs welded on here, Randy.
Now what do we do?
Now we're ready to take our dent puller and grab onto those studs and pull them out.
Okay. See, that one looks pretty much similar to the one that I have right here.
Very much so. The only difference is just the end is adapted to pull on the studs
rather than have the sheet metal screw for the holes.
As I'm pulling this out, I'm going to take the body hammer
and kind of work this metal around the outside.
You can definitely see where you're pulling that dent out already.
Now it looks like this is coming out pretty good. It's pretty flat now.
Yeah. There's barely any dent left up here at all.
Let's move down to this one right in the body line here, see if we can't work that out a little bit.
I notice you don't even have to slam it very hard, really.
No, it doesn't take very much at all, and you want to be careful so you don't go too far.
You're just hammering some of the excess back in a little bit then?
Correct. You remember when we started, we were out actually a little bit down in the bottom here,
and now that we're pulling this body line back into place, we can hammer this excess metal back down again.
Actually, right now, it feels pretty good. I think we're ready for some filler.
How do we remove these here?
I'm just going to take a side cutters and cut these studs off.
Then I'm going to take our grinder again with our 24-grit desk and just grind the end of the stud off.
Again, I want to be careful so I don't get the panel too hot to distort it.
Okay, Randy, I've got the body filler here and I've mixed it up pretty good.
In the body shop, I have a plastic piece here that we use for mixing our plastic filler on.
Okay. If I didn't have a piece of plastic like you got there for mixing it,
I could just use a piece of cardboard or something like that, couldn't I?
Correct.
Okay. I've got the hardener here and I'm going to knead this tube a little bit to mix it up.
I want to spread out about a one-inch ribbon, about a golf ball size of filler.
I'm going to take my spreader and knead this together until I get a uniform color.
Now we're ready to apply this to the panel.
I notice you're spreading that on fairly thin too.
Is there any specific thickness that we're not supposed to exceed?
Well, you should try to rough your metal out so that you don't have to apply more than about a sixteenth of an inch of filler.
Okay.
I'm going to use a couple of different strokes here to work this body line back in so that we can get a nice sharp edge here.
Of course, notice Randy's using some wide strokes here because the smoother that you put the filler on,
the less work that you're going to have to do with the sandpaper to get it to your final finish.
In about 10 minutes, we should be able to come back and sand this stone.
Okay.
Well, I think we're about ready to sand now, but just to make sure that we are, I'm going to take and scratch this a little bit with the sandpaper.
If we can see white underneath there, then our plastic filler is cured enough to start.
Okay.
Remember, whenever sanding, make sure you wear your protective dust mask.
Is there any particular direction that we want to sand, Randy?
Yes, we want to be in a back and forth straight line motion.
Well, it's starting to look pretty good now.
Okay, what grit of sandpaper did you use for that first sanding bit?
Right now we're using 40 grit sandpaper.
Okay.
Now we have this sanded out. I'm just going to clean it off with the blower a little bit here.
Okay.
If you're doing that at home, again, you can use a vacuum cleaner to clean off the excess dust.
Okay.
What do you have there, Randy?
This is a spot putty, just like we applied it the last time we did this.
Okay.
Only this is a catalyzed spot putty, and we catalyzed it this time so that we could speed the process up a little bit.
Now, if they're doing that at home, they can buy the spot putty already mixed and catalyzed right in the tube, right?
Correct.
It's starting to look pretty good now.
Okay, what grit of sandpaper were you using on the spot putty then?
80 grit sandpaper here.
And now I'd like to follow this up with some 80 grit sandpaper around this outside area here and feather this in for our primer surfacer.
But I'm going to use the dual orbital sander for this to speed the process up a little bit.
Okay.
But if you were at home, you could do this feathering around this outside edges like he's going to do just with a block and 80 grit sandpaper of your own.
But now I'll blow some of the dust off of here.
Okay.
We removed our temporary masking tape down here, then we dusted the entire area off.
Now we're ready for masking to get it ready for primer.
And Randy's simply masking it off with masking tape going along this molding here.
One thing about masking, you want to take your time because your final results is only going to be as good as the job that you do masking it off.
Okay, we'll just finish off here with our masking.
Okay, now he's using a special paper that has masking tape already attached to it from a dispenser.
But if you're doing this at home, you can certainly use masking tape and old newspapers works just fine.
Okay, what's our next step, Randy?
Well, Scott, now we're ready to prime.
But first I'm going to take the tack rag and just wipe off a little bit of the dust here that's settled.
Okay.
And we've already shook up our can of primer, but I'd like to do a little bit of a test panel first.
Okay.
Why would you do a test panel?
Just to make sure that our spray pattern is correct and our nozzle is unplugged.
Okay, now before we begin priming, again, we're going to make sure we have our respirator masks on and safety glasses.
Okay, now we're going to let this flash off and we'll put a second coat on.
Okay, what do you mean by flash off, Randy?
Well, we want to wait until the solvents come out.
You can actually see it as it's drying.
It's becoming dull.
When it becomes all dull, then we can apply another coat.
All right.
Now that our primer is dry, we're ready for our final sanding.
What I've got here is a piece of 320 grit wet or dry sandpaper.
I've torn it in half, taken this half here and rolled it into three positions.
I'm going to insert my hard sponge in between this.
Okay.
What's the reason for putting a hard sponge in when you're going to sand this?
Well, believe it or not, you can leave fingerprints or finger marks by not having something between your fingers
and the sandpaper as you're sanding on the primer surface.
So we want to put something in between.
This is kind of a hard composition sponge.
Oh, okay.
Now what I'm doing here is just finishing this up with a little bit of 400 grit paper.
Okay, that'll give us our super fine finish for our paint then, won't it?
Yeah, feels pretty good.
So I think we'll blow this off and we'll go into a paint.
Okay.
Okay, Randy, what are you doing here now?
Well, I'm doing another wax and grease removing step.
Get all the talc from the primer surface off and clean up any other debris that might be left in the job here.
Okay.
I've got the can of paint all shaken up here.
What I've got on the can here is a spray paint can gun handle.
It makes painting a little bit easier.
You can direct the spray.
At the same time, it's a little bit easier on your finger.
Okay, we all set?
Yeah.
Here's the paint.
We'll shoot out a little bit of a test panel here again.
Okay, we're ready.
Let's put our mask on and begin painting.
It's looking pretty good, Randy.
We're just finishing our final coats now and just blending it a little bit into the edges to kind of match with the other paint.
Now, due to the transparency of the color that we painted here, we had several additional coats.
In Chapter 6, we'll demonstrate final paint finishing procedures.
Okay, we finished our final coats of paint and we've allowed the paint to dry for a couple days before final finishing.
Randy, what's our first step here now?
Well, Scott, what we'd like to do is take and color sand and rub out this area that we've blended into to make the texture smooth as the original finish.
Okay, I noticed a little bit of roughness in our new paints.
We're going to match that to the old stuff now.
Correct, and I've taken some masking tape again to mask off the moldings and the stripe up here to protect them so that we don't either sand on them or buff on them.
Okay, you've got a little sanding block there again, a sponge.
Tell us again why you're using that.
Well, I'm using a sponge again so that we don't get finger marks as we're sanding.
All right, and what grit of sandpaper will you be using?
And we're using a 2000 grit sandpaper.
Okay, very, very fine sandpaper, so very minimal scratches as you're sanding.
Correct.
I noticed you're also wet sanding then.
We want to use a lot of water here as we're wet sanding.
And what does the water do then?
It cleans out the grit of the paper, and it also gives us a nice smooth sanding surface.
Okay.
That's starting to look pretty good.
I'm going to take a towel now and wipe this off a little bit.
Now, what would we do if, say, we sanded just a little bit too much and kind of went through the paint that we already have there?
Well, if that happens, you can just go back and refinish again.
I'm going to take and sand out a little bit of dirt and lint that we've got in a couple other spots here too.
Hmm.
So if we did get a piece of dust in while we were painting, you can get that back out.
Sure. Just sand it smooth again.
You can see where, as the water dries on here, where you're at.
That looks pretty good. It looks like we're ready to use some compound on here now.
Well, Scott, now I'm ready to use this compound on here, and I'm going to use a relatively coarse compound to begin with.
Okay.
I'm going to apply it to the panel, but you can also apply it to your buffing pad if you like. It's kind of a personal preference.
Right. Again, I want to remind you whenever you're using power tools, make sure you're wearing safety glasses.
Okay, Randy, why don't you give us a couple tips to remember when using a buffer maybe here?
Well, you can see that I didn't apply a lot of pressure to the buffer that because we used 2000 grit sandpaper, it'll polish out relatively fast.
Mm-hmm.
Also, you've heard some terms about burn through and rub through.
You can actually burn the paint if you don't use enough compound on the surface and the pad becomes too hot, and you actually can scar the paint.
Rub through is also like in an area on this body line, or if you apply too much pressure, you can actually rub the paint right off of there.
Okay, so like on a line like this or up on a fin, you've got to be real careful in those areas when buffing.
And again, probably you can't use too much polish than I would assume.
Well, I guess there is a point to using too much, but you're better off to use too much than not enough.
Okay.
And again, if you do go through the paint or you scar the paint, you still have to start back over at your refinishing steps.
Okay, let's go on to the next step then.
Okay, what I'd like to do now is follow up with a finer compound because you notice that because of this coarse compound, we have some what I call swirl marks from the buffer pad.
Okay, while Randy's changing the buffer pad, I'm going to wipe the door off with a damp towel to get this coarse compound cleaned off from the door here.
And then quickly, I'll go over it with a dry towel.
We want to make sure we clean it off real good because we don't want the coarse compound mixed in with the fine compound.
You set, Randy?
Yeah, I'm going to start out with our fine compound again, just applying it right to the door panel, pretty much the same way as we did the others.
Really, it is looking nice.
I'm going to wipe it off again here.
That pretty much did take all the scratches out there, didn't it?
It looks pretty good.
Okay, it's sure shiny, but we don't have any protection on it yet, do we?
Yes, we'd like to probably put some protection on here, but because of the manufacturer's recommendations, I'm talking about the paint manufacturers and the people that make waxes, it might be safe to wait possibly 30 days before you apply any wax.
Okay, sounds good, Randy. Thanks for the great information.
Well, thank you.
I hope our tape has helped clear up many of the questions that you might have had about doing your own auto body repairs.
Before you attempt the next repair on your vehicle, make sure you check to see if there's a Car Care Seminar tape available to help you along.
I'm Scott Cusey for Car Care Seminar.
Right now, I'd like to thank our sponsors, our auto body expert, Randy Bailey, and also thank you for choosing our tape.
I hope I can help you with your next repair.
See you then.
Thank you.