right now im taking my time and detailing the truck and procrastinating to this section. i know its an eye sore and has been driving me crazy since i bought it. the previous owner put a ding in the paint pulling out the pump filler and did a quick "cover" up and this is what happened.




please tell me i can get this out without having to respray the bed panel. it has been sanded (cant tell what grit but looks kind of aggressive) primed and painted horribly.
what are your opinions?

 

remove the filler door, sand the whole area back down smooth to remove the tape lines from the "paint" job, mask a larger area off.

get some good quality touch up paint and have at it. do not spray all the way to your masking. you want to feather it out and pull away. this is called blending.

when you are done and it is dry gently wet sand the area smooth to remove any overspray you will get from the blending and polish it up. this will be your best "basic" method without having a bodyshop redo the whole panel.

 

sounds good. assuming a good buffing should blend it in nicely? i just dont want it to look cheap anymore. not trying to contradict myself but right now i cant afford the paint job so im looking for something to hold me off for a while. if it will turn out good then thats great. i just need to do something with this.

 

i did something similiar in the past. as the above said, you have to blend it in or it could look pretty obvious. i got my paint from http://www.touchuppaintonline.com for around $20 shipped and it was a good match even on an old car. patience is the key when it comes to this stuff, so take your time when doing it. good luck

 

I hate to pour water on your parade here, but I think you're going to be very disappointed with the results of any "rattle can" touch up effort. In the good old days with single stage paint, you had half a shot of a decent result - if you were really good. Today, with base coat / clear coat paint, your chances are virtually nill of making that look good.

So my reply would be that yes, you do need to repaint. Unfortunately, if you want it to look good, you'll have to go to a professional.

 

i would have to say that judging by the look of the pics he showed us my 9 year old can do a better job with her crayons than the scratched up mess with little coverage he has there.

 

i know right! if the price of the truck wasnt so cheap i would have told him to pound salt...
i may see if i can do something with it until next summer. i cant leave it like this any longer but the funds wont allow a real fix yet.

 

I suppose for now you could try wetsanding it followed by compounding it. You sure can't make it look worse unless you sand all the way through what color coat you have left.

 

The first post is your best bet. I had a large corner of a front bumper lose all its paint, and using some paint from the touchup paint online place, i was able to blend in the corner of the bumper w/ rattle can paint to where you could not even tell it was rattle paint. The trick, is to put the rattle cans in hot water to warm the inside and use very light coats on the paint (And a REALLY good prep job). Then do the same with the clear-coat. Then buff and polish. If you take your time, you can do a really good job with rattle cans

 

if i was to try and get this as decent as i can, how should i go about this? what steps should i take? what grit to use in what order and such?

 

I first learned this trick in the '60s when building model cars and painting with Testor's Spray. Not boiling water, but "HOT" tap water. Then just set the paint can in there for a short while.

Warms the paint, builds pressure, and seems like the paint flows better. Works as well today with rattle cans.

I agree, "papajohn" has the answer to what you want to do on youir budget.

Wonder if this is same "papajohn" as has that black T-bird?

 

no suggestions on how to start (see my previous post)?
im going to pick up the supplies for next weekend.

 

Didn't read my post? Try that first.

 

sand that tape line away first. then build up with wet sanding 200 400 and 600 grit to finish. always flush with water as you sand away. dry up tape off area and gently spray away. dont go heavy with your coats. light and multiple to build it up.

 

The second you start wet sanding that you are gonna have a primer line all the way around the "repair". I would bet that they ran the primer all the way to where the paint stops. Also you can't wet sand with anything less than 1000 and buff it out. And rattle can doesn't buff. The heat will just take it off. That's a repaint. I don't know where ludlow is, but i'm 45 minutes north of pittsburgh and would be willing to help out a fellow enthusiast.I paint for a living.