Touch up for Metallic paints - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

ultimate1 · 08-07-2008, 04:53 AM

I have a Zenith Blue Mettallic paint on my 2000 Box and I need to do some touching up. I tried the Porsche touch up kit on a few inconspicuous areas but the touch up paint from Porsche seems a little darker and it does not seem to have any metallic in the paint. I have browsed for past posts about touching up chips and scratches but could not come across any suggestions for metallic finishes. Has anyone had any luck with touching up metallic finishes? If so, what products and or techniques do you recommend?

Frodo · 08-07-2008, 05:33 AM

Mine's Seal Grey, and I did some touching up recently as well. I had some of the factory touch up paint but was also interested in the Dr. Colorchip, so I ordered some. Tried both products on different chips.

The factory stuff was okay, but I had the same problem as far as it seeming a touch darker than the surrounding good paint. The Dr. CC, while not perfect (I don't think anything applied with a brush is), was surprisingly good. And it's r e a l easy. It's also pretty good as far as the metallic additive: you could see the micro-flakes floating about on the top of the paint (even post-shaking).

I've got to get to work, but if I think about it later I may post a few other thoughts on the matter. Bottom line: if you're reasonably careful in your technique, it comes out like most paint repairs: In the right light at the right angle, you will be able to see them but almost nobody else will.

Mike_Yi · 08-07-2008, 09:21 PM

Dunno about doing it yourself, but I took my Firehawk to a reputable shop and they touched it up so well that I can't even tell. The color is really unusual too (and metallic).

Frodo · 08-08-2008, 05:00 AM

Quote:

"Dunno about doing it yourself, but I took my Firehawk to a reputable shop and they touched it up so well that I can't even tell. The color is really unusual too (and metallic)."

Posted by Mike_Yi.

Yeah, I actually thought about going that route, too. I just never got around to researching where a good local shop was and what it would cost. I guess the other thing was the fact that beginning more or less immediately (potentially on the drive home from the repair), you're just going to start accumulating more chips. I wanted to be able to touch them up as they occur.

What did the shop charge you? (And give us some idea the extent of the damage before repaired, please.)

Mike_Yi · 08-08-2008, 07:12 AM

The shop charged me $614. The work they did included:
*wet sanding and buffing the top of the hood as it had bubbles in it
*repainting about 1/2 of the underside of the hood for the same reason
*touch up of the front bumper - had about a 16" curb rash which required plastic repair and paint
*touched up 3" scratch on the left rear fender near the bottom in front of the wheel
*repaired right side ground effects and repainted - it was cracked.

Two things would have effected the price though; the color of the paint , and the fact that the shop owner was a good friend of mine.

ultimate1 · 08-08-2008, 02:12 PM

Thanks for the tips. I have a few body guys here in wpb but I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I did bring my car to one shop that did excellent work on a Saturn a few years ago but they claimed that it was hard to get it match up because of the metallic paint. The few scratches that they fixed really looked bad so Ijust endured whatever chips and scratches came my way. The front bumper is starting to look really bad so I kind of want to do something about it if I can.

Frodo · 08-08-2008, 04:55 PM

Quote:

"The shop charged me $614. The work they did included:
*wet sanding and buffing the top of the hood as it had bubbles in it
*repainting about 1/2 of the underside of the hood for the same reason
*touch up of the front bumper - had about a 16" curb rash which required plastic repair and paint
*touched up 3" scratch on the left rear fender near the bottom in front of the wheel
*repaired right side ground effects and repainted - it was cracked."

Posted by Mike_Yi.

Yeah, if I had all that going on with my finish I'd definitely seek out professional help. The stuff I worked on consisted of maybe a dozen or so head-of-pin sized rock chips. It just seemed pointless to have all that effort (and bucks) invested into it. I'm happy enough with my results (and I'm kind of a perfectionist).

70Sixter · 08-10-2008, 11:12 AM

I have the Auto Sharp pen that claims to be basalt (metallic). Haven't used it, so cannot vouch either way.

Glad to see Dr Color Chip comments. Been thinking about getting some to have on hand.