Question for Paint/Body Experts
 

I had a 1/2" scratch on my rear bumper that went completely through the paint and into the black poly material. Got the Porsche factory touch-up paint and performed what should have been a near perfect touch-up job. The problem is, the touch-up paint once sanded/buffed out is not Ocean Jade Metallic, but rather silver.

It's odd...When the touch-up paint is applied, it's the proper color match. When I'm done with the repair, the paint ends up silver. I've done it three times with identical results. Twice by sanding the area, and once with the Lanka system.

Any idea why it's changing color like this?

It was explained to me by a paint guy that touching up metallic paint is not always possible because of the suspension of metallic materials within the paint. If the paint is not atomized (ie sprayed with air pressure) the metallic effect is lost or other undesirable and unpredictable results may occur.

Hello Seadweller,

Ocean Jade Metallic is a metallic paint. That means you have a primer layer, a base paint layer in the color Ocean Jade Metallic and a clear coat layer above.

The problem in this case is that you can't buff out the base paint layer, because that will cause the paint to get a wrong color. In general it looks more silver, because the metallic elements in the paint are harder than the paint itself. So in simple words you remove the acrylic and the metallic stays. Hope you understand what i mean - it's a little bit complicated to explain in english for me.

Best way to repair this is to use a so called spot repair method, where you first degrease everything, build up the scratch with a filler, than sand the local area, mask everything, degrease again and spray the area with the metallic base coat in Ocean Jade Metallic (little pistol; no spray can - won't work) and blend it in at the sides. Also it is important to spray metallic color in the right angle, else it will look different. Than you apply a clear coat (also have to blend that in) and than after everything is dry you can buff it out.

Metallic color is always a little bit more complicated to apply than non metallic.

If it is only a very little scratch you can try to thin the base color a little bit. But be careful, this can also change the color and try to apply the color to the scratch very exactly with a wooden toothpick. The idea here is to fill only the scratch with paint, but not the outer parts. If done right that might look OK but you will see the scratch and mostly it is not possible to apply another clear coat layer that than can be buffed.

Hope that helps

Regards, Markus