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sauce

sauce

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I have an Electra Vince that took a pretty nice scratch job today...

I took my neighbor's dog for a walk and then for a bike ride with me. They don't pay me...I just do it because it is so neglected over there that sometimes it escapes and comes to our house...just breaks my heart so I take her out every now and then.

Anyways, we were riding on the side of the street in the neighborhood and she decides to jump up onto the curb while I'm still on the street. Before I can react, the leash gets caught between my arm, the dog and a street sign and the bike goes flying into the curb :cry:

Only parts of it with black paint got scratched, so I guess that's a plus in terms of only needing just one color. Now my question is, what's my best option for remedy?
 
Leave it out in the rain....Get some RUST on it.
 
KOTA said:
Leave it out in the rain....Get some RUST on it.
Click to expand...

loool

Come on I just bought it recently! Plus, it will give me something new to do over the weekend and I can possibly learn a new skill in the process.

I guess my question would be for the paint experts here, what's the process (sanding? if so, what grits?) and what kind of paint should I use? Would something from a hobby store suffice? Any particular brands?

Seems like a standard glossy black to me...not metallic or anything.
 
You should be able to match it very well, if there are no metallics. BLACK is BLACK. I use DupliColor or Krylon. You can purchase at any automotive store. Try "feathering" the scratch with 320 grit (wet). Light coat of primer, same brand as the paint, then black. If it's a fender, paint the WHOLE fender......Good Luck, post a pic.
 
like he said, black is black pretty much.. i touch em up with a tiny brush and then wet sand it with 800 and buff it out.. :roll:
 
scrumblero said:
like he said, black is black pretty much.. i touch em up with a tiny brush and then wet sand it with 800 and buff it out.. :roll:
Click to expand...

So you don't do any sanding before you do the touch up to make it all a flat surface? It's not evenly scratched...it's varying degrees and layers of paint that chipped off (sort of like a mountainous terrain)

Also, when you wet sand...is that so the paint is able to keep it's sheen?
 
Wet sanding is to allow the sand paper to glide over the low spots and cut through (or knock down) the high spots. Wet sanding is mostly done with clear coat that is just about to be buffed. Color sanding is usually dry, used to identify surface irregularities on car bodies.

You need to do some reading. Go to a Barnes and Noble, grab a coffee and sit down with a body refinishing book or read up on the internet.

In a nutshell, you deal with rougher grit paper, early on, before the paint 36-150 grit for stripping and forming, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1,000, 1,100, 2000 all the way out to super fine grit paper (2000) for the final polishing of the paint. Liquid polishes themselves also represent a certain theoretical grit paper. 7,000-12,000.

Polishing metal, if you are going to polish using a machine, you usually don't need to sand past 600-800 grit (aluminum), but for harder metals (steel) you want to go all the way to 2000 before using polish.

It's all a very common sense, methodical approach

Scumberlo was correct in that if you simply dab or lightly brush on some paint (deep gouges filler or more coats of paint) wait for it to fully dry and then wet sand it, it will average out the rough surface created by the irregular application caused by the brush. You may see a slight color/tonal variation but there will be no surface variation. Then you wax/polish it out and you are pretty much done.

If you want to feather down the abrupt chip "wall" ,wet sanding is in order. There is no correct selection of paper for this job, but most here would agree that 220-320 is your best bet.

Wet sanding involves a constant trickle of water over the sanding surface. This is to keep your paper clear and for the constant reestablishment of a hydro wedge.

Sanding block: for small stuff like a paint chip, it's safe to say using your fingers with the paper is okay. You don't need a block.
what I do is I make my own mini blocks with cut pieces of 1/4 inch balsa wood with paper wrapped around it. Sanding blocks are to prevent the inevitable waves that sanding using your bare hands would inevitably create.

Air file: An air file is an advanced type of compressed air driven sanding block used on auto bodies for quick surface averaging. these are not for bicycles, but it is an important tool to know about.

Basically just go read.
 
Another important note:
When wet sanding for an eventual surface shine, use criss cross stokes. Several strokes in one direction and then several strokes in another direction. Some people say 45 degrees, but that is unimportant. Just make sure to change directions in your sanding strokes over a given area. - Constant stream of water. It doesn't have to be a lot of water, just constant.
 
If you are going for a shine, you can skip papers past 1,000 grit.

Do not sand with 320 and then skip to 800 for instance. You must go to 400 then maybe skip 600 and go to 800.
The reason for this is the higher the grit of sand paper, the less influence it has over the earlier, coarser grits. You will end up polishing scratches and they will appear as minute pits.
 
I think I'm going to paint it and then leave it to dry before getting to the wet sand process.

How many days of drying would be sufficient before trying to level it all out? I ask because I paint oil on canvas and that takes up to months before it's seriously dry and hardened.

This is the paint I purchased:

http://www.testors.com/products/135996
 

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