5-Minute Fix
You're just about to head to the cruise-in or the car show when you notice a nasty chip on your Pontiac. You want to fix it, but you don't have hours to wait for the touch-up paint to dry before you apply the Blob Eliminator. Here's a quick way to get the repair done, straight from Langka. Bear in mind, however, the results won't be as smooth as the methods outlined in this article.
• Apply Langka Pre Paint.
• Wipe it off with water and dry with cloth.
• Apply touch-up paint.
• While still wet, "smear" the paint with your finger or the blue card over the chip, and over the surface of the vehicle to other chips in the area if needed, i.e., finger painting. This will put paint in the chip/scratch and speed up its drying time. Likewise, this will leave more touch-up paint on the OEM surface, which will come off quite easily.
• While the paint is still wet, wrap your forefinger with a smooth, clean cloth; apply Langka Blob Eliminator (shake well) to the cloth and rub over the areas painted; you can see it begin to remove the excess paint; you will also "feel" it rubbing off. Use light pressure when moving over the chip areas; a little bit more pressure where the paint is on the OEM surface. NOTE: If you remove too much paint, just redo this process, being more careful with the pressure you apply with your finger.
• Buff the excess Langka from the surface.
• Seal the repair with Paint Sealer.
• Remove any paint on your finger with Langka and wash your hands immediately.
Following another coat and...
Following another coat and more careful removal of the excess paint, Sealant is applied to the chip area to seal the new paint.
Here is the result of the...
Here is the result of the lower chip repair. While it's not invisible, it still looks much better than before. If the paint in the chip is very dull and you are working with a base/clear two-stage paint, clear may need to be added over the filled chip to bring up the shine. Larry says it's rarely required, however, even on two-stage. If desired, the clear can be applied in a thin coat (no blob) after the repair and smoothed with the Blob Eliminator if needed, or it can be mixed with the touchup paint in equal parts prior to the repair and then applied.
This scratch is down to the...
This scratch is down to the primer, so it can't be wet-sanded out. When using the squeegee method to fill a scratch, a dab of touch-up paint is applied at the leading edge. Then the squeegee is dragged across it lengthwise, as was shown on the chip repair, to fill in the scratch.
Here's how it looks when the...
Here's how it looks when the paint is drawn into the scratch on the first application.
Larry recommends using only the manufacturer's touch-up paint or the Dupli-Color we ultimately used. It's lacquer-based, so it works better with the Blob Eliminator, and the drying time is generally faster than paints from other sources.
Our paint is modern single-stage urethane, so we attempted to get black touch-up paint from the local GM dealer. We were told that it would have to be ordered and would take several days to come in.
Perpetually on deadline, we sought other sources. The dealer recommended asking the body shop for any extra paint. We lucked out and got a small touch-up bottle of black urethane that was supposedly ready to apply. So we did. Nearly three days later, it still wasn't dry.
After multiple coats to fill...
After multiple coats to fill the scratch, Blob Eliminator was used carefully around the scratch to remove the excess paint. Following a very light touch rubbing the scratch with Blob Eliminator on the cloth (wrapped around a finger this time instead of the squeegee, so that we could feel the paint ridge), sealant was then applied. This is the result. The scratch is not invisible, nor will it ever be without professional sanding and refinishing, but it is much improved and barely noticeable from a few feet away. More practice will most likely make it even better, but this story has to go to print, so that's as much as we can do for now.
Undeterred, we hit another dealer body shop in the area. We explained what we were trying to accomplish, and said we needed touch-up paint that dried quickly. Nearly three days later, same problem-the paint was still gummy.
With the magazine on the cusp of shipping to the printer with a five-page hole, we were running out of options. Driving a few towns away, we picked up some Dupli-Color black touch-up paint. Its instructions said the paint was fast drying-and it was.
The moral? Use the manufacturer's paint or Dupli-Color if at all possible; avoid body-shop paint unless you have time to wait for it to dry or the shop can verify the paint was mixed with the proper ingredients to dry quickly-hours instead of days. Or Langka can provide touch-up paint (www.langka.com/touchup-paint-c-30.html).
Larry cautions, "GM paint codes alone don't provide the exact information we need to create the paint color. We need the WA#, which is the specific identifier for the color. The customer's local dealership will have this information."
Conclusion
Paint chips look terrible, and though typical touchup repair is an improvement, it still leaves an unsightly lump on each chip. Short of having to wet-sand to flatten the area, Langka's Complete Paint Chip Repair Kit offers the next logical step in making the repair smoother and less noticeable.
The quality of each repair varies with time, technique, and practice. Applying more of each will make it less noticeable. At $39.95 for a kit that can fix 20 to 30 chips (plus $7 worth of touch-up paint), Langka's Complete Paint Chip Repair Kit certainly can improve the appearance of your Pontiac for a fair price.
Tips on tips Here are a few helpful tips ... get it? Tips.
Not all chips are created...
Not all chips are created equal, and neither are paint applicators. Here are three popular choices. The yellow micro-brushes come with the kit and will easily fill small to moderate scratches, as you have already seen. The brush on the right came with touch-up paint and is really only good for larger chips. The toothpick...
... is still one of the best...
... is still one of the best tools to fill very small chips.
If your chip goes to the bare...
If your chip goes to the bare metal and has rust in it, eliminate it quickly by using this 3M fiberglass pen. We had one, but Langka sells a similar product. The right chip had just as much rust as the left chip before the pen was used.