Car Detailing Tips - Using Car Touch-Up Paint For Minor Repairs

Driving around with your shiny and slick car brings about a feeling of great achievement. If the vehicle is new, you will find yourself taking extra care to ensure that it remains looking like it was just driven off the car lot. However, no matter how careful one is, there is bound to be a time that the vehicle will have a scratch or dent due to some accident or negligence. Such an event, especially when it occurs to a new car, can be very distressing.

The thought of taking the car to a repair shop is not exciting due to the amount of money you'll probably have to pay. However, don't fret; you may be able to repair small scratches and blemishes satisfactorily yourself at a minimal cost.

While doing it yourself is convenient, there are trade-offs to going this route. It's likely the paint won't quite match the original color of the car and it won't lay level or flat with the paint in the surrounding area. If your car is dented or has large areas that need repair, it's best to leave it to professional body shops to do the work.

However, if you are bound and determined to move ahead, then use these tips to help you do the best touch up paint job possible:

• If possible, get the touch up paint from your car manufacturer's dealer. This way, you can get the closest possible match to your car's paint color.
• For successful application of touch up paint, you need to have a steady hand. This is necessary because the spots that usually require repair are small.
• Compared to solid or opaque colored paint, metallic paint separates, leaving you with poor results.
• Many touch up paint kits will come with unnecessary extras, like a separate clear coat paint. While clear coats are available to add protection to your paint job, often, they look messy and too thick to blend in well with the surrounding paint.
• Sanding paper and cleaning solvents to prep the area beforehand aren't required.
• After the paint has dried, you may decide to do color sanding. However, this requires skill and a high speed buffer. I do not recommend this for the beginner and expert advice or service is required.
• Though most touch up paints come with a brush or a tip for easy application, use of a toothpick for really precise results is an option.

Do-it-yourself paint touch-up may be more affordable than hiring a professional. However, like most things, the results may not live up to your expectations. Consider all of your options before jumping in with repairing your car's paint job.

Car Spray Painting Techniques - A Close Look at Auto Spray Paint Methods and Tips

Each and every spray systems is made up of three crucial parts: a compressor to pressurize the paint, a container to hold the material and a spray gun to spread it across the required surface through its nozzle in a fine mist. The process of painting by use of compressed spray gun is very simple. On pressing the trigger switch, Ventury effect gets formed, and the paint combines with the compressed air releases itself into the surface as a fine mist.

Different spray painting techniques are employed to paint the surface of a car and all of them use compressed air or fluid or air pressure to discharge and direct the spray. Spray guns are commonly used for spraying cars. Spray guns have two main classifications: suction fed and gravity fed. Both are easily identifiable from its shape and the way it is arranged. In suction fed spray guns, the paint container is fixed below the air gun and compressed air is used to attain the desired spread. It also has a dedicated air cap to generate low vacuum. In gravity fed, the container is at the top of the gun and the major force acting on the system is gravity though compressed air is used to a lesser extent. Gravity fed spray guns are capable of giving good performance than suction fed guns, as it uses less compressed air and has less weight.
Another process is the HVLP or High Volume Low Pressure system. Though akin to spray guns as far as the compressed air is concerned, the gun works at low pressure. The effect is that wastage is minimized to a large extent.

A third process uses Low Volume Low Pressure or LVLP system, and is an improvement of the HVLP system of painting. Here wastage is further controlled and the intended surface gets more paint. Both HVLP and LVLP system need high capacity compressors and may not be ideal for every day use.

In Electrostatic Spray painting, paint powder is used in this technique. When the paint is discharged from the gun, it is so arranged that it develops an electrostatic charge and is sprayed to the oppositely charged surface. As the minute paint particles repulse each other, the area covered by the paint is much more than other systems.

It is important to adhere to safety norms as fine mists of paint are formed and gets released into the air.