Our Guest Blogger writes a fantastic entry for us- read below!!!
How to Repair Car Scratches Yourself
It’s likely that at some point in every car you own you will come across a car scratch; it’s one of the most frequent minor forms of damage to cars, because it can be caused by anything from debris that hits your car whilst driving, to people accidently brushing past your car when it’s parked. The damage is so quick to happen and so difficult to avoid, that many of us will not bother to pay to get the scratch repaired because the price and trouble is simply not worth it. Did you know however, that you can repair your own car if it gets scratched for a fraction of the price and time?
First of all you need to have an understanding of how a car is painted; because how you treat a scratch will depend on how deeply it was inflicted. Most cars are painted in three layers; primer, paint and clear coat. Most scratches will have only reached the paint layer, but deeper scratches will require more effort to fix. Examine the scratch on your car to see if it is consistent in its depth also, as some scratches will only break through the clear coat on one end, but may have gotten much deeper as they went on.
A scratch in the clear coat will not have removed any colour, so in order to fix this you can simply buff or sand the scratch out with fine grade sandpaper, but of course, you need to be mindful of buffing the paintwork too much as if you reach the colour coat, you will increase your workload substantially. To avoid buffing the scratch too deeply you can highlight the scratch with shoe polish; this way, when you sand down you will know to stop when all of the shoe polish has been removed as this will mean you have reached the depth of the scratch.
However, if you’ve found your scratch has sadly gone a bit deeper, the first thing you will need to do is wash around the area thoroughly, repeat the sanding treatment as before, but stop when you reach the colour layer; you will then need to search your car for a label which details the factory colour code. You can then purchase a paint-touch up pen from any popular auto parts store in the exact tone of your car. Work precisely and carefully to fill the scratch in with colour, then let the paint cure over night to ensure it has dried perfectly. Sand down any excess paint then spray over a layer of clear coat over the area.
After that your car should look good as new. To keep things looking perfect we recommend keeping your car away from the front of car parks so there is always plenty of space around your vehicle; this will protect it from haphazard passers-by and other people’s car doors! Remember also that this is a guide, but if your brand of car repair product recommends a different approach you may be better advised to follow that as all products will need to be applied differently. Repairing a scratch can take time, but just think of all that money you’ve saved by doing it yourself!
This guest post was written by Dave James on behalf of http://www.howardbasford.co.uk Basford accident repairs, experts in fixing damaged vehicles.
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