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MicroFinish Paint Repairs; Part 2

Toughup prime pen

Previously we told you about MicroFinish and our efforts to repair some minor paint damage to our 2001 Corvette ZO6. Next time we will go into more detail on the aerosol part of the fixes but this time we are going to cover the Paint Pens.We really love these little devices. At first I was very skeptical of how well they would perform. They are a lot like the large art pens (think magic marker) that I have used for years on renderings. However, the tips are spring loaded and must be pushed in to allow color to soak into the felt like tip. At first when I pushed in the tip nothing happened and I was sure the pen was junk. However, I held it down a little longer and the bright yellow paint began to flow into the tip.

 

Once the tip was saturated I began looking for rock chips on the Vette. Although there were several on the front bumper and the covered headlights I didn’t want to start my repairs in such highly visible areas. The edge of the rear door jamb seems to stick out from the door ever so slightly but just enough to get a lot a road rash. In the early years of the Vette’s life we lived in Southern California. A lot of our road time was in the desert area around Palm Springs and similar areas. Even though you may not see it, there is a lot of loose sand flying through the air on the interstates. The result is that the windshield and leading edges of the car often get “sand blasted”.

Millennium Yellow begins to flow!

Since these areas of the door jambs are low on the car we selected to start here. The chipped areas were cleaned with a strong cleaner and de-greaser. We chose not to sand any of these areas. There were so many if we had sanded them we would have needed to spray the entire area. The pen did an excellent job without the need to sand.

A little dab will do ya! Here we do a little test before moving on to the chips in the Corvette’s paint.

The application is light and repetitive. Dab a little paint on a chip and move on. With confidence of working on the door jamb we moved on to the nose areas. By the time I had gone around the car it was time to do a second application on the first chip again. I repeated this up to four times depending on the chip, some only needed two “dabs”. The surprising part was that as I was doing some of single chips on the hood or bumper I had to place a piece of blue masking tape next to the chip to be able to find it on the second and third trip around the car! The paint match was fantastic and the slow build up of the color was terrific. The result was so good I did not even apply the clear coat finish coat. I am going to let the paint cure and go back and apply the clear to some of the spots to see the difference before moving on to all the spots.

This is a close up of a small area of what we were dealing with in the door jamb.

A light sanding and buffing should completely hide these little blemishes.

What is really special about these paint pens and aerosol paints from MicroFinish is you can order almost any color for even you old classic. I have some old muscle cars that have picked up a few little blemishes after having been on the road and I am definitely going to order up a couple of pens with the correct vintage color to touch up those paint jobs. I have never found anyone having these old paints available before. One of these pens is certainly going to be in the glove box of each of these cars!

Here is another view and you can see only a small portion of the area needing attention. The white spots are the chipped areas.

 

Here is the final result without any clear coat applied. The primer, base coat and clear coat all come in these very convenient, no mess paint pens. Love these!

 

Continue to Part 3, Click Here

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Richard

I grew up and lived in Iowa for a good portion of my life before moving to Southern California. After 20+ years we now live outside Nashville Tennessee. I have been into cars since I was old enough to remember. I don't have a brand loyalty although I do prefer American Muscle especially the 1969/1970 NASCAR Aero Cars. (Check out our other web site at www.TalladegaSpoilerRegistry.com site) As long as it has four wheels and an engine I get excited. Few men are lucky enough to be able to share their passion for cars with the woman they love. Fortunately, my wife, Katriana, is also a gear head and many of our activities revolve around the cars. We have a small collection that includes at least one car from each of the Big Three. It includes a Best of Show winner, a survivor, a driver with lots of patina and several others. Katrina prefers all original cars while I like to modify them so we have a few of each. When we aren't playing with cars we are out working with or showing our miniature donkeys. You can see more about that part of our lives at http://www.LegendaryFarms.com.

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