Don't you just hate when this happens! Paint repair tutorial.

[Scale-Master]

Burn-through on a paint job you thought you were almost done with! It’s happened to just about everyone who builds to some degree.
I was very surprised I did this in this spot, I didn't think the paint was all that thin, and it’s not like I was polishing an edge or peak. I was only polishing out a bit of dirt in the clear coat.

But, it is not as bad as it looks; it is repairable without repainting the body, or even the upper half.

Follow along and maybe the next time it happens you'll be able to fix it as easily as this one went…

First, remove any wax you may have applied, I used rubbing alcohol. Then assess the situation and decide how much will get painted and where to make the blend so you can mask accordingly.
I chose to put the blend up at the cowl and below the A-pillar. The hood side of the fender and the outside peak were masked off, as is the front edge. Those are the logical hard edges. Try to find an area that can allow the blend to disappear by distraction (the cowl vent and subsequent windshield wiper fit that description) or defined lines. If there was a peak on the cowl like on the center of a ’69 Camaro cowl, that would be a logical place to take the edge of the repair to.
Here it is masked.



Here, I have sprayed the black, the same Tamiya black as the original base color. Doesn't look so good yet does it...? And that is the way it dried.




Now I've sprayed the urethane clear to the edges of the front and sides, but feathered it near the rear of the front fender, by the cowl / A-pillar. A little better, but not an acceptable touch up job. Yet...



The idea here is to blend the “aura” or over spray haze with a little reducer, or even better, some blender as I used. The blender works better, but straight reducer does a pretty darn good job too. It’s just that you'll probably have to do a little polishing when using reducer, whereas the blender can eliminate that step in many cases.
The trick is to wet the “dry” areas and let it all flow. Don't over do it! It may take two or three light passes with a couple minute between them. You can always add more, but too much will run like the wind, and in a blink of an eye too.
Here it is after the final blend.




And after it has dried… A quick and light polish and wax will smooth out the peak of the fender where the tape was, but I'm going to give it a few days before doing that...





Hope this helps… Now go build something! - Mark

[tonioseven]

Yeah, it helps! Now to go build something...

[MidMazar]

Nice, this seems to happen to me all the time, but i have trouble fading the paint. Thanks for tutorial!!

[924_CarreraGTS]

Great, thanks! I need to do this soon on a project I decided to dice up AFTER painting (smart, huh?)

This will help.

Alex