We spent the entire Sunday morning at Mr E's house. His name is censored to protect his identity and safety. I will not elaborate on that. My mission this morning was to repair a minor scratch on the body of his nice car. Mr E was not very convinced I could do the job so I drew him a similar diagram to explain his situation.
This is a common anatomy of a car scratch. It is very common to get light scratches from flying objects during driving. The damages will be minimal and often invisible to the unobservant eye. The common extent of damage will be limited to the clear coat of the car.
When we get a 'visible' scratch, it will either be one which penetrated past the clear coat but within the paint thickness (depicted in blue circle) or all the way through the primer or the bare metal, known as deep scratch. (red) Mr E's long scratch was considered a light one. Jen was happy to come along so that she could have a look at Mr E's home. That would be our first visit. A nice cosy abode indeed.
I thought this is common knowledge but there could be drivers who happen not to know so I reckon it is not a bad idea to show you guys how to remove unsightly light scratches from your car.
What we need:
A car with light scratches
Cut & polish compound (available in any auto-shops)
Soft smooth cloth
A strong arm
Great endurance
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| What we've got here is, a car with light scratch |
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| Smear compound over it and start rubbing on surface with cloth |
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| Do it long enough to decrease visibility of scratch significantly and do the rest |
That was how simple it is. A word of warning though, do not over-polish the surface. A cut-and-polish compound is not meant for shining your car out. You should get some car wax for that purpose. What the cut-and-polish stuff do is to level the scratch by cutting into your car paint so it looks smooth and level to the untrained eye. It is unlikely that you will remove the entire paint thickness by polishing this way with bare hands but just do what is required and stop there. Wax the car after that if one arm workout is not providing enough kick for you.
Hope this helps.
Good info here. However, I tried the manual hand method to remove hairline scratches from my car - not a fun idea. Either my cutting compound wasn't cutting enough or my hand wasn't strong enough. In any case, I'd use an orbiter next time.
ReplyDeleteUsed to get heart pain when my current and previous new car got scratch and dent when it was less than one year old, but after 1st year, didn't really bother so much as it had collected more scratches and dents.
ReplyDeleteBetter get a silver colour car, even with hairline scratches and minor dents, they will not be very obvious. Worst colour is black, really difficult to maintain.