Paint correcting.
Cleaning, chip & scratch touch-up, buffing with correcting & polish compound.
Body paint needs caring for. Cleaning and waxing is how we maintain and keep the paint beautiful. Beyond beautifying, paint protects the body metal. So it's important to touch-up any breaks in paint that expose bare metal. Wax can be very helpful at sealing breaks in the paint. Wax will keep bare metal dry and block oxygen from metal to a point. But it is best, that small chips and scratches are touched-up as they happen. As is so often the case, touch-up is done late or not at all. Late in that the bare metal has begin to rust. The rust spreads under the primer of the body paint. The older a break to bare metal, the more rust will have spreads. A 10 year old chip, only the size of a pin hole (less than 0.10MM). May have spread under the paint ~10MM more or less.
Cleaning in prep for inspecting and correcting:
First part of washing is using HP water to wash away loose grim. Than agitation of the surface with a good lubricating soap and micro fiber (deep pile, cut fiber) mite. Than wash away soapy and grim with more HP water. Then dry with air, micro fiber or combination.
Once paint is clean as I can get. I come back at it with a synthetic clay and more soap water for lubricate. Clay bar removes even more of the stuck on grim (bird, iron, sap, bug, etc) it also removes wax. I most often use a car soap here, which has wax in it. Not that I want too wax, but it lubricates the best of what I've in my cleaning supplies. After drying, the real condition of paint is now exposed. I'll come back and wash one more time with dish soap. Dish soap is not recommended for auto paint cleaning. But it will help strip waxes and oils, which we want before correcting paint (cutting with a compound).
Here and old stock photo of synthetics clay bar cleaning:
Once body paint cleaned and de-waxed, imperfection reveal themselves. I've been negatively surprised more than once after these cleaning steps. I've found approximately 100 chips and scratches in the paint in this one.
I use a handheld microscope to inspect each chip and scratch for to see if to bare metal and rust.
Once a rust spec found, I use micro grinding bits to de-rust. My latest set of bits are from HF, where I bought grinding tools kits, just to get enclosed bits that came with them. One set is diamond bits of various sizes and shapes. The diamond bit that is on my tool in below picture, has been my go too. I found they remove paint and not much metal. So they give me best control. Once this grinding processes begins, I keep vehicle in the shop at all times, to keep dry and clean.
I grind away as little paint as possible, starting in center of chips. I them look with microscope to see if I've a clean line between bare metal and factory primer. I keep grinding, targeting any dark at line going under primer. This is so tedious. The average chip takes halve a dozen times of me going back and grinding than reinspecting time and time again. Older chips may take 20 times back into on this faze, as the rust travels further under the paint. So 100 chips means at least 600 times repeating the inspection and grind process. A PITA. But any rust remaining and it will grow. So I take great care in this step.
Stock photo of a white 100 series. The white really helps show the rust, most colors aren't so revealing.
Grinding a chip until all rust cleaned out, takes as long as it takes. I just keep at it, as long as it takes.
