Paint repair job, please advise

[John2005]

Hi all, so long story short I came out to find someone had hit my car with something small and pointy... I feel it was intentionally. Anyway, so the chip was around a 5p size initially and it didn't take long for the clear coat to start peeling away and bubbling up. I'm pretty sure this is from a previous owner-repair job not done right the more I've been researching on this. I have never painted a car before and wish to learn - I'm sure mistakes will happen as they already have! but thats part of the learning... hence me being here!

Okay so the introductory is over, time to get to the nitty gritty... I have gone as far as realizing that my clear coat was damaged and needed to be sanded down to smooth it all out. I did this, and noticed it was peeling more by the time I got all the masking tape up, so I I used my fingers to feel around and take off as much as I could of the clear coat that seemed to just keep flaking up! Eventually it stopped, so I gave it a some more sanding down, I decided to use a fresh grit paper and I guess I used too low a grit as it took off the base coat where this patch of clear coat used to be. (Again I think the previous repair was very poor and minimal layers used as I didn't apply any pressure and it was gone in seconds..)

Because I now need basecoat (which I have ordered) , I couldn't leave the car exposed to the elements with this patch of no clear coat, no basecoat , at least I didn't think I could? without running risk of further damage? so I decided to proceed with clear coat anyway just to "cover" the area until I have the basecoat.

This brings me to now... I need to know what I should doing moving forward please:

Should I:
1) Sand it all the way back down (especially where the basecoat is gone), get it all smooth again, apply basecoat, apply clear coat, once all dry, buff if, job done?

2) Sandd own the edges of clearcoat I applied to make itall smooth, primer over it all, basecoat, clearcoat ...etc?

3) Both of the above? Sand it all down until all the clearcoat I applied is gone/or mostly gone and primer it, basecoat, clearcoat, buff?

Or should I be doing a 4th option I haven't thought of ?
Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[chopolds]

You don't mention if the whole panel looks repainted, or not, but this is what I would do:
Sand out the "fix" back to bare metal. Sand out the area smooth, so there is no transition to the unrepaired area, this is called "feathering out". I would use 220 or 320 sandpaper to do this. If it keeps flaking the paint off, you may have to paint the entire panel. Once that is done, clean, and primer the repair area going out into the unrepaired area.
Let the primer dry overnight. Sand it with 400 or 500 grit paper, and if it looks good, paint. If not sand more and reprimer.
You do't say what paint or method you are using, but I am guessing it is spray cans. You can't expect great results with them, and sometimes they even make the problems worse, as they are very thinned out materials, and the solvent they have can attack and wrinkle OEM, and aftermarket paints, at the edges.

 

[John2005]

You don't mention if the whole panel looks repainted, or not, but this is what I would do:
Sand out the "fix" back to bare metal. Sand out the area smooth, so there is no transition to the unrepaired area, this is called "feathering out". I would use 220 or 320 sandpaper to do this. If it keeps flaking the paint off, you may have to paint the entire panel. Once that is done, clean, and primer the repair area going out into the unrepaired area.
Let the primer dry overnight. Sand it with 400 or 500 grit paper, and if it looks good, paint. If not sand more and reprimer.
You do't say what paint or method you are using, but I am guessing it is spray cans. You can't expect great results with them, and sometimes they even make the problems worse, as they are very thinned out materials, and the solvent they have can attack and wrinkle OEM, and aftermarket paints, at the edges.

Hi there, thank you so much for coming back with a very informative response. I feel as though the whole panel was not repainted in the past, from what I can see it looks like it was just one small section because I noticed a line, that went around the unrepaired area and beyond a little further into the clear coat that had not yet come off and so when I started flicking it with my finger nail, bits were just falling off with ease, it was brittle and no adhesion at all. However that was to the right side, the top, left and bottom were solid and not flaking at all so I think they simply "painted over" a gap perhaps and didnt sand or at least there were no adhesion between the two so it just "sat on top" of the basecoat which was also very thin and only took a few strokes for the lot to come off. Perhaps it was one of them "touch up" paints ?

With that said, I think you're absolutely right and that is what I was thinking I might have to do , simply sand down to metal, start over and yes I'm using spray cans so I know its probably not going to be showroom quality but if I can at least get to a "barely notice it" state, I would be very happy.

Could I also please check I understood correctly, when I use the primer, do I need to prime over the unrepaired/damaged area AND a bit into the undamaged area? and then sand it all over to get it all smooth across the whole panel, is that right?


thanks again

 

[chopolds]

Use primer over the repaired area, both for adhesion, and to fill minor sanding scratches. Going into the unrepaired area by a couple inches. The OEM paint area, should only need a good sanding for paint adhesion. If you plan on blending the base color into the original paint, you only need to sand the OEM paint to 600 or 800 grit. Some folks go even higher into 1000 grit. Once the color is blended in, you should clear the entire panel ( so be sure the whole panel is sanded to an 800 or 1000 grit finish, paint entirely dull over the area. Just be careful and do not oversand it!