cheshire911 said:
For the best final finish and look, repaint. In practical terms, if that isn't an option or the chip are few, you can use touch-up but you'll always see the touch-ins (even if you give it to a Bodyshop to do the touch-ups).
If they cannot be lived with, then touch-up. Otherwise wait till its peppered and then have a professional respray would be my recommendation.
Agree with this! However if like me you have a particularly nasty chip that, on its own, doesn't justify a panel resprayed the good results can be had by following the instructions below:
1. Thoroughly clean panel and chip, wash and degrease
2. Mask off area around chip
3. Carefully abrade chip and clear coat around it with 800 grade wet & dry, try not to go below surface of primer
4. Clean and degrease again
5. Apply base coat with fine paint brush, apply as thinly as possible and do not cover the edges of the clear coat
6. Apply another coat of base coat if necessary, leave at least an hour before coats
7. Note the base coat must still be below the surface level of the clear coat
8. Apply 2 to 3 coats (or more) of clear coat, leaving at least 6 hours between coats, maybe apply some gentle heat too with a hair dryer
9. You should now have a bubble of clear coat well proud of the original finish, this needs to be thoroughly dry before the next step, leave for at least a few days or even a week!
10. This is the tricky bit! Using wet and dry paper, 800 grade, on a firm backing, a piece of rigid plastic is good for this, carefully rub down the clear coat bubble trying not to abrade the original finish around it. A good trick here is to first apply some very fine body filler to an area around the repair roughly the size of the rubbing down pad you are using. The filler should be the same depth as the bubble is proud of the surface. Once the filler is set hard, rub down with 800 grade following the contour of the panel, this prevents you rubbing down the original finish around the repair. As the filler and bubble is worn worn down, switch to a finer grade, 1500, when the filler is thin enough to show the colour underneath. When the filler is almost completely gone switch to 2500 or 3000 grade and wet to finish off!
All that should be left to do is polish by hand with a good cutting compound to restore the finish, a DA comes in handy here if you have access to one!
I repaired a really nasty chip in the fairing of my Ducati using this method and you need to look really close to see any evidence of s repair.
Will be using above method to fix a really nasty chip in my front bumper which is about 10mm in dia.