blending fender

[frostje]

I am new at blending fenders,just put on a fender for a civic dx 93 four door,did not have a tough time though the color was a few shades off,not that noticeable though. When blending should I have blended color into the door and on the hood or just the door? I have your video len although I am alittle scetchy on how to blend properly. This is what I think ,I should have scotchbrited the adjacent panel(the driver door(entire door) and misted the color at the edges where the fender and door meet ,then cleared the whole thing. I must have done pretty good though as she wants me to touch up rest of the car. Charged her very little to fix fender and light though as I am still a novice. Formerly frost64 is my ID although I couldn't find out how to reset password,sorry len and thanks for all your great advice. :)

[PetesPonies]

if you needed to paint the entire fender, then you would blend into the door and maybe the hood too, all depending on how it matched. The car has a very small top edge of the fender right? So a hood blend may not be needed; depends on the paint match IMO. But to blend into the door, I sand the entire door with wet 1500. Then I would paint the fender, as I apply coats to the fender, I would each coat, go a litle farther on the door, but no more than maybe half way. Assuming three coats on the fender, figure 6" more on each coat down the door. Then clear the entire door along with the fender.

[Chris L]

Wow Pete you paint over 1500 grit?I'd be scared it would delaminate.I never go any finer than p800 when repainting and never have problems.

[Len]

I pretty much use the same process as Pete but I'll add a couple of things I do in addition.

If the fender needs painting up to the door I'll almost always blend the door without even a second thought, no matter what the color. I tried to panel paint for years but finally gave in to blending everything in order to achieve a good color match the first time instead of having to redo in order to match.

I'll prep the door by sanding with some 800 or so about 6" in from the fender where the base coat color will be heaviest but the rest of the door is sanded with 1000 grit or finer.

I mask as if both the fender and the door will be painted completely then I mask off the door until the fender has been colored. When I achieve good coverage on the fender I remove the masking material between the fender and door then apply another coat of paint on the fender but I extend it about six inches onto the door. After the paint flashes I apply another coat and extend it another couple inches. This is usually enough material to get my hiding color over both the fender and door edge so I'll then over-reduce my color and extend it another couple inches without coating the fender. I usually apply two coats of over-reduced color and extend the edge each time.

After the color dries I apply clear over the entire fender and door. You need to be careful when applying clear because it can have a tendency to run/sag when sprayed on top of the old paint so don't apply it too heavily on the first coat. Once the first coat of clear dries to the touch you can apply it more heavily to get it smooth.

[PetesPonies]

I started using the super fine paper in blend areas. I found it very easy to cut and buff afterwards.

[Roch_Greg]

Wow Pete you paint over 1500 grit?I'd be scared it would delaminate.I never go any finer than p800 when repainting and never have problems.

You can lay paint over 1200-1500 with the use of adhesion promoter. IIRC Dupont outlines this in thier tech manuals for spot/panel repair

[Len]

Single stage paint as well as clear can usually be applied over a fine scratch without the need of an adhesion promoter. It's when you use a base coat that you need a more coarse scratch or adhesion promoter to help hold the paint to the surface.

There are coarse grit liquid compounds on the market that can be used to scuff the surface in order to prep it for painting when a urethane is used. This type of material (shown below) puts a very fine scratch in the surface, it looks like it just about knocks the gloss off. Under most urethanes this works well but under base coat color I usually use 600 or 800 grit sandpaper.


http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/P131732j.jpg
Scuff Stuff Link (http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PSS28B&Category_Code=SM)