you're looking at the passenger side fender where it meets the headlamp, i think. the fender is not aluminum...

I would highly advise against doing this! 400 grit??? You may as well be sandblasting the chip! You can't just sand something with that grit and then use touch-up paint. That would look like crap!

If your going to slam his reply, at least give tell us the correct way to do it. :ugh2:

I'm pretty sure you don't want to just apply touchup paint to a rusted spot. I think the rust can still spread underneath the paint.

Dr. Colorchip or The Lankga System. The have both been discussed on here in detail. Their websites will tell you more about each product than you'll want to know.

I've had a spot similar to this and I took a small tip on the dremel and sanded out just the rust leaving the rest of the paint as is, then filled up the chip with touch up paint and it worked out very nice. Just make sure you are extremely careful not to extend the damage into your other paint and it works quite effectively.

I did some initial research on Dr. Colorchip, and this looks like a great idea. I take it i still need to remove the rust first. The last reply suggest using a dremmel? The pic is deceiving, its a much smaller chip than it appears. Dremmeling out the chip seems a tad overkill?

:iagree:

I would wet sand the chip with some 2000 grit paper to clean out the rust. You need to use short strokes in one direction, constantly checking the area as you work. You don't want to over do it as it is easy to do with factory paint. Make sure that you use a sanding block. Once you get the rust removed, follow the 2000 grit with 2500 and then 3000 grit. This will ensure that no wet sanding marks remain behind. You will need to polish out the 3000 grit damage with a polish like the Adam's Fine Machine Polish on a white pad. After that, you can begin to work on the chip.

Great thanks for the advice! :tup:

:icon18:

looks like someone got his panties all mangled up. the 400grit is to remove the rust. then clean off the area with rubbing alcohol. if you have primer, that's great, you can take a tooth pick with the tip flattened and apply. then take your touchup paint, new toothpick with the tip flattened and apply several coats until it is at the surrounding paint layer. there's touchup applicators you can get online too, but not needed.

then dry 2 weeks. if you choose to do so, take 2000grit or higher (i have a 3000grit sanding block) and wetsand until flat. polish. then wax. for most people they probably wont do this wetsanding step.

langka is good, but it's not perfect either.

Lankga & Dr. Colorchip are way better solutions than your suggestion.

400 grit sandpaper is WAY overkill for this situation. No one is getting their "panties in a bunch", I just hate to see misinformation given out that would create a necessity to repaint a panel when a novice screws up. My rule of thumb is to never give out advice that I wouldn't let that person try on MY own car.

My father painted cars for 40 years before the fumes darn near killed him. I was at his body shop night and day for years when I wasn't in school. This just happens to be a little something that I'm familiar with.

your paint background does sound very credible, but no need to squash
other people's post just because YOU under-estimate the regular joe.

im sure you know abrasive itself is only part of the equation when it comes
to sanding (just like polishing). how much pressure and how many cycles
also determine how much rust/paint it will take off. 400 grit to remove
rust is nothing out of the ordinary. if someone said to take a large
wire brush on it, then i might start freaking out like you did. :eekdance:

But here's where you flaw in your thinking. You always underestimate the average Joe when giving out this type of advice! To assume that the average Joe has some experience in this arena without them telling you so is the formula for disaster. That would be like having someone text your while trying to land a plane with no experience. You could give them step by step directions but if they have never done it before, you can bet the house that the results are not going to be positive. That's why I try and choose the safest advice possible, or tell them to avoid the whole situation all together. Sandpaper takes experience and 400 grit is not a learning grit for novices on finished paint. Sanding a rusty center console that they will be spraying paint on may be a different story.

Again I say, never suggest a novice do something to their car that you wouldn't allow them to do own your own car. That way, they won't have to start a thread on how to fix the new damage that they just did. Call me overly safe but to date my advice has never burned anyone, and I give out a massive amount of advice on over 20 different forums.

You're definitely a fun read, junkman. :tup:

If the chip is small enough that you can't get a small tipped attachment of a dremel inside of it, how on earth do you have enough room to sand? While it might be overkill, taking the few seconds to dremel out the rust in my experience is much easier than trying to work sand paper in such a small area. I've found the small tips of some of the grinding attachments worth the best in tigh areas. The sanding attachements are much too large for this type of application. But hey, I'm just a computer programmer that likes to detail.