You have to not know its there till you buy the car

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sometimes

The problem is I own the car

You won't be able to eliminate where you masked based on what you are describing.

I fix messes like this all the time so I'll give you a few tips. Start with good product. You will need a good base coat aerosol, a good clear coat aerosol and a good aerosol blender. All of these are available at automotive / body shop jobbers. Spray the clear a few inches beyond where the base coat ends and mist the blender over the edge of the clear. You will likely have to polish it out after it dries unless you get lucky.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

So to be clear.

Where there is currently the line do the following:

1, prep that surface and decrease
2, mask it all off
3, base coat
4, pain that area
5, remask a wider area
6, clear coat wider area
7, blend that wider area?

Then polish?

Is that right?

The right ideas are here in this thread. The paint and the clear need to "mist" around the borders so you can't define the region with tape. Then wet sand, compound, and polish. Used with skill a rotary buffer can be used for the compounding, but use a polish.

Hierarchy of aggressiveness
Rotary buffer with polish. Maybe a wool bonnet. This is pretty aggressive so be careful.
Dual action buffer with rubbing compound. Not very aggressive.
Dual action buffer with polish. This is very mild.

Don't use the rotary buffer with rubbing compound. This combo is too aggressive.

The greatest charm of a dual action buffer instead of your hand is that a dual action buffer tends to discard grit. When you apply rubbing compound or polish with your hand, there is always a danger of getting some grit under your hand. By the time you realize there's a problem, you can do a helova lot of damage. I did this over and over again until I finally learned to never hand apply compound or polish by hand.


There's a real art to this. I'm a car guy. I care what my car looks like. Because of another hobby I've had a lot of opportunities to do paint projects on non daily driver cars that I was not too picky about. What I learned is that preparing the surface, painting, compounding, and polishing all require lots of experience to do well.

Many many times things seem to start ok, but then turn to shit so I had to remove the paint and start over. Ultimately, I decided that painting is like welding. If it doesn't need to look nice, anyone can do it. But if it does need to look nice, then it's time for a professional.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

What part of the car are you working on and how big is the current repair you are trying to redo?

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

Rear panel behind rear wheel arch. Actually crosses a panel.

From top of bumper behind rear wheel. Up along line of wheel arch on body panel in to the next panel. It's maybe 8-10" long.

https://auto.ndtvimg.com/...iew.jpg?v=2016-09-02

This is the car. The section is the shape of the wheel arch on the painted part.

Mask off adjacent panels you don’t want painted. Spray base then clear then blender. The blender is basically pure solvent so it evaporates completely leaving the edge if the clear coat smooth. Make sure the clear extends a few inches past the base.
You may have an issue wrinkling the fresh paint on your old repair so sand away as much of it as you can and don’t spray a wet base coat to be safe.
This should leave you a repair that virtually disappears. I can give you any tips to polish out if needed.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

That's awesome.

I am going to mask it all off again and repeat as directed.

I will update once done

If the temperature is cool the blender may take too long to evaporate. A hair dryer or heat gun could help if that’s the case.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

Sorry. Do I let any of layers dry before doing next or do I put paint on, touch dry between sprays, the immediately widen area and do clear and then follow immediately with the blender

Let base coats dry. Then clear followed immediately by blender. Try a practice panel or surface if you can to get a feel for how the blender works.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

Ex painter here. You need at least half a panel to do a good blend on the base coat unless the color match is exceptional. Clear the entire panel. Yes you can solvent blend the clear but this is best done on narrow areas like a window or door pillar. Also there is a ton of technique involved.

That - there is a ton of technique involved - is becoming increasingly obvious

I dont mind trying this though. I am not looking for perfection, I'd just like it to be less obvious from 3 feet than it is.

I have painted cars and learned from a friend who owns a body shop. It’s an art and frankly, body shops don’t get paid enough. Collision repair, usually people do C or B- work and send it on its way. If you are restoring a car, or want A quality work, the level of talent and time are 10times more than B work.

First, it’s difficult to paint and not see a tape line. You need to find a bend in the body panel, or simply paint the whole panel. Now, there is a catch. With base coat/ clear coat paints, you can paint the damage area, but you will need to clear the entire panel to avoid the paint line. On the color paint, don’t tape that. You want to paint the damaged area, and mist the paint (blend) Into the rest of the paint on the panel. It’s hard to trick the eye. You need to know what you can and can’t get away with. There is also a trick when taping, you can roll the tape up into a long straw. Then, stick the tape down. When you paint up to the tape, it will blend at the tape when it’s rolled up.

If you just need to clear cost, you can use 800 grit sandpaper, or a scotch bridge pad. When your painting color, you need to sand with 400 or 600 grit before applying paint color. Clean is the name of the game. Make sure to use pre-clean and tack rags. Otherwise, you’ll spray clear coat over dirt and dust and lock it into your paint job. I have found they taking lots of time looking over the paint color for any flaws, and sanding the flaws with 800, then misting paint on the sanded area works well. Paint color dries quickly. Wait 10 min or so, then check the paint. Make sure there are no flaws. Then tack rag and then clear coat.

Also, realize using spray cans won’t get you the results that a paint gun setup will. Gun quality matters.