subject: Easy Stone Chip Repairs [print this page] Easy Stone Chip Repairs Easy Stone Chip Repairs
Stone chips are an unavoidable type of Car Body Damage that we can all do without. They are usually caused when an object in the road is flicked up by the car in front's rear tyres that throws the piece of debris up in the air and towards the car following behind. The resulting impact can take off small chunks of the paint and lacquer from front end panels like the bonnet, bumper and front wings and sometimes can be a heavy enough impact that can take the paint off down to the bare metal. If these Stone Chips are not treated and repaired they can soon turn in to rust from which a more costly car body repair will be needed.
Stone chips can only be repaired 100% by having the effected panel resprayed, this can be carried out by a body shop an accident repair centre or a Mobile Car Body Repair service. This obviously will cost a fair amount of money (more for a body shop and accident repair centre than a mobile car body repair service); an alternative to respraying the panel is to touch in the stone chips. Touching in the stone chips is a lot easier than it sounds and a lot cheaper than having the panel resprayed. I mean let's face it if you have the panel resprayed by one of the services mentioned above you could drive down the road and get more stone chip damage, it just seems a waste of money, the best bet would be to touch in the stone chips for its relatively inexpensive and can be used time and again.
First you will need to clean the stone chip with some alcohol based cleaner to remove any dirt, grit or silicone which may be in the stone chip. By doing this you will give the paint the best chance to adhere to the car body work.
Next buy some of the cars paint; you can get this in touch up kits supplied by the manufacture or by any good automotive parts suppliers. Don't use the brush supplied for it is usually to wide and cumbersome to use for intricate stone chip repairs. Use an artist brush to apply a small amount of paint to the stone chip it's a lot more accurate than the one supplied. Let the paint dry and reapply the paint again, follow this process until the paint is just below the car body surface.
Next once the paint has fully dried use a different artist brush and apply the lacquer which is included in your touch up kit. Apply the lacquer till its level with the paints surface and leave to dry.
Once the lacquer has dried polish up the stone chip, this will level off the lacquer and give a flatter look
