(you can skip the first 2 paragraphs if you don’t care to read how I got to this point)

I’ve been dealing with some funkyness with a ‘glass hood (it’s actually a factory SLP hood that had some problems from the get go and was repainted by the dealer in ’97 and looked good at the time). It looks like a piece of painted masonite that has been absorbing water from the sides along much of the passenger side of the hood. That’s the long term problem which I’m not going to fix right now. I just caused myself a short term problem. Even with the ‘glass weirdness it was a good 10’ car, even at 5’ most people couldn’t spot the problems unless they knew what they were looking for and got the light at just the right angle.

Well, I talked to a few body guys that I knew and they were all pretty much in agreement that the problem was solvent/resin shrinkage making any prep and sub surface stuff show through and were suggesting that I might be able to compound it out enough to hide it.

Well, I started with some really fine swirl remover which made things better at say 10’ but made the blemishes more obvious closer up. FWIW, the paint is super soft, and almost has craters in it where water spots were, some bug impacts…. Anyway, I tried some fine, 3m compound next and all was going well till the bonnet tore and the rubber backing pad hit the paint giving me this (in a low spot):


That is about 6-8” long and maybe ¼ wide. I made it worse since the first little bit that could have been polished out just looked like a bit of overheated compound and I waved the buffer over it again till it was very obvious that something was wrong.

I’m looking for a good, 10’ repair (I realize that I probably won’t completely hide it without repainting the hood, but I’d at least like it not to look totally messed up to everyone walking by). The only good thing about it is that at least it’s in a low spot between the scoop and the high spots by the fenders, that from most angles can’t be seen.

My instinct is to clean up the area, scuff it with a scotch bright and then float some clear coat into that area, maybe even the little touch up stuff with a brush, then gently wet sand it out and polish it up. Is there even a chance that I can pull that off (I’ve done similar repairs on doors and flat areas on hoods, even where they required some color coat, but the softness of the paint that’s already there + the curved surface makes me really nervous)?

The second problem with that idea is that the 2 circled areas in that pic _might_ be just barely exposing the gellcoat (looks lighter and I know that the hood has white gellcoat, the dealer burned through the paint when they did the repairs 9 years ago and I saw it). Is it possible to do this without sanding out the grooves in the pain there, just floating the clear over it and smoothing it out, or will the grooves show?

Would spray with a vignette (soft edge, hand held) mask be a better way of doing it?

Other ideas???

 

Is it urethane base/clear, OEM color code? You mentioned it being rather soft, which seems strange for a urethane. You could probably flow some clear back in but if there's any gelcoat showing that will of course stand out. I just did a spot repair on my car a few weeks ago using the vignette method with an airbrush and it worked great. Doing it right would require feathering out the burn mark though, and it's nerve-wracking putting sandpaper to paint.

A good option if you have OEM color paint might be to get a two-stage stratch repair kit and lightly spray the burn mark with a bit of base, then clear over that. Level it out with 600-1000 grit, hit it with 2000, then buff and polish. The difficult part is that without feathering, basecoat might be applied to shallow portions of the burn mark, which could easily be uncovered again when you colorsand.

Good luck, I know how it feels

 

I don’t know what it is. To give you a complete history, this is my ’97 WS6, which was the one year there weren’t any firehawks and SLP put together the WS6 cars. I’ve had it since new, but the original paint wasn’t right on the hood (you could see the glass fibers through the paint finish, not the texture, but it was like the paint was clear black and you could see the fiberglass chop that they built it out of thorugh the paint), and then the dealer burned through the paint in a few spots during “dealer prep.” After a GREAT BIG hassle (“it’s not a factory/Pontiac part,” “it’s an SLP part, we’re not authorized to touch the SLP stuff, need special permission and procedures from them…”) the dealer “fixed” it, which at one point I was lead to believe was done by SLP refinishing it, at another that it was refinished to SLP’s specs at the body shop…. Either way, the original and this paint is super soft, you just look at it funny and you get a scratch, divot… in it. There are bug impact marks that aren’t chips but look like someone took a pencil eraser while the paint was still curing, pushed it against it and twisted it, there’s a sort of twisted low spot in it… it’s definitely not hard like a normal urethane paint job.

Yea, I realize, that was why I took the time to point it out in the original picture, I’m not sure if that’s gellcoat or just deeper scratches in the base catching more light, I suppose that I could wipe it down with some mineral spirits and it would give me some clue.

By “flow out” are you suggesting with a brush or spray?

Yea, I know about putting paper to paint. I’ve done this 2x before (being **** retentive helps…). Actually, now that I think about it I’ve done it 3x before. I’ve done it with a brush (using one of those duplicolor touch up kits that comes with the base, clear and a little grinding stone and some fine paper) on my wife’s car when it was brand new (I messed up a part of the front corner of the hood, I don’t remember how, about ½” x 2.5” and she put a key scratch in the door about 3” long. Even being a metallic orangy red these came out quite well, you can’t even tell the front of the hood has been touched if you don’t know (I know where it was because the metal flake catches the light ever so slightly differently giving it a _slightly_ more orangy look, but even other similar **** retentive people don’t spot it) and the scratch was only slightly noticeable, mostly because it was so narrow and hard to fill evenly. In both these cases the damage when through the primer and I had to go primer/base/clear… the other 2 cars didn’t turn out as well… one was a larger round spot on a hood on my dad’s car which I did with spray/vignette, perfect metallic texture, no bumps or other BS in the paint, but the base just didn’t match right, and on my truck door that I did a number of small touch ups with both a brush and spray and then fogged spray onto it (the spray base touchups were fine, but the brush base didn’t match right, and the spray clear sort of has an orange peel in it that I just never was able to get rid of… most people didn’t notice so I didn’t bother spending more time on it.

I guess I’m saying I’ve done smaller spots with a brush and great luck, and I’m batting about 50/50 on larger spots and spray, but have never done anything this size (or on black) and don’t know which is a better approach.

Are you suggesting going over the base without leveling the burn mark with fine paper first? That’s sort of my debate… seems to me that’s the safest way, but since the burn is sort of ridged (I’m sure the “ridges” are only a few microns high) I’m worried about how that would turn out. _My instinct_ is to lightly fill the thing with base, then feather it to make sure that there is only base in the damaged area and that eh base is definitely a low spot so when I wet sand the clear out I’m unlikely to sand into the base unless I go entirely too far through the clear anyway.

You said you did this recently with an air brush, what kind of paint did you use? I’m really nervous about the spray vs brush thing, and my previous experience with doing this kind of thing with spray is with spray out of a can…

Man, you can say that again… when I realized what I did I tried to “wipe it off” first, then disgusted with myself I just put everything away and went inside, figured I won’t even say anything for a few days and hope it goes away…

 

You should probably go with the least-invasive route first. That would involve touching up the trouble spots with a little base, flowing clear out into the whole scratch, then wetsanding it down level with the rest of the paint. If you've gotten good results with a brush before, then I don't see why you couldn't get good results again. I'd personally recommend using an airbrush or small paint gun though, because it's the easiest way to get a uniform coating of paint over the area you're trying to fix.

In my case, I recently did a repair on the rear fenderwell lip where some rust had started. I wire-wheeled it down to metal then feathered the paint out a few inches past the trouble area. If you take the route of feathering out the burn mark, primer all the bare parts, then lightly spray the base with a heavy mask extending into the old basecoat, then sand over it to level off the edges where the mask was. Once you've got the old basecoat blended in well, vignette out the clearcoat and knock off all the resulting overspray with light sandpaper. The clearcoat is tricky because it must be sprayed fairly heavily for it to flow out properly, and the areas where it was "feathered-out" will need to be wet sanded back down till it blends in well with the old clearcoat. The wet sanding should also knock off most of the orange-peel as well. The paint I used was urethane base/clear left over from when I repainted the whole car a few years ago, so I knew that it was an exact match. There were no nearby body lines to stop at, so I simply feathered the clearcoat into the middle of the rear quarter panel level with the gas tank door, and wetsanded everything down until it matched. There's no telling there was any kind of repair work done. It's all about making sure the touchup paint you're using matches, fortunately with black paint that should be a bit easier.

 

Hey, 83...
Man, It sounds like the dealer really jerked you around from the getgo.
If they sold you the car, as new, they are required to stand behind it. SLP or no SLP, they are an upfitter, and as such have a responsibility to the car...the customer...and the dealership/automaker. We have a couple van conversion companies that we deal with, and it is no different. Now, it is too late to do anything with that avenue, lets see what we can do with the paint.
FIRST, what color are we talking about? Dark colors lend themselves to a better repair than light colors. Solid colors...better than metallics. Obviously the best repair is to strip and refinish the whole hood, If you can't do this yourself, you're kinda stuck. (Also depending on color...would cost you about 3-500 bux at a shop to fix)
This will go in stages, so be patient. I would get some of the color (basecoat...either from a parts store or bodyshop..) fill the gouge using a fine brush. (A pinstriper's Mack 00 works well for this type of touch up) layer the paint in the gouge, and LET IT DRY. WALK AWAY FROM IT. Now, whether it's an hour or a couple days later, when you come back to it...the basecoat will have shrunk into the scratch...fill it again. Repeat this process until the level of the paint is up to the level of the original finish. (If it is a teeny bit below we will not worry.) Now, at this point you WILL need some clearcoat. (With hardener...see if a local bodyshop will help you here, they may not want to give up any, but you only need a couple ounces.) Mix only small ammounts, I use pop bottle caps. If you mix all of your clear with all of your hardener, it will be ruined. (You only need a couple drops of hardener in the capful of clear).
Use the same method here...fill the scratch. let it sit...fill it again...and again...and again...
Here you want the level of the hardened clear ABOVE the surface of the original finish. We will knock this down by wetsanding. BE VERY CAREFUL. use a hard block to knock the top of the clear edge off. if you are hitting the original finish with the sand paper at this point, you stand a good chance of cutting into the color of the OEM fininsh. Start with 1000 grit and work your way up incrementally to 2000. By the time you get the clear down to the level of the finish, you should be just touching the surrounding paint. Buff and polish.
The important thing is to TAKE YOUR TIME.
good luck, keep us posted.