Dent repair help.

[t-tim44]

There was a dent in the boot of a corsa b i have. Someone had sort of repaired it before but it looked dung so i had a go.

I ground off the suraface rust, old paint, old filler with a sanding wheel on a grinder. Then gave it a rub with p60 paper. Cleaned all the dust and filled the dent with fresh filler. Sanded this down with p60 again, then another layer of filler. Sanded this down with p60, then used p800 to try and get it all smooth (only other paper i had). It looked and felt ok but when i primered and painted it (rattle can) it showed up lots of little scored and pits in the filler.


One thing i've done wrong is i forgot to wet the paper when sanding the filler down so i'm, hoping this is why. Should i grind it all back a bit and do it again? Fill, then sand with p200, then 600? Any advice is appreciated!!

[Gaz86]

you're skipping massive parts of the repair, you should always have the papers you need before starting the job or it will always turn out gash.

I've never heard of anyone wet and drying filler before, I've always stopped at 80 grit when shaping filler, then it's a coat of high build and a guide coat, that's when you start using wet and dry paper to find the defects and correct with either filler or another coat of high build and guide that too, by that stage you should be there if not let someone else do it.

[t-tim44]

is a guide coat just one coat of paint to show up defects?
when all is smooth and ready to paint is there anything to do between paint coats or just let it dry and spray over?

[Gaz86]

guide coat is a thin coat of satin black, literally just a scattering.

depending on what sort of paint it is will determine what you can do between coats, however it's advisable to not touch the paint from first coat to last.

[venom]

1 have you treated panel before filler with rust inhibator
2 fill .flat with p80 degade to 180
3 make sure fat fill pinholes from filler with reface making sure masked off so no over spray gones on car
4 flat with p400
5 high build primer area needed now
6 flat panel with wet/dry p800 . mask for paint
7 put tack coat on first not full coat at first then full coat check when sticky on over spray on masking os now when to put next coate on

hope this help and good look