silviaz

Yeahhhh, the costs have killed me. Spent more than the cost of an engine rebuild and it most mostly servicing and a tune lol.

I am probably calling this too early but I think I found what part of my problem is. I have a couple of dents that are fairly close to each other and I tried to fix them individually. Recently I put one larger coat across all the dents and sanded it and for the first time ever it's all even except for the edge where the bare metal is, I just need to put some putty there. I'm ordering some better longer blocks that are more flexible. Other good news is that the other repairs on my panel are flat even with the guidecoat. It's these 2 dents which are an absolute c*nt l lol.

Yeah been doing it in an x shape. Do you reckon it's worth putting guide coat early where the filler isn't sanded down completely smooth? Reason I ask is because as I'm sanding it one part might be level which I don't need to sand anymore but the other part might be high so I can just focus on that instead of sanding across the whole repair area. I wonder if the putty is too thin, though the area is almost completely smooth before I do it as I've already put filler prior.

So I ran into the same problem. I got stuck in the cycle of again of putting putty sanding it, putting putty sanding it, because of a low spot. And notice my block is not completely flat with the panel, even though it's a long block. My panel is slightly curved. Is this an issue? Do I need something that matches the door perfectly, or no? I do have the smaller flexible block that covers the width of the repair just not the length, I was experimenting with it again to but seems to be the same issue

You weren't kidding about the long block, what a difference it made!! I fixed every dent almost and all of them except for one and it feels 100% smooth on the others! I just need to fix one up and put some guide coat. Thanks a lot, that was game changing and time saving.

Ok got you.

This makes a lot of sense! I just had that realisation a few minutes ago and wrote it above haha. This is a good new discovery. "Sanding the side of the hill" perfect way to put it. 😂 😂

This is probably what's happened to me. I'll put filler again on my repairs and use the long block and let you know how I go. Fingers crossed it's my last batch of filler lol. I can see that happening where my block dipped at certain points because it didn't cover all the high spots at the same time if that makes sense. I'm just trying to visualise the fact that with the large sanding block I will be sanding far away from the central dent area and whether that will cause issues or whether that's going to fether out my repairs better.

Thanks for all that info. I thought I heard that the size of the block should be the same size as the repair or is that wrong? Though I do have some long blocks which I can use for the dents in the middle of the panel. The issue is with the ones at the edge of the door and near the grooves.

Mine's a bit bigger at 70x150mm roughly. The spots are flat, just can feel the edges if I dig my nail into it. I did fix some other other ones by both using my finger to sand that small spot (I'm a bit wary of doing this and creating hot spots and a bigger mess) and I also did sand over it flat and others, but this also worried me a bit because if I create an overall low spot on the panel on paint that is good. Correct me if I'm wrong but as long as it's flat even if I can feel the edges, I can put filler because it will all be level once I sand it? I can see myself going in a circle after sanding guidecoat with 320 grit if for example the panel is flat with my hand but because I sanded the guidecoat I could have created a low spot again somewhere. Unless where I'm going wrong is what I mentioned previously where I didn't go low enough on the grits. It's 1 step forward and 2 step backwards here haha. I'll probably need to experiment with it more. Last time I go back to bare metal lol.

Just a standard sanding block size. With the rock chipa they are quite small. I sanded them as you could feel the edges.

I'm having a problem. I think it was mentioned above somewhere but can't see it. I'm stuck in the cycle of, sand, filler, low spot again, put filler, sand, low spot again, now i put filler again and a thicker portion which seems to have helped but I got low spots in other areas. In the image. Circled in red thats where the original low spot was and the shape is the same as the red out line. I've more or less fixed that (still low spot up the top but now I have low spots where the green circled part is. Is likely the issue that I didn't start with a course sand paper? I sanded the filler with 240 to reduce the risk of not going to far but maybe the issue is that I'm only taking off enough material to remove some of the filler but not the high spots. I now started sanding with 120 and I think I'm seeing a difference. I did fix one dent the other 2 are f**ked and seems like I made another low spot which is indicated by the furthest green circle on the left handside. Any thoughts and solutions? Also second image. All of these rock chips, can they be filled in with primer or do i need to fill them all with filler/putty? So many rock chips on mine lol.

I just realised why you go to bare metal on some sections of the repair after sanding the filler, because those crowns are high spots, they are being sanded before where the actual dent is. Simple but interesting stuff. I was thinking of starting a new thread, similar to "my build" but more my sanding/respray progress. I can post my progress and mistakes that people can learn from. Providing some value to the forum for once haha.

Yeah. Just sanding that high spot until it's flat with the surrounding panel feels lazy to be honest haha but it's a lot simpler to do. I was wondering why I had a wavy panel after the filler and why it went away when I decided to randomly start sanding it away, then I learned about the crown. This is that repair, as you can see the guide coat is still in there so I put more filler, which either will fix the problem or I will realise that the other filler might have been gone just had the high spot which wasn't fixed. It's at least 90% better though. Before I did the repair it was a decent sized dent. I thought about getting my orbital sander and just sanding in 1 spot to get that high spot low as opposed to going outside the panel, then block sanding it the rest so I don't go too far with the orbital sander. This sounds good in theory but we all know how these jobs go 😂

Yeah I got some before photos I'll show after it's all done and some bodywork progress stuff. But there's plenty of panels to fix so even if I forgot, plenty of before photos coming up 🤣

Ah the car is a complete shitbox and not even worth a respray lol, for a professional to do it would probably cost 15k because of all of the dings and stufd but I was keen for a side project. Also solved the problem of being bored haha. But with the rust yeah I can always fix that in the future, not a huge issue for me. I found out yesterday that when a dent is created a high spot is created around it (the crown) and to fix it I either need to tap the edges or just sand over it. Which is what made my filler work a bit confusing originally lol.

Thanks for the info breakdown there. I put some body filler today for the first time, surprisingly it went decently smooth lol. I got the ratio correct both times when I did it, and the dent I had is at least 90% better. I put a guide coat and saw lots of black residue left so I'm putting another batch of putty which I'll need to sand off. A few dents I fixed up and checked with the guide coat and they were perfect, no black residue left over. Making progress! Only thing was after I fixed one spot, I put the epoxy primer to prevent rust. Though, I ran out of time for this other dent that I put filler for, I just put filler instead of the primer first. Raining tomorrow, hopefully the rust doesn't start to set it lol.

Above you mentioned you only need to sand primer if there's an issue with it but with fillers it says the surface needs to be sanded to X grit beforehand. Does that sorta contradict that point as the primer hasn't been sanded yet? At the same time if I sand the primer, there's a good chance I'll expose the bare metal and I'm just chasing my tail at that point. Or I'll just use a sand sponge instead of sandpaper, it seems to be far finer in terms of abrasiveness as opposed to sandpaper. From what I understand, filler is like primer and needs scratches from the sandpaper to help it adhere to the panel. I realised the way I'm doing things is actually a bit counter productive as there's a chance after I put filler I will need to put epoxy primer again as opposed to putting the filler first and potentially no primer if I don't go to bare metal. Will keep this in my mind for the rest of my repairs.

Luckily I didn't put in etch primer as I just found out it's not compatible with my body filler lol. Also just need to sand the panel anywhere between 150-400 grit so I'm in the clear there. It does say to not apply to soft old paint, I assume that means paint that is flaking, peeling,etc

Yep will do, thanks for all the help.

Yep I will use a guide coat after putting filler, I will do it on the whole panel as I'm a beginner so chances I've made quite a few errors. In that photo, I think that was a low spot, I just for example said to pretend it's flat but I will put filler + guide coat after to assess where I'm at. Yep with that picture, the panel is wet as it rained when I took the photo. But all those scratches are completely smooth, I went over it with 240 grit and can't feel it, even with my nail digging into it. I was legit thinking to buy a 2k can and spray primer to see how it turns out but then thought to myself it's going to be a mess doing it haha. Good mention there. Thanks for all that info I think I know what to do next.

Yeah definitely won't. I just thought because this was a quick job, I didn't need more gear even my mask wasn't a proper one but going forward I will use the proper gear. Cheers for that additional info.

Sorry I reuploaded now.

A question. So I've attached some images, the red circled ones are where I put 2-3 coats of epoxy primer to protect it from rust. For the purpose of this example let's pretend I won't put body filler there because it's straight and will put 2k primer 3 coats after it's all done. And the last image the paint looks terrible because my paint/clearcoat was all blistered but the scratches are completely smooth and sanded down (I also plan to prime this entire panel) My question is - If I put 2k primer over all those repairs that you see from all 3 images, do I need to sand it because it might show in the paint or should it be fine as it's all smooth and sanded down?

Ah ok makes sense, thanks for that clarification it helps a lot. My PPE was terrible recently, I sprayed a can of primer on a panel and the wind blew and I didn't have safety goggles and the mist went in my eye. Didn't take the wind into account, good lesson learned though lol. I guess if I want to be extra careful I can always scuff the whole panel before putting primer like the other videos are doing.