Car Bodyshop
Location: Nottingham
So we thought we’d put these few pics on to give people a better understanding of what is involved in the most simple of bumper scuff repairs.
This sort of repair is the easiest and most simple car body repair type that we get into the workshop but yet still involves a process that has to be followed professionally in order to get a good result.
Firstly we need to clean the repair area with a solvent based cleaner this removes surface contamination and also prolongs the useful life of our abrasives as the discs don’t clog with dirt.
Secondly we will sand the area starting with 80 and 180 grit sanding discs finishing off with 320g.
If there’s no filler work to be done we can go straight to priming the repair area.
The car needs to be masked to avoid primer overspray.
Once the primer has been applied and baked hard we can sand that with a mix of 320g and smoother 600g discs.
The repair is now complete and nearly ready for paint so now we place the car into the spray booth and outline the area to be painted with masking tape.
Protective plastic sheeting is then placed over the whole car and the area we have earlier outlined with tape (the repaired area) is the only part of the car bodywork left showing.
We are now nearly ready for paint so whilst one team member cleans again the area to be painted we can go ahead and mix the paint.
Many cars have the paint code somewhere on the bodywork but Scratchmaster also have two Spectro cameras that we can use to determine the very best paint match.
With the paint mixed and filtered into one of our Sata spray guns we can now start painting.
The painter will begin by applying light 'dust coats' of our water based paint drying each coat thoroughly before applying the next.
When the repair area is covered then the painter will use his experience to blend away the concentrated colour so that the colour change will not be visible to the eye.
When we are happy with the colour blended from new to old then we mix a clear lacquer with hardener and apply two generous coats to protect the colour coat.
After baking in the booth the repair should now be good as new.
Hopefully this helps give an idea of what is involved in a bumper scuff repair and when all the drying times for the different parts of the process are included you can see that there's a fair bit involved.
Typically we effect a bumper scuff repair and get the car back to the customer in around a day and a half.
