When I bought my car it had a scratch on it - about 3cm long and 1 mm wide and the primer was showing. I said to the salesman that a respray of the panel would be needed. "Nah", he said, "it will buff out". When I collected the car there was no trace of the scratch and it hadn't been resprayed so how did they get rid of it? "Buffing" to me just means polishing so what did they actually do to get rid of the scratch? In case it's relevant the car is finished in Moondust Silver.

[quote name='IMW' post='48087' date='Nov 3 2009, 09:45 AM']When I bought my car it had a scratch on it - about 3cm long and 1 mm wide and the primer was showing. I said to the salesman that a respray of the panel would be needed. "Nah", he said, "it will buff out". When I collected the car there was no trace of the scratch and it hadn't been resprayed so how did they get rid of it? "Buffing" to me just means polishing so what did they actually do to get rid of the scratch? In case it's relevant the car is finished in Moondust Silver.[/quote]

Hi mate,

They would have wet flatted it with a 3000grade paper, then buffed it out.

The scratch "should" not come back out, unless it was not done fully.

All the best
Nick

[quote name='focusmarsh' post='48239' date='Nov 4 2009, 11:36 AM']Hi mate,

They would have wet flatted it with a 3000grade paper, then buffed it out.

The scratch "should" not come back out, unless it was not done fully.

All the best
Nick[/quote]

Thanks Nick, but the point was that the scratch had removed the paint. No amount of flatting would put back the paint so how did "buffing" do it?

[quote name='IMW' post='48400' date='Nov 5 2009, 05:45 PM']Thanks Nick, but the point was that the scratch had removed the paint. No amount of flatting would put back the paint so how did "buffing" do it?[/quote]

simple SMart repair.. or the old marker pen trick haha!

Not quite a scratch, but i am sure it is pretty much the same, a great guide too!
[url="http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=20127&highlight=scratch+removal"]http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/show...scratch+removal[/url]

Hiya,

as already mentioned its most likely a smart repair of some kind, I do many scratch touch ups such as this, and particularly with Silver you can make them considerably better.

Touching up the scratch correctly would be building the paint up above the original paint, and once it has fully cured, the touch up can be wet flatted out very carefully with the correct wet flat paper, of course this will leave flat paint with no shine, so a machine with the correct pad and polish combination is used to return the gloss of the paint, and leaving the scratch almost invisible