Quote:

Quick prep question:

I've rolled on the first couple coats, and now see some areas that might require bondo touch up.

Most of them are small - like the size of a quarter or less. Can I just rough up the area with maybe 400 grit and bondo over the paint or do I need to sand back down to primer or to bare metal?

Or just re-prime it and bondo over the primer?

Thanks!



I have heard some folks who have been successful at just scuffing up the paint... laying on the bondo and then working the surface level ( feathering it into the other layers ) and then priming it. BUT that was fully hardened and cured paint.

My fear with relatively fresh paint is that if you simply scuff it up and smear on a spread of bondo over the area to be worked... the catalyst in the bondo will soften the paint - cause it to curl up ( forming an look like elephant skin ) or that it will deactivate the adhesion of the old paint to the lower sub-surface.

So for myself.. I would tend to sand the area to be bondo'd down to at least the primer layer below the paint. But it wouldn't hurt to take it to the metal below the primer. At least this way you will know that it has as good as a chance at adhesion as you can give it.

Nothing could be worst then to reach the final polishing and waxing of a lovely paint job and then find one of these previously worked areas is separating and pulling away from the body - with the paint skin being the only thing 'temporarily' holding it in place.

I say temporarily... because I think we have all seen where paint separates or loses its adhesion and blisters off the car or whatever was being painted.

.