Soul red 41v touch up. Lessons learned

Technical Area Cleaning & Detailing
1
  1. My model of MX-5 is: RF launch edition
  2. I’m based near: north herts
  3. I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: just sharing what I’ve learnt

Hi all. I recently touched in a number of minor stone chips on my soul red (41v) ND

To practice and try different techniques I bought a scrap fuel filler cap in soul red on eBay for £10 and the proceeded to Chuck stones at it. The XIII was wax pen that was on there from scrap dealer which I left alone.

image
image3024×4032 2.72 MB

I then tried a bunch of different techniques using the Mazda touch up paint which includes a water based base coat and a tinted laquer, After a lot of trial and error I got the following results.

image
image3024×4032 2.84 MB

I’d highly recommend getting a bit of scrap in right colour to practice on. But here is what I felt worked best.

  • use a fine paint brush apply little at a time let it dry and use the supplied damp felt pad if you go over the chip edge. Personally I didn’t find it helpful to blob it on above the chip as shown in instructions

  • as it’s water based rubbing off with damp pad can just get you back to square one as it sometimes picks up the paint inside the chip but I found it made a huge difference and was great at removing any paint which went over onto existing paint so would recommend using it

  • do a few layers of base until you feel you are pretty close to the top of the chip. As you apply use fine tip to catch any edges that seems to reflect light at bad angles

  • with the base coat is basically a free hit as it can easily be wiped off with damp felt tip pretty much regardless of drying time as far as I could tell. In terms of drying times I actually found sticking to around 20-30mins or so was fine between coats and for wiping off any paint that went over the edges of chip

  • finally use the tinted top coat. In my experience and from some of the existing repairs by previous owners the tinted top coat has a tendency to go darker than the existing finish and can look rubbish. I found the best way to control this was one thin fine coat. Don’t bubble it. Also I found tipping the tinted pot upside down and holding it upside down for a few seconds before reverting to upright and using made a huge difference to tint colour and brought it more in line with the existing paint.

  • finally allow to dry and polish (i used bilt hamber auto balm )

I found the larger scratches much harder to get the perfect match with top coat and they did come out darker on my scrap piece so I’ll keep practicing and post back if I find any solutions. After watching YouTube videos I did try using fine sandpaper to smooth chips etc but it was in my opinion too hard to control and I got as good if not better results with the approach listed above

Hope this helps if anyone else has any tips : techniques I’d love to hear them.

19 Likes
2

Really useful, thanks for sharing.

Steve

3

Thanks for this. I have a lot of chips on my bonnet and I have the same kit.
I’ve only tried it once, and found exactly the same poor results you describe by following the instructions.

I will have another go when both spare time and favourable weather coincide - which may take a while!

4

No problem, I should have said when using the felt tip I generally gave it a couple of squirts of water from a spray bottle and then just dabbed it on cloth so it wasn’t wet just lightly damp

5

Another recommendation for Mazda’s Soul Red touch up paint from me too.

I followed exactly the same process.

To give you an idea what this touch put paint is capable of, I went from this:

1000003637
10000036371920×933 56.4 KB

To this:

1000003638
10000036381920×933 133 KB

I was elated :+1:

5 Likes
6

Your original post inspired my own touch up journey - thanks!

1 Like
7

Has anyone considered getting a clear wrap on the bonnet to protect the paint?

Not sure if this is viable, but if it is an affordable option, it would likely mitigate any re-occurance.

Cheers, D

8

I’ve not used the Mazda one, but if you mix the lacquer and paint together and then apply with a cocktail staick in lots (and lots) of thin coats you get a really good finish.
For larger areas such as the nose cone, I usually just do a few coats with a fine artist brush and then break out the 1500 grit and then 2000 grit wet and dry. Then machine polish with the DA.
With 1500

Nose Before
Nose Before640×480 67.6 KB

After
Nose
Nose640×480 85 KB

If you only want to do a few small chips with wet and dry, another great tip is to hole punch the paper and then stick it on the blunt end of a pencil, you then have a very small sanding block that you can just rotate.
Be warned though, fixing stone chips can be addictive. Always consult your other half to get approval for the hours you will spend :innocent:

1 Like