I have a small deep scratch on my tank that needs repairing. My question is, can it be fixed - touched in by a professional sprayer or will the whole tank need a respray? I bought the Ducati decals from ebay in an attempt to try and divert the eye away from the damage but I just have trouble living with it. So any ideas will be most welcome. Thanks, Mark.
If it is metallic silver, which is what it looks like, it may be possible to undertake a local repair and then relacquer the whole tank. Many will have a different opinion and it's hard to say without seeing the damage in the flesh. It would be best to go to someone you feel confident in dealing that undertakes refinishing and ask their opinion. Some will be willing to spot repair, which might take longer, whereas others will just want to completely respray the tank.
Silver is a damn difficult colour to touch up......... I have a similar scratch on my red tank which I have tried to deal with by using touch up paint and a small brush....I put a thin coat into the scratch and left it to dry for a day or so, then I repeated it several times until it was proud of the original finsh.....left it to dry for a week after the last coat and then got a tiny cube of wood and wrapped some fine cloth around it. Then added T-Cut to the cloth and gently went to work.......... .......it still shows.
My Red tank is undergoing a repair as we speak from my jacket zip scoring it. If it hasn't gone right through then they might be able to do a local repair. Mine has gone through the clear and just into the colour but not to the base coat. I think the painter called it a hot mask or something similar, where they heat the existing paint to make it soft and they add fresh to the heated area. Because the paint is soft the new stuff soaks into it leaving no visible signs it was done. Mine is costing £60 with me doing some of the prep work (removing fuel cap/fuel and tank pad)
the scratches are pretty deep by the look of it, and blending it in might need the decal removing to do a proper job. As Al said, matching metal flake is a bit of a bitch as the metallic particles all fall a certain way when being sprayed, and you'll not be able to replicate that. If you took it to a sprayer he might well say respray the top of the tank as he should be able to blend off the sides as the light falls on those panels differently. if you're up for a bit of DIY then you'd need to sand the area so that its bigger than the scratched area. then locally spray colour providing you haven't busted through the primer layers, and then apply two passes of laquer. Theres some stuff called blending thinners you can use to help you blend off the edges of the laquer to lose it as much as possible. If you go down the touch up stick route, again sand delicately and then dribble the touch up colour. then when that's dry flat with 1000 till flush as then apply some laquer. the 1000 hopefully will mean that you don't bust through the existing clear and into the base colour. - but you will probably spot it as there's only so much that they'll hide. Spoonz' hot mask sounds pretty neat, might be worth seeing if they can do it for your tank.
