At times your Honda Amaze will receive a gouge or dent which is too small to validate the expenses of any full body shop repairs, but big enough to just ignore. You can easily cut your repair cost by doing body work yourself.
The body filler has a bad blow, but if used correctly, then it can lead to a well done repairing. There’s not any body shop that doesn’t utilize body filler. In old days, the body filler was created of lead, but resulting loss of reproductive acuity and brain cells sent the usage of this materials packing. Except for a few holdovers, the body filler is plastic resin which is sandable, adheres quite well to metals, and lasts long time.
So, here is how to use body filler properly to repair dent of your Honda Amaze. The key ingredient that you’ll need is lots of patience. A rushed repair never ends in a nicely done job. Take your time fully and you’ll see great results.
What All Will You Need:
- sandpaper – 400 grit, 220 grit, 150 grit dry/wet
- body filler
- flexible plastic spreader
- rigid plastic spreader
- spot and glazing putty
- automotive primer
- and patience, patience, patience!
Ensure to block out some hours (at least) in order to do a complete repair. It’s difficult to stop in middle without risking the screw-up.
Step 1:
Before you fill your Amaze dent(s), you’ll need to first remove its paint. Body fillers don’t stick well on paint, so you’ll need to completely sand it down. For this, you can utilize a heavy grit sandpaper like 150-grit. You wish to get the whole paint off the dent fast, and you’ll then be smoothing things, anyway.
Although your dent might be a couple of inch long only, you’ll have to remove out a little more paint. At least 3 inch beyond dent is needed. So you’ll have to take at least 6 inch of paint off your Amaze. Later, you’ll see a few small circles on its surface. Sometimes it’s an excellent idea, particularly if you’re dealing with numerous dents, to mark location of the damages so you’ll know where to easily focus your repair.
Step 2:
Body filler is two-part epoxy which you’ve to blend yourself. You add up a creme hardener to base filler, which begins a reaction to easily harden the filler. Filler will harden quite quickly, allowing for lesser than 5 minutes working time.
You can mix this hardener on any clean thing. Just remember, it’ll be less or more ruined afterwards. A neat reusable filler batcher tends to be a plastic frisbee. This filler won’t just stick to plastic, therefore when you’re done, pop old filler cleanly outside.
Follow directions given on the filler’s can to mix proper quantity of hardener with the filler. Mix these two using a firm plastic spreader. Don’t just forget you’ve a limited time of working after you mix it!
Step 3:
Remember, after you’ve mixed the body filler, you’ve less than 5 min to get it onto the damaged area completely. Use a very flexible plastic spreader to spread filler in area of 3 inches out of the real damage. You’ll require the additional space to smooth and feather hardened filler properly. You’ll be sanding any ugliness away once the body filler hardens.
After the filler has hardened completely — the time will differ by temperature, brand of body filler used and humidity, check the box and you’re ready to begin sanding. With the sandpaper wrapped around the sanding block, start sanding filler using a 150-grit sandpaper. Now, sand evenly and lightly over the whole surface of repair with wide circular strokes. When the body filler is quite close to smoothness, switch to 220-grit and continue till it’s even. Take time!
Step 4:
Spot putty is other version of body filler, but much easier and finer to sand. It just doesn’t needs to be mixed well and can be directly applied from the tube into the repair. Spot putty fills into any tiny impression in the filler. Now, smooth spot putty across repairing surface with plastic spreader. It then dries faster than body filler, but ensure that you give it sufficient time before you start to sand it.
Step 5:
Using 400-grits sandpaper, evenly and lightly sand spot putty away. Then sand it all flat and you will be left with tiny amounts of spot putty only remaining in the gaps and small scratches. These may appear minute, but even smallest flaw will come in the paint.
Step 6:
To further protect your repair of dent in your Honda Amaze, you’ll spray the whole surface with primer/sealer. Mask an area off around the repairing to avoid getting the paint on trim or non-painted areas. Apply the spray’s primer in light and even coats. Three lighter coats are much better than one heavier coat.
Step 7:
Allow the primer’s coat to dry, remove your paper and masking tape. To smooth repaired areas for painting, you’ll make use of the 400 grit dry/wet sandpaper, but for this time you will have to wet sand your repair. Fill a bottle of spray with clean water to spray the repairing area and sandpaper. If you just don’t have any spray bottle, you then can use whatever way you can in order to keep paper and repair areas wet. Smooth the sand primer using a back and forth movement. When you start to see old paint show up through the primer, then you’ve gone quite far. If you sand too much primer away, you can witness the metal again, and you’ll need to re-sand and re-prime.
You’ve now repaired your Honda Amaze dents successfully! Well, almost. It requires to be painted still. While you can purchase touch up paint as a spray can available at automotive stores, but they pretty much sucks. Paint is best when left to any professional. With all money you save doing the repair by yourself, you can easily afford to properly have it painted.