Rock chip repair

[Maybe Magpie]

Hi all. I have a bunch of rock chipping, some down to bare metal, and there's a bit of surface rust. I have rust converter and one of those fiberglass surface prep pens and color-matched paint and microbrushes and masking tape and such. I daily my car and I'm not going for anything concours perfect, but I want it to look a little better for the E30 picnic and arrest further corrosion. Aside from the converter and pen and such, as well as making sure things are clean as I can get them beforehand, any advice or tips or should I just do the best I can? Is there a primer good for this application that won't require a nightmare of masking or overspray, something I can blot on maybe?



I also got my lip back on since I took these, but yeah. All the local body shops kinda waffled around or insisted I'd need a much bigger repaint. I know that'd be a more long term solution, thing is as much as I'd love a full glass-out paint job I just don't have that kind of money for cosmetics anytime soon, but I DO want to stop that rust before it worsens.

Open to advice.

[strickland]

I have a similar issue on my wife’s car right now.

You do need to get rid of the rust, I can tell you from experience. If you just go over it with paint, the rust will grow & the spot comes back in a new way.

My DIY plan is to sand & fill in the chips with a paint match, then hopefully buff it smooth. Then DIY clear the whole panel or even the whole car.

[Maybe Magpie]

I have a similar issue on my wife’s car right now.

You do need to get rid of the rust, I can tell you from experience. If you just go over it with paint, the rust will grow & the spot comes back in a new way.

My DIY plan is to sand & fill in the chips with a paint match, then hopefully buff it smooth. Then DIY clear the whole panel or even the whole car.

Yep, well aware. I have one of these suckers as mentioned for exact reason, along with some liquid evapo-rust for good measure. Open to any other suggestions aside from that and sandpaper of varying grits, etc? I'm uncertain of technique for the smaller areas with the sandpaper, thus the fiber abrasive pen. Someday I'll probably have to cave and respray the car, and while I won't be heartbroken if I must I'd still rather avoid that big of a rabbit hole for as long as is reasonable. I don't think it's justified just yet, but even doing single panels invites domino effect of matching-induced madness. Is there anything good primer-wise you intend on using that you can apply in little spots you've gotten the rust off of? I know surface prep is important even at that scale. I also know it's generally wise to get a little farther past the edges of the visible corrosion to catch anything metastisizing, but I wasn't sure how far that actually is, in practice.

I suppose I'm just paranoid of making things worse and looking for tips on how to not do that, aside from being thorough in general.