Plastic dip hood?

[RMcG]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

Sure. The idea of feathering the basecoat is to create a gradient that blends the color over a distance so that the change in color (there will be one as the paint is never a perfect match) becomes unnoticeable. You an do this by pulling the can away as you reach the end of your pass, or you can roll the can away from being perpendicular to the panel by twisting or flicking your wrist. You are essentially applying lots of paint at the area of damage and fading away (applying paint more thinly the farther you get from the damage). Once you have adequately covered (created your gradient), you mist the gradient.This will give a more uniform finish and the metallics will line up better.

So in summary, you don't paint to the edge of any panel, but blend over a distance. Now, you will clear coat the entire panel, otherwise you will have a different texture and reflectivity. Wet sanding and polishing the clear coat - especially with a high quality product such as SprayMax - will result in great gloss and depth.

Here is a video. I was mistaken earlier as I did not do what is technically an orientation coat. I did what I referred to as misting the panel. Because spray can spray patterns are much narrower than a spray gun, the paint is more prone to striping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fvSA27QrWI

Thank you 06YarisRS,

You have truly inspired me (as has the entire forum many times). I think what I am going to do is to start out by plasti-dipping the large areas, like the roof and do some of the paint work on the smaller areas. That way I will get more experience with the painting process, which is less reversible than plasti-dip. Eventually I will remove the plasti-dip, fix the hail-induced pock marks and paint the larger areas when I have more time and experience with paint.

Unfortunately, I am pretty busy, and plasti-dip will give me some protection through the upcoming winter, is removable, and does not require as much prep or work as the more permanent solution of paint.

As you have correctly noted, there are natural boundary lines between the roof (and some other areas) and the rest of the car, so I do not necessarily have to have a match in color between those areas and the remainder of the car. In fact, I may use different plasti-dip colors. Some of the areas, however, lend themselves much more naturally to being painted with a color matched to the original color.

I'll also use the wipe on product recommended tmontague to protect the older painted areas.

Thanks again,

R.