Repairing paint chip

It seems when I"ve tried to go back and repaint specific parts of a tractor, I get dulling on the other areas of the tractor, even though I"ve thrown a tarp loosely over the rest. I thought of covering the entire tractor more tightly with a tarp, and cutting a small hole right at the chipped spot. Is that the way to do this?

I assume I should feather the edges of the chipped area, but do I prime the spot first, or just topcoat?

Suggestions by those who have done this would be very welcome and appreciated.

Paul

The easiest, quickest way would be to use an artists brush and touch up the area with both the epoxy and the color. It would still show but would not be as noticeable as it is now. In order for the repair to not show at all, significantly more work is involved. With this approach the area damaged has to be featheredged and some additional area masked off. By masked, I mean masking tape and paper so that no overspray can possibly get to any place where it is not wanted - at least in the general area of the work. A tarp should be OK for the more remote areas of the tractor. I am not familiar with your particular axle so I can't advise how to mask it. On my AC-B, I'd probably wind up repainting the entire axle for the repair to not show at all. In any event, the repair area needs to extend to some point(s) on the axle that provide a convenient visual break, such as a sharp edge or a joint, that naturally provides a line of demarcation between the old and new. It goes without saying that all paint in the repair area needs to be scuffed also. It sounds to me like such a situation would be ideal for the use of a Preval sprayer - they're cheap enough - rather than firing up a full-sized gun for a relatively small area.

Rod

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. I"ll try the artist brush technique. One thing though, I"ve tried an art brush in the past for bolt heads, and found that I couldn"t get very good coverage - you could almost see right through it, whereas spraying would cover fully in one coat. Is that normal - do you have to go over with many successive coats when you brush urethane on? Using MTK, would it help to leave out the reducer when brushing?

Paul

Below is a chip in MTK that I got at the edge of the hand crank opening on my AC-B. I didn't featheredge anything - just did a brush touchup. The chip didn't go all the way to bare metal but was between the epoxy and the first coat of color. The main chip edge is deep because I used 3 coats of color plus 3 coats of clear originally. Only color on the touchup. The chip is about 1/4" long and was caused by hard pressure of the hand crank against the edge of the opening during cranking. It is very noticeable in this extreme closeup but is not bad when you get about three feet back, such as when you are normally standing and looking down at it. It becomes hard to see unless you are looking closely or know it's there :o).

Paul