trentbridge

Jack, Wouldn't think it's a buffer. Likely to be one of the following: a) Using cold paint which has thickened B) Incorrect pressure and/or viscosity too high. c) Using of cheap or the wrong thinners. That's normally the cause of Spiderwebbing/cobwebbing. Buffer marks are usually in the form of swirls.

I think it's a tad unfair to say that SMART repairs are only any good for paintless dent removal. A huge percentage of cars on any dealer forecourt will have been subject to a SMART repair of their paintwork and 99% of the time nobody would know - I have to claim a vested interest because I'm a SMART repairer too. I have to say also that the nature of this game is about meeting expectation. Some guys claim to give a 100% invisible repair. Well, most of the time you can. BUT there are some jobs where you can pick out the repair and you know it before you start, so you either refuse the job or tell the customer what they are going to get. If they're happy with that then fine. If somebody is very proud of their car and are extremely picky then I'll walk away. I may meet their expectation or I may not, but I'd rather not chance it. Most people are aware of what they'll be getting and they'd rather give me £80 or so than £300 to a bodyshop. I've only had one callback all the time I've been doing this and I rectified it as soon as possible. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people aren't aware of what a SMART repair actually is. At a basic level it's a cosmetic improvement. Really, a respray is a cosmetic improvement, after all any work carried out on the body after it leaves the factory is a cosmetic improvement isn't it? It's a dodgy job on the door, looks a bit like too much paint, too close but then again, I'm not sure I'd have fancied the job myself bearing in mind the colour and the position of the damage. He may not necessarily have been a bad technician, maybe a bad day at the office - we all have 'em, but he shouldn't have charged for it afterwards. The e-valet techs should be insured against this type of thing anyway so if you have to, make a claim against it.

Silvers can be a real pain to blend and often there's more than one formula for a particular shade. Some bodyshops who don't have their own mixing facilities, will just order paint to the code number and, if there are different formulations, just stick with 'No. 1'. Generally speaking they won't paint edge-to-edge (that is the whole panel) e.g. if it's a wing, then they would spray the wing and maybe blend into the door, or if it's a bonnet they'd do the bonnet and upper edge of the wings. If it's a couple of doors then they'd probably spray the whole side. A lot of colours 'halo' but silver tends to be the worst, therefore a local repair is a pain in the backside, though some silvers tend to blend in better than others. A blend showing under street lights for example, doesn't mean a 'bad' blend. Often this is simply due to using a different paint to the manufacturer. There are different pigmentations in different manufacturers tinters and they'll show up differently under different lighting conditions. Metallics/pearls in general can be difficult to blend and it is mainly because of the metal flakes/mica particles falling differently to how the original paint was applied. Realistically, it's virtually impossible to spray at the same distance, pressure etc. that was applied in the factory. Reds, I've not (touch wood) had a problem with. Local repairs can work depending on which area of the car they are applied to. Low down you can often get away with it and on contours such as bumper corners, then you don't get a problem. Large flat areas will show up more. Overall a large contributory factor is also who is pulling the trigger on the spraygun and even the best have off days and finally another thing to bear in mind is that everybody sees colour differently, so what is perfectly good to one person can stick out like a sore thumb to another. :)