Restoring a Paint Job

[av405]

I recently bought an older Lindberg Crown Victoria police car. The car was built back around 1999 and the original builder did a great job with the model. Well-painted, highly detailed - it's evident that the kit was built by someone with skill and experience. However, when I got it last weekend, it was dusty and some parts had fallen off. I went ahead and carefully wiped away the dust and grime with a slightly wet piece of cloth. It helped the model a lot and it set the template for improvements I can make. However, there is the issue of the paint job. The car is a black and white but the black paint has slightly "deteriorated" in some places, mostly due to what I can only call improper storage:

 

 

I'm sorry if my pictures aren't great. My photography/lighting skills aren't up to par and all I have is a camera phone. Overall, the paint job still remains in decent condition and I want to keep the car as-is, paint wise, without doing a rebuild. I'm mostly doing touch-ups. However, the hood and trunk are problematic. I don't know what kind of markings are in the pictures but they aren't lines that are coming off just with a quick wash. All I know is that part of the issue with the hood is that a sale sticker was placed on it for a long time and some of the residue still remains.

Any help would be appreciated. 

Edited July 17, 2015 by av405

[angelo7]

How about some car polish?  

[Snake45]

I would just do some sanding of the damaged areas, mask the white areas off, and repaint the black. Be glad it's black and not something hard to match like candy red or something.

[av405]

The problem is that there are decals over certain areas of the black paint. Might a polish help out? As Angel posted, that's more of I was leaning towards, although I've never polished out a car.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The black is pretty uniformly orange-peeled from not-great painting technique. Local 'polishing' of just the spotty areas (I assume these are the things you want to get rid of) will leave you with shiny spots where you polished, as the polishing operation will level the orange peel somewhat. There's really no way to locally repair a textured surface (by "textured" in this case, I mean the orange peel) without it being at least as noticeable as just leaving it alone.

[av405]

So essentially my only choice is to polish out the problem areas and leave a uniformly orange-peel surface?

[MrObsessive]

So essentially my only choice is to polish out the problem areas and leave a uniformly orange-peel surface?

I would leave it as is. From what I can see it appears that the paint is more than just orange peeled......it looks like whatever the original builder used for paint, it "etched" the plastic. That means they used too hot of a paint and it "burned" itself into the plastic.

I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like to me. There's no fixing that other than to strip the whole thing (tough to do with etched plastic), sand down the surface smooth and start over.

If it were mine, I'd enjoy it for what it is and leave it alone.

[av405]

As always, great advice Bill. I didn't mention this earlier, but I actually bought the model from the deceased builder's daughter. I promised that I would restore her father's build and she gave me her contact info to send her pictures after, saying that it would mean a lot to her. So the way I see it, a total rebuild is out of the question.

Paint aside, the original builder did really do a great job with other smaller details. I guess as is the case with many of us, he came up short on the paint. I'll enjoy it for what it is and fix other parts of the car.

As for the sticker residue on the hood, should I just continue to try to gently rub it off with a wet piece of cloth or are there any other suggestions?

[MrObsessive]

In a small unseen area on the body (if that's possible), see if the paint will take rubbing alcohol and not remove or smear it. If it's fine, then I'd try that to get the glue residue off. It works for me when I'm trying to get rid of epoxy smears on windshields I make, so it should work on glue residue.

[av405]

Which have you used? 91%?

[MrObsessive]

Which have you used? 91%?

I've used Isopropyl to take off epoxy residue........

[Ace-Garageguy]

Which have you used? 91%?

I've used Isopropyl to take off epoxy residue........

Isopropyl alcohol comes in two readily available drugstore concentrations...70% and 91%. 

70% makes an effective cleaner. 91% may strip the paint off.

Be careful.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[MrObsessive]

Whoops! I should have been more specific.....my bottle says "70% by volume".

Hope all this helps Alberto!

[av405]

It all does, thank you!