UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

OK I've had a quick look over the board, and at the PDF that Dave Burton posted up, but i'm still lost. I've done some rust treatment on the car - basically taking off all the original paint and primer over and around the rusted area, sanding and cleaning, putting some Kurust on, and then primer/painting over. The new layers are a tiny bit too dark and stand maybe a half millimetre proud of the bodywork (too much primer? i only used as much as needed to get it smooth with no metal showing after sanding...).
This all doesn't bother me *too* much, but one day i'll have to sell it so I would like to try to get rid of the obvious straight edges where it was masked, and blend it in best I can anyway - but I'm worried about doing it wrong and ending up sanding off the good paint on the non-rusted parts of the panel in an attempt to rub it in (whilst ending up with primer showing on the new part and it all looking rubbish).

Anyone got quick tips on it, or just a reassurance that this won't happen and the sanded-off paint will prevent any loss of original stuff?

I'll find the answer in time, but the word of someone on the board who's done it already is always more comforting.

Cheers
-T1

for a start if your paint is metalic, you wont be able to blend the new and old paint by sanding the new paint down, because of the metalic particles. If you give it a couple of weeks, it will be much smoother as the solvents will evapourate.

The only real way you can blend old and new paint is if you "fog" it, which is akward with an areosol, but what it means is that at the edges you spray less paint so that the two colours blend, but of course you cant mask it up.

well its just plain blue paint really..... theres a bit of an edge where it joins but ive tried to pull the mask back & overspray it a little to try and smooth that as much as it can be (not much). too worried about doing too much overspray.. already got some on the bumper that im not sure if i can remove (oh well.. first car.. got to barry it somehow even if trying my best not to )

(most annoying, i got a lovely smooth finish on second to last coat, and then when i put what was going to be the last one on it started raining before it had chance to even dry a little so its rough where drops hit before i covered it - a bit of sanding and another coat hasn't helped much)

hmmmm.....
so feathering is the only way? theres no way that i can try to smooth the one part (new paint) into the other (old) with eg some rubbing compound? because i'm no airbrush expert, i could be there for weeks trying to feather it right and still make a total hash of it. sanding now, im starting to get the hang of *that*..