(First posted on MX5 nutz forum in January 2016)

Time for some paint correction.  The paint has quite a few little untidy areas which let the car down a bit on close inspection so I have done little bits here and there to try and improve it.

The paint is a bit out of the ordinary as I think it should all be a solid green base colour all over with no lacquer.  But at some point in it’s life it’s been lacquered which is a bit of  a pain really as it’d be easier to correct all over if it were just the original paint.  It also looks like some defects in the original paint have been lacquered over so there’s no way to get at them for correction without stripping the lacquer. It’s not too bad really I’m just really fussy and look too closely. I can’t help it.  

Anyhow the passenger door looks like it may have been repainted and whoever flat and polished the lacquer got a bit carried away and cut through to the base colour which is why it looked like this.  I had a go at blending a new coat of lacquer over the area.

Started with some wet and dry to help blend the new and old and give a key.

a few light layers of lacquer

flating with some wet and dry. still needs more…

now a polish to bring up the shine

all done

not perfect but a million times better.

pretty much the same thing on the side where there were some bad scratches

The front bumper had also had a bit of a mischief at some point so I did a similar thing with lacquer where some of the lacquer had cracked and lifted off.

There was also holes and a large line of damage where the number plate holder was originally.  This really stood out looking at the front so I had a go at just filling the holes, smoothing, painting with some touch up and finally polishing.  Now you only really notice it if you get up close.

I’d already put some touch up green on it in this pic just to make it look a bit better when i first got it. Originally it was just the black plastic which really stood out.

bit of filler

sharp blade to trim the filler back flush

rubbed down ready for some paint

After some paint and a polish. Not perfect but you just don’t notice it when standing in front of the car now when it was staring you in the face before.

Slowly improving it’s overall look without really spending much or getting too fussy as I don’t want to make it too special then not want to use it like the other cars!