As some of you are aware, I had a good respray job done on my car. The bodywork, particularly on the bodykit, however, is still some distance away from perfection, and although the spray painting shop had promised to fix them at another visit, I was too lazy to go back for a follow up.

By chance I happened to come across a shop that provides dent and scratch repair as one of their speciality. They have offered their service, and it is just a half-day job. Seeing a few cars (an audi TT, a vintage mini and an alfa) in their shop going through some minor and major “surgery”, I thought why not, and it might well be another option for the brothers here in the future.

The cleaniness and the setup of the workshop impressed me that it is also another reason why I decided to let them take up the job.

The workshop has the machine that formulates the paint.

My sideskirt in its worst shape, notice the blemishes on the edge, due to overspray of paint on the sealant :`(

The first job is to remove the blemishes by scratching off the overspray.

The craftman will feel the surface for any uneveness or roughness, to assess any further prep work required

He then use the fibreglass material to fill the edge of the sideskirts. My request was very simple “Just get it done nicely” and the craftman decided that he will integrate my sideskirt with my car lower body like original.

With the fibreglass material filled, the sideskirts were also wet-sanded to remove the clearcoat and paint.

He then proceed with putty over the fibreglass filling, before wet-sanding it again.

Finally, the craftman put on the last coat of putty, supposedly the finest grain polybest material, so that the surface will be smooth for the paint job.

And before the paint job begins, the sideskirts are wet-sanded once more to ensure the surface is ready for painting.

Then comes the “most” important part of the preparation work just before the spray painting. The folks are masking out parts of the body so that they will not be stained with the new paint. Because the craftman has decided to create an integrated look, he has to paint not just the sideskirt, but partially on the lower part of car body (including the door sill area) in order to have the clean look. I thought it was a big paint job, quite drastic just for a “sideskirt blemish repair” but the craftman told me, “Ai Zai!”

Before proceeding for the last step, i.e. the paint spraying, the craftman formulates the paint according to my paint code, and despite a machinery-formulated paint job, the guy did not take any chance of color-mismatch, and carried out visual check.

And the craftman doing the last preparatory work, ensuring that the spray-gun is in top-notch condition!

Now came the fun part, and is actually the easiest part, or at least it seemed to be. It looked easy, but not without a steady hand, and 30 years of spray-painting experience.

1st coat of paint …

2nd coat of paint …

and finally another 2 coats of clear-coat.

The “easiest” part is over, and now … before calling the day, the craftman needs to do abit of wetsanding and polishing to ensure that the new paint blends well with existing paint work. Bearing in mind that the whole work is not just on the sideskirt, but blending it with the rest of the car body, that covers the door steps and the fender ends.

And finally, the work after a half-day effort.

Overall, I was very pleased with the result. It might well be an easy job from the result, but it certainly didn't look like it when I see through the whole process. The numerous steps of putty, wet-sanding, painting, shows the level of details the craftman actually went through, and taking pride in his job. And he definitely treats the whole job, just like any other job assigned to him, like an art, and not just any ordinary paint work.

As I was so amazed at the outcome, I have actually extended the work the very next day to customise my front projektzwo front lip spoiler .. and part II will come very shortly

Part II continues

and the story continues …

the sideskirt repair made my front spoiler looks like a dirt!

so I brought my car in the next day, and again, the request was simple — “Just repair it” Well, back in my mind, I was planning for a full projektzwo customisation, but I decided to hold back that thoughts. Hence, I term this as baby step to full customisation project.

My projektzwo front lip spoiler in its worst shape …

Without further hesitation, the craftman decides to do a stage-1 1-piece bumper. And here's the end result

At the end of the day, my satisfaction level jump up easily by three-folds, and all the results pave the possible next steps for a full customisation of projektzwo front bumper … just like this one

Big thumbs up to the folks in Advance Scratch Master.

To round up the story …

While I was there, I saw an alfa 147 GTA zooming into the shop.

Owner stepped out, in his well-ironed shirt and pants, disclaimed *in hokkien* “Uncle, my sideskirt has a dent and scratch caused by my wife's heel!”

The master went over to assess the damage, and confidently declared, “It's a small job, but I will not just paint that small spot”

From where I was standing, I looked over, and I pondered to myself … If he is not going to just paint over that small little patch, which by the way, is less than a 5c coin in size, does it mean that he is going to spray the entire sideskirt, and how expensive the repair work will be?

The Alfa owner, without any hestitation, agreed to what the master has proposed, and give green light to work on the dent and scratch immediately.

Speaking to the Alfa owner, he told me that he is a regular patron to the shop, and always come whenever there is a scratch or a dent on his car. As a matter of fact, he drove all the way from Jurong to Paya Ubi, just to have a less than 5 cent coin-size dent & scratch repaired. Either he's nuts, or this master is really somebody! I told myself …

Without further delays, I see the master quickly patch up the dent, alot of wet-sanding on the damage area, and the area where he was supposed to spray a coat of paint over. With careful masking of the car body, he spray-paint on the damage area and intelligently expand the painting area that's bounded by some contour angle, instead of the entire side skirt.

When the paint was dried, some wet-sanding was done again to “join & blend” the new paint coat and the existing paint body seamlessly. A polish on the painted and wet-sanded area, complete the job finally, and it is just within 3 hours.

and the cost, $50 for a sideskirt repair, where the sideskirt looks like new, as if it's fully repainted.

The whole process just further re-impressed me that the people are really skilled to do the job that has high demand from their customers. In such a high demanding environment, they were able to stay focus and passionate of their works, shows how serious they are in satisfying all their walk-in customers.

My takeaway is this is one rare spray-painting business who's willing to invest in equipment and technology, while at the same time, harness on their people's skill and experience to create a work that's called an art, not a painted car body panel. Let's hope they will continue to drive in such good spirit and business philosophy as they settle in their new place at Kim Chuan road.

Author note: Author does not have any commerical interest in the said commercial entity, readers are advised to make their own judgment when making plan to transact deals with the entity concerned. Authors will not be at all liable for any costs or damages inflicted due to individual's own judgemental decisions.

Advance Scratch Master
53 Paya Ubi Industrial Park
Ubi Ave 1
#05-15
Singapore 408934

Call Yong @ 67471531