metallic paint - touching up

[cheapdouchebag]

my cars been the victim of a few hit n runs. ok its not that severe, some crazy drivers do not know how to get out of a parking space and end up scraping my cars paint off bit by bit and now as my paintwork wasnt bad, its worse!

ive decided to paint myself to touch it up.
got the tools n needed including a spray gun thats adequate for touching up.

got a question, its a pearl sorta colour B63P harvard blue pearl, so its got that shiney metallic flakes i think, pretty sure it does

ive done some practice work on my computer case, the smoothness with the paint n clear coat looks great!, only problem is, not enough shine, not enough pearly looking like and a bit too dark for touching up.

how can i avoid this
metallic paint being too dark? this cars been out in the sun for nearly 20 years.

[Zilli]

are you using a clearcoat? Metallic paint requires a clearcoat to give it its lustre and protect it...

if you are otuching up small scraped with a spray gun, ensure youve done the correct amount of prep work underneath or else it will all show, and also remember that you need to feather the endge to blend in the new colour. Having said that, there is no amount of feathering that will blend if the colour is completely wrong. Lastly, as it is metallic and required clearcoat, you need to blent the touched up area, then clearcoat the entire panel with the correct prep work...

[cheapdouchebag]

yes i am using a clearcoat to seal the colour coats off. its acrylic.
unless you mean put a clearcoat on as the first base coat that is.
what gritt sandpaper would you recomend with feathering? like lets say for a novice what is the best gritt for a hand-sanding job to get that feathering edges, i rather not use my power tools lol

[Zilli]

nah i was referring to the final top coat. If you are using acrylic, you will probably need to do a cut back as the final stage...

I'd love to hlp you with more detail man, but im not that experienced, i dont want to give you bad advice with the sandpaper etc.