Most collision repair today requires only the damage area to be refinished with some blending on the adjacent panels. The most important factor in section refinishing is color matching and texture. Color matching is the painters most challenging aspect of refinishing. The colors we have today are so complex with pearls, metallics, toners and transparencies, a painter may spend hours working on a perfect color match. Most good painters will use what we call spray panels to finalize their formula before spraying. A painter will take a heavy paper panel or plastic panel and spray their final tinted color match to these test panels. They will select a part ( maybe the damaged fender etc) from the vehicle, clean and place in direct sunlight. The test panel will be sprayed and placed next to the original color from the vehicle and tested for color match. If a painter has achieved a perfect match we are ready to spray. Now the fun begins.
