Technical

The mirror finish and painted car brigade may wish to abandon reading the post at this point.

As is inevitable our cars will pick up scratches and combat marks along the way. Today's was self inflicted by being careless, I put a scratch on the mudguard with a piece of metal I was moving. I have also used this method for dealing with grit and stone marks.

If it's a scratch and not a ding or gouge, you can use a polished bar of steel, in this case a round of tool steel. Clean the area and roll the scratch to push material back into it and smooth out the surface. Don't go mad as you can end up making it bumpy.

Once you have it rolled smooth, so your finger nail doesn't catch a burr, move onto polishing it. This will take out some of the marks from rolling. My preference is for a matted finish over the car as it's easier to maintain and as marks appear they become character ... Ah-hemmm ...

To keep the matted finish once polished I take a paper towel, get rubbing it on the car elsewhere to pickup some dust, not dirt and apply WD40 to towel. Now use this to matt in the polished area and get an even finish that matches the rest of the car. The mark is still there, but far less visible and won't hold dirt. Sorry the picture has too much glare and still needs a bit more blending or just let it matt further over time. Takes about 10 mins to deal with a scratch like this.

This picture is inside and you can see the scratch about mid photo, but nothing like it was. I have a small English wheel I can use for bigger dings, but so far have not needed it thankfully.

See, I told you this wasn't for the "Ooh Shiny" brigade, or I love my paintwork.... This works for me, it won't work on flat surfaces unless you use a ball bearing to roll the scratch and you will depress the surface a little.