All:

OK so my lil' silver '98 Civic beater has a few dings in her. The deepest ones are rusting. One is a circle smaller than a dime and the others are these bizarre, perfectly straight scratches no longer than 3-4inches each on the roof (looks like Wolverine gave it a brush with his claws).

A friend once told me to use clear regular nail polish on them just to prevent further rusting, which I have done. I'm still on the fence about keeping this car past one more year. If I do, a full paint job is in her future (among many other things).

In the meantime, is there anything MORE I can about the rust?

Thanks!

IMO, sand down the rusted area, and the area right around it.

Mask off the area around the "scar"

Hit it with some primer. Let it dry.

Throw a coat or two of a closely matching silver spray paint over it. 2-3 coats.

Remove mask, wet sand the edges.

Maybe clear coat that area

Buff

Sanding is the order of the day.

sounds like i have a project ahead of me! rookie question: is there one specific type of sandpaper? grit?

thanks!

It depends on the severity of your rust.

Off the top of my head, for rust, I want to say to go with the lowest grit of wet sandpaper possible (which is somewhere around 220). Make sure it's WET sandpaper. I think you can get it at wal-mart. The wet stuff is normally black.

Take a bucket of water with you, and keep dipping the sandpaper into it to keep it wet. This prevents the sandpaper from filling up with paint, so it lasts a lot longer and is more effective.

Make sure you primer it as SOON as you get all of the rust off and dry it.