Finally got a chance to go over my Crossfire. Things look pretty good but, the previous owner must of used arthritic, blind monkeys to touch up several scratches. There is more touchup paint around the scratches than in them. Anyone know a way to remove the excess without damaging the good paint under it. If I can get the excess off I can do a much better touchup.

 

You could try this LANGKA Paint Chip and Scratch Repair . I've used it and it does take fairly fresh touch up paint off without damaging the factory paint but I don't know how we'll it might work on older cured touch up paint

 

What kind of success did you have with this product?

 

Believe it or not this works
if it is a scratch fill it in with a syringe,with a very fine needle, 50/50 paint and clear
to fill in a chip, mix 50/50 your car's car color and clear, put a nice rounded drop in the chip hole,now wait 24 hours in the Florida sun. more time if not in Florida sun., now

take a new razor blade ,wrap 1/2" masking on each side, leaving about 1/2" blade in the center,,
now scrape the scratch that or chip, until the excess paint is even in height with the factory paint,
with a polishing compound ,polish it lightly then use a good polish and then wax,, you should now not be able to find where the chip/scrach was
jim

 

Not bad, depending on the nature of the damage.
The idea is to touch up the spots you're after without being very neat - sort of the opposite of what you would normally do - then use the product to remove excess paint once it's had a few hours to dry but before it's fully cured. It works best on small stone chips and scratches that have fairly well-defined sharp margins. You wipe the product across the surface trying to take the touch up paint off while leaving the little that you need behind in the recess of the scratch. Waste of time on wide shallow scratches since you just end up pulling all the paint out of the recess. Once the paint has cured, a little polish & buff to finish and it can look OK. It's potentially a handy trick to have up your sleeve but it's not going to work in all situations.
It might not work for the OP if the touch up job is fully cured since it relies on softening or partially dissolving the blob of paint before it's cured, but it might be worth a try before getting more aggressive.
I used it on rock chips on the hood of my black PT Cruiser that had exposed the light gray primer underneath, so just about anything black would have been an improvement over the rash of white-ish spots.

 

That sounds like a decent procedure for fresh scratches but the OP wants to remove excess paint from a previous botched job.

 

I had a scratch about 1" long that was filled in with a small brush, about a year later my painter showed me this on that scratch and a few chips it works,,,first ti removes the old higher than stocj paint then you fill in and do it again. i cannot do as good job as my painter but the ones i did look good where my painter's look perfect. jim

 

Rubbing compound, dual action polisher and a lot of caution, checking often. Iam repainting mine for the same reason, badly botched repair of multiple chips by dealer. I had it off to install EC heat exchanger so I decided to repaint.

 

I went to a Chrysler dealer whose body shop I have used a number of times, showed him the spots and asked what the best way to remove the touch up paint. He proceeds to remove 90% of the touch up paint with his thumb nail. He then tells of of his guys to bring him a shop towel and some lacquer thinner. He wrapped the shop towel around the tip of his forefinger and wet just the very tip with the thinner. He then with very little pressure began rubbing just the area with the touch up paint and it came off very quickly and cleanly right down to the bare scratch.

A couple of tips that he shared, When scrapping with your thumb nail push forward, do not pull backward. the reason is that as you push your nail forward your nail has more give and will prevent you from scrapping off good paint.

The second tip pertains to the use of the lacquer thinner. Only use it if you are sure the paint on the vehicle is original factory paint. If the area has been repainted there is a better chance that the thinner will harm the finish. Use the smallest amount of thinner as possible and just enough pressure to remove the bad paint. One more thing, change to a clean part of your rag if it gums up with a lot of paint.

I came home and went to work, it worked great. I got all the sloppy nicks cleaned up and touched up with great results. To give you an idea of what a crappy job was done, there were three spots on the hood about the diameter of a pencil eraser. When I scrapped them with my finger nail the actual nick was the size of a ball point pen tip. I didn't even have to retouch them.

 

What did you use to retouch the scratches? Pics?

 

Just went to Pep Boys and bought a bottle of the touchup paint with ball point pen and brush lid. After I did this I was wishing I had taken before and after pics. The largest was about a two inch long and a 1/4 inch wide scratch with a small ding located just below the side strakes on the driver side. For that one I used the brush that came with the bottle. For most of the others I use a very small tipped artist brush that I have had for a few years. I think I paid about $10.00 for that brush but it is one of the best automotive investments you can make if you can not stand nicks or chips. It's been raining all day around but I will try and get a few pics the next couple days.