Can anyone suggest a painter to do some minor touch-ups on my car? I’m in Pittsburgh, so Akron, Cleveland,Youngstown areas are also fairly convenient. I have a few spots where paint has chipped and would like to have them repaired while avoiding “project creep” that leads to entire panels being painted. Looking for a trusted craftsman!
Anybody--and I mean any body shop, paint shop, etc. can handle minor paint chips and those little bits of road rash. You can even do it yourself with many of the tools out there and touch up paint. Look in any of the auto magazines and you'll see ads for Dr. Color Chip, Automotive Touchup and probably a few more. Many of the better detail shops will use these and other similar tools to touch up these minor paint blemishes.
There's a good reason for what you call "project creep". Now, touching up little specks of road rash and paint chips is one thing...but even small areas of paint/body repair almost necessitate re-sprays of larger areas. Certain colors, including metallics and red, almost necessitate this approach. In 2011, I had a minor repair on the right upper fender. That necessitated the respray of the entire front clip and hood, and careful blending so that you don't know there was ever a repair. They did a spectacular job. Then in 2019-2021 I had my driver's door replaced (putting a proper 280SL door onto my 280SL and removing the old 230SL door) and that necessitated nearly the same painting protocol. Nobody--and I mean NOBODY can tell what was painted or not; yes they are that good...
...which is why AlexD's 250SL, which was T-Boned in a horrific crash last year here in North Carolina, is at
Motorwerks Group in Commerce Township (outside of Detroit) Michigan. These guys KNOW the Pagodas. They have been the only place doing any kind of work on my car in the past 20 years. Alex had all the mechanical repairs done locally by
Max Scroggs at A Better Wrench in Chapel Hill, NC...but when it came to the body work, his car was shipped to Michigan.