How to Fix Missing Paint on Toys

A little bit of touchup paint can make an old toy new again.

Missing paint on your child's toy can make it seem dull and uninteresting. It's a fact of life that children like to play with toys that are shiny and new. This leaves you with two options: Do you buy your child a new replacement toy, or do you purchase a little touchup paint and fix up the toy yourself? The answer, of course, is obvious.

Things You'll Need

• Latex-based house paint
• 400-grit sandpaper
• Spray-on adhesion promoter
• Paintbrush
• 1000-grit sandpaper
• Automotive polishing compound
• Clean rag

Instructions

1. Take a sample of the toy's paint to your local paint store, and match the color to a paint chip, attending to whether the paint on the toy has a gloss or matte finish. Have the paint store mix up a pint of the paint for use as touchup paint.

2. Sand the painted surface of the toy using the 400-grit sandpaper to remove excess loose paint and to prepare the surface for the new paint. If the toy is plastic, you must be careful not to allow the sandpaper to fray the plastic. This happens when you press too hard while sanding and causes strings of plastic to pull off of the toy.

3. Spray the surface to be touched up with a light dusting of adhesion promoter spray. This step is necessary on plastic parts to ensure proper cohesion of the touchup paint to the toy. On metal toys, adhesion promoter is not necessary.

4. Apply the touchup paint to the toy using smooth brush strokes, and then allow the paint to dry completely.

5. Sand the painted surface lightly with 1000-grit sandpaper to smooth out the brush strokes if necessary. Follow this up by lightly rubbing the paint with automotive polishing compound on a clean rag to match the texture of the touchup paint to the toy's original paint.

References

• "How to Restore Classic Toy Cars, Trucks, Tractors, and Airplanes"; Dennis David; 2003
• "How to Repair Plastic Bodywork"; Kurt Lammon; 2009