Blending adjoining panels is the most successful paint refinishing method to obtain a perfect colour match despite having carried out numerous spray out test cards.
Due to the variety of spraying techniques from different paint technicians, it’s really difficult to obtain a perfect colour match of a metallic or pearlescent colour without blending the adjoining panels due to the metallic aluminium content found in most metallic and pearlescent colours because trying to replicate a robotic factory finish with a conventional spray gun is humanly impossible, therefore; it’s strongly recommended that all adjoining panels are blended (also commonly described as surface paint) purely for colour matching purposes. There are some cases where solid colours like Reds, Whites, Blues and Blacks also require blending (these are know as clear over base or solid colour basecoat)…….below is a Red Golf (LY3D) that was only a front bumper repair paint which required blending to both front wings due to the number of variants available and as you can see the colour is a perfect match.
Below are the few steps being carried out demonstaring the blending process application from spot repairs/primer to base coat and clear coat applications, finished off with a special blending product (in this case Glasurit 352-500 Spot Blender) which requires very minimal machine polishing: