How take care of scratches in aluminum prior to paint

I want to paint my instrument panel and have made a couple of scratches on it while cutting out the holes.

Does anyone out there know how to smooth these over before painting?

I thought a touch of sandpaper and then some body filler and sand smooth, any thoughts?

Dave

If painting aluminum, it will need a lot more than a touch of sandpaper. I would start out with, a cross hatch pattern with 320 wet with a block, then scrub the heck out of it with a maron scotch brite, then clean with dawn and water, prime with a two part epoxy primer before it oxidizes, then wet block sand that with 320 then 400. I did this process to an entire airplane, and that's just the primer part

dave4754 said:

I want to paint my instrument panel and have made a couple of scratches on it while cutting out the holes.

Does anyone out there know how to smooth these over before painting?

I thought a touch of sandpaper and then some body filler and sand smooth, any thoughts?

Dave

Click to expand...

That's what I did when a new panel I was making for my 170 slipped while clamped to the drill press table, and the hole saw cut a gouge adjacent to one of the holes. A little body putty and sandpaper/schotchbrite worked fine. The only downside was that I had to paint the panel instead of black anodize it as originally planned.