Welcome to 2CarPros.
First, body work is truly an art. It isn't easy to maintain the body lines and hide repairs. In this case, most body shops will want to repaint or at least reclear the entire panel.
In so many words, you would need to sand the paint off at the damage and feather the paint off away from the damage. Once you have steel showing, you need to use a body filler and fill the crease. At that point, you start sanding with different grits of sandpaper until you can no longer see the damage, feel the putty line where it joins the are not needing repaired, and everything matches the original body line. This may take several attempts applying putty, sanding, and over. Often times a shop will use a thin type of putty as a final coat to eliminate any imperfections. I have heard of a final coat called icing.
Once it is smooth and ready to paint, clean the area with a clean lint free cloth using the same paint remover used for painting or a general purpose paint thinner and prime the surface. I would suggest 3 or 4 thin coats. Allow to dry over night and lightly wet sand with 1000 grit.
Clean and dry the surface and apply the base coat over the area you sanded. Put at least three coats on and allow it to dry over night. Next, sand the area about 10 inches beyond the new paint with 1000 grit, just to remove the shine. The clear over the new section feathering it into the area you sanded lightly and no further. Don't use tape to end the painted area because it will leave a ridge.
Allow the clear to dry for 24 hours and then with 1500 grit, wet sand the entire area. Remove any imperfections and take any shine off. Do not sand through the new paint. Clean the area and buff with a quality polishing compound to bring back the shine and blend the two sections back together.
Listen, that is a very general description. I am a mechanic who has done body and paint work, but I am not a professional painter. I just wanted to give you an idea of what was involved. As you can see it isn't a 10 minute job. If this was a small dent, I would suggest a company that does paintless dent repair, but since this is a crease, it won't work.
Let me know if you have other questions.
Take care,
Joe
Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 AT 4:21 PM
