I have a question or two for the paint and body guys out there. When I bought the bike, it had been dropped and has a very shallow egg sized depression in the side of the tank. The paint is scratched in five places down to the metal. The edges of the scratches are rough to the touch and there is significant fine line, shallow scratching over the area of the depression. The bike is black.

I purchased the primer, base color, and clear coat pens but have never had the nerve to use them and have the area covered up with a reflective decal of the Texas flag (My fellow native Texans, you may replace your hats and have a seat now).

Is possible to use a progression of finer sandpaper to remove the rough edges and not remove the clear coat in the adjacent area?

If so, what grits? Followed by rubbing compound?

Has anyone used the paint pens with any success?

Thanks in advance. I am not looking to make it a show piece, just to repair the damaged paint without causing any more.

Good hunting

I totally agree with JOG, stop any rust in it's tracks!

As for the effectiveness of touch up paint pens, they are truely meant for small scratches and scrapes. An egg sized area is a good size, it would take alot of time and work to use a touch up pen and get anywhere near stock paint results. It will be even more difficult if it's the Pearl Nebular Black  instead of standard black.  Touch up pens are $15 if you want to do it on the cheap and still have it look good I would go for a rattle can for $33 and spray the entire tank after addressing the damage  

For prepping the area sanding, filling the shallow egg area and such, there are many videos on youtube to help walk you through, if you've never done it before it's deffinately better to see how it's done then just get an explination.