Can a newbie paint their own car?

suggestion

I would suggest finding a local technical school and taking a bodby shop or painting class...

Maybe even you can supply your car for the class and attend the class...I have heard of people doing that...

Ron

Purchase the "How to Paint Your Mustang Book" as it is very helpful. It can be done, just need to make sure your paint area is very clean. Don't cheap out on the sprayer either, it needs to be of high quality to do a good job. Good luck.

anyone can paint his car....

What it looks like afterwards is what makes a difference. You would be better off going to sprayglo or maaco or earl scheib. You are going to get the same quality there as if you, as a newb, did it yourself.

Paint isnt cheap either. I just bought some paint for my car...paint, clear, pearl....$700. Thats JUST for paint, clear, and pearl.

I painted mine, though I had a little prior experience. Maaco or Earl Sheib will probably do a better job than the average first timer, but if you want the experience of doing it yourself, and think you'll want to do more in the future, you gotta get some practice. Definately look into a community college auto body class. I took one when I did mine and it was well worth the small cost of tuition.

The preparation is the largest part of doing a successful paint job anyway. I am planning on doing my first paint job when the 67 coupe is ready, but I am priming and painting the inside of the floor pans etc first to see how well it turns out. If you are stripping yours down and doing the whole car, do the inside of the floors etc as if you were doing the outside to see how nice it turns out, if not, buy a sheet of metal or something and a small amount of paint to test your ability.

You get what you pay for and you should only expect certain levels of quality depending on the paint material uality, stripping, bodywork, etc. that's done. For instance, I would never waste a minute of my time on discussin paint or body work until I had the car stripped. 30-40 years hides A LOT. Be prepaired and have your wallet ready. You will not understand the real scope of what MUST, CAN, or SHOULD be done until you can see the metal. There may be areas in the body that look perfectly fine but once your below the surface...BOOM you need 2 new floor pans, a fender, and a door. Not to mention valances, etc.

As a point of reference I put $9000 into body and paint. It's a great job, IPG paint, certified tech applied all the trimmings....It's at least that much away again from being "show quality". Choose your color wisely. Darks look great but as a general rule the bodywork and color sanding (all by hand) doubles, at least when you go from a dark (black) to light (white) color. Much of my cost is in finishing. I wanted NO orange peel and deep color/light pearl and enough clear to see China. My paint is off-white in color and I believe he did 4 coats and color sanded every one of them.

for a point of reference. My friend graduated the top of his class for auto body and custom body work. He is doing me a 'favor' by doing all of the body work, some custom work and painting my car.

Materials for the car...ie...sand paper, body filler, bondo, fiberglass, some block sanders, resin...etc etc...came to $600. JUST for supplies.

Paint: paint, pearl, and clear....an additional $700.

Other materials and tools: about $250

So...thats an easy $1500 in just materials. We have spent approximately 55 hours in just body work on the car.

We found some unexpected spots that needed extra care. It was free for us to repair it, but a body shop would have charged a few hundred dollars.

A lot of body shops wont even do a wet sanding or color sanding after they paint.

Good luck

You can paint your own car with a little practise and basic understanding of the process. Macco and Earl do good applications. Consider the amount of paint they apply. Is anyone more practiced?