Paint and Body Fox Body Painting 101

Davedacarpainter said:

I'm not knocking muriatic acid Mike.

You know what you are doing with it and have experience using it. It does work well, but with some conditions.

I got to go searching for some new emojis......

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hoopty5.0 said:

My job here is done.

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madmike1157 said:

You know all you gotta do is google the thing you want and copy/paste it here right?

The last things were obviously copy guarded hence the background surrounding the image. Regardless,...it served to make my point.

M/A is bad sht. splash even a drop on soft skin (forearm/back of hand) and 10 seconds later, its burning. Probably a disaster environmentally,..and when your done with it,....you gotta pull a David Blaine, and hold your breath for a bagillion minutes while you slowly pour that genie back into its bottle.

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84Ttop said:

@Davedacarpainter Thanks for the kind words! I will interject that while a vinyl wrap will cover the car in color it is not a cure all for poor body work. You will see every small imperfection under the wrap in great detail, most people expect the vinyl to cure all and I can assure you that is not the case!
Pictures for reference:
Before- (it was raining when I dropped the car off )

During-

After-

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Davedacarpainter said:

1a. Cleaning and disassembly

Ok, gonna work on your car, huh? You will want to clean the living crap out of it. Why you ask.

Because you won't know what really is there without it. I'm not talking running it through an automatic car wash either. Either in you driveway, or at a self serve car wash, Spend the time to wash EVERYTHING. Power wash up into the wheel tubs, the engine bay, the undercarriage. Take a wash mitt with soap and clean inside the door jambs and rocker/1/4 jambs. Get all of the dirt out.

It is soooo much easier to work on a clean car. Dirt can also hide rust and small dents.

Disassembly, This is up to you. I've worked at shops that want everything torn down, all mouldings off, door handles and lock cylinders out, etc....

But things can be masked up as well. If you have a dent in your roof and only want to paint to the mouldings, that's fine. I suggest that anything that lays tight to a panel be removed for paint. Look at your mouldings, you'll see a small gap between the moulding and the adjoining panels. The mouldings can be masked off without creating a hard paint line that is easily seen.

Now, if you look at my build, you'll see EVERYTHING is off the car. It has been stripped to the bare metal, bodywork done, primered, blocked with 180, primered, blocked with 320, painted the wrong color, blocked with 800 and will be painted the correct color later this week.

It depends how nuts you want to get. My car has all the factory flaws, like around the 1/4 Windows removed. But if you just want to get rid of hail damage, let's say, you won't need to remove the glass and everything else that is attached to the body.

If you have a good body, and just want a refreshed paint job, you don't have to take every panel off. Take a look at @Boosted92LX 's son's car. He didn't remove everything, but it's a stunning beautiful car. Though his choice of masking paper calls in to question his masculinity.

There is another option, wraps. Take a look at @84Ttop 's absolutely beautiful green fox body. It's hot as hell and he didn't have to go through the trouble of painting it. It doesn't cost quite as much as a full paint job, and you get your car back in a week.

So, you will need to decide how far you want to disassemble your ride. If you want my advice for your specific vehicle, just post a question, I will answer.

Show me pictures of what you have, I'll help you. PM me and I can give you my phone number and we can talk through what your vehicle is like. I will need pictures though.

I can cover specific items to disassemble, if you need as well. I'm not a fox body wizard, I've been painting every make and model over the years. I just LOVE the fox body in mustangs.

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Davedacarpainter said:

So, I'm painting my own car starting tomorrow night.

I'll show you how I mask, mix and shoot the car as I go through it.

The prep work is really nice. There's a learning point for you all, you do crappy prep work, no matter how nice you can paint, you'll just end up with a shiny pile of crap.

Since it looks good up to now on my car, the only way for it to get screwed up is for me to be an idiot during paint.

Posting of this will begin tomorrow night, I'll get the engine bay and front cowl area shot.

I'll be shooting the main body Saturday, I can get back into the shop at about 9:00am. It will probably be finished and baking by about 2:00pm.

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Boosted92LX said:

I'll have you know my thriftiness has no bearing on my masculinity!!!

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Davedacarpainter said:

Well, sure.....but did his kilt have a cute paisley pattern on it though? See there @jrichker . The details offer valuable info into a person's nature. @Boosted92LX will have to answer these questions....

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Davedacarpainter said:

I know, I know. Let's just say that I'm a little jealous, okay?

Allen, you're not wearing a dress (I mean a kilt) around that cool workshop, are you?

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