Paint and Body Fox Body Painting 101

Ok, these will be quick notes with pictures to illustrate the painting process my car goes through.

Blew out all of the dust and wiped all the areas I tape to with a damp cloth first to ensure the tape adheres.

Half way done, lots of holes still to plug!

Ok, got time to add.

I can't tell you how important it is to blow the dust out of every nook and cranny before you mask. If you don't do this prior to masking, it'll blow out during your paint job and that sucks really, really bad.

Using a damp, clean cloth to wipe the areas that you will be attaching tape to is important since if your tape releases during you paint job, you'll have overspray that you'll have to deal with plus have an opening that will allow dirt and contaminants to leap upon your pretty paint work.

BTW. I actually use a water based wax and grease remover to clean these areas. It helps to remove contaminants that could lead to fish eyes in your paint job.

A point, there are two types of wax and grease remover, water and solvent based. I use the water based primarily at work for cleaning plastic parts since it doesn't add to a static build up on the part. If you use a solvent based cleaner on a plastic, it will build up a static charge, big deal you say? A static build up will attract dirt floating in the air like in the powder coating process. More dirt, more time buffing or in a bad case, repainting.

When you are masking, understand what you want masked off in the area you're going to paint. If it is a more challenging mask job, just start with what seems logical to build on to. In this case, the obvious first choice is to plog all of those little holes. Even though I took out a bazillion of them in the smoothing, there were still bunches to mask off.

I then went to sitting in the engine bay masking what needed to be covered. I obviously wouldn't want to mask something that would require me to remove part of that masking so I could properly mask another. I know this sounds obvious, but after years of teaching helpers to paint, it just isn't.

Many times when I'm painting a vehicle at work, it will take me longer to mask a vehicle than it does to paint it. Don't hatchet out your masking job. You want your paint job to appear seamless. Just take your time and make sure all tape is pressed down, and all areas that you don't want paint on are completely covered.

If you have to hardline an edge, try to do that in an area that will be hidden by mouldings, seals or other attaching things that can cover the line up.

BTW, if you have questions about what I'm doing in each step and why I'm doing whatever, ask me.

Boosted92LX said:

Beat me to it... What gives?

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I already painted it the body color when I originally shot the engine bay, it doesn't have any problems, so I won't reshoot it. It was shot the correct color prior to the snafu with the wrong color on the body.

It's masked, getting ready to wax and grease remove....then Funtime!

Ok, addition time.

Wax and grease remover can be applied in mainly two ways, either spray it on the surface(which I do), or wet down a clean cloth with the remover and wipe the surface with it.

Try not to W&G too large of an area at a time, pick sections about 2 square feet at a time. After applying the W&G, you will need to wipe the area with a clean dry cloth to remove the W&G. The remover lifts contaminants off of the surface and makes them float on top of the wet surface. You will want to keep wiping the surface and turning your cloth until the surface is completely dry, as long as it is wet, it still is lifting the contaminants.

I use lint free paper towels to do this process.

I didn't point out my next step because I was needing to keep moving along on my paint job, but the next thing you really need to do is called blow tacking. Using a tack rag and a hand air blower, I blow the surface with LIGHT air pressure and immediately follow using the tack rag in my other hand to wipe the area I just blew over.

Side note on tack rags. When you take out your tack rag from the plastic bag it comes in, the first thing you should do is to unfold it completely. This allows the tack rag to do what it was made for. If you don't do this, the rag stays too tight to pick up the small dirt particals that ARE on the surface you are preparing to paint.

I have found Crystal Premium tack rags are the best to use. It is what I use everyday. And one tack rag is usually sufficient for a complete paint job. If you intend to keep you tack rag to shoot various parts of your paint job at another time, put it in a ziplock baggy to keep from dust from settling on it. Other tack rags will work though, I just prefer Crystal and in particular, their premium tack clothes.

After you have blown tacked your vehicle, mix the paint, and immediately prior to spraying, retack your car without the air this time. When you blow tack your car, some of the dirt will float into the air and resettle back on to you vehicle. Most of it falls to the floor, but some will resettle, so go to a new place on your rag by refolding it, and wipe the surface one last time prior to spraying.

There you go, sealer. Who wants to guess why I'm using a green colored sealer?
Red pearls will cover quicker over a green surface than a gray. If you don't have availability to a colored sealer, grey will work

Oddly enough, the green sealer works against a solid red. Not really sure why, I haven't given it enough thought, I just know through practical experience what works.

Don't get a crazy bright green sealer, it needs to be grayish green like you see in the picture.

It is important to learn the color wheel in picking out your color. There are three primary colors, red, blue and yellow, and three secondary colors, purple, green and orange.

When you are trying to describe to a jobber (company that sells paint and painting products) what the color you would like, it helps narrower the choices down if you can tell them if it's a reddish blue, or a greenish blue, blueish red, or a yellowish red, etc....

Sealer is important for a couple reasons beyond just helping with the coverage of your color.

Sealer provides adhesion to the sanded surface better than just applying base over the surface. Sealers catalyzes on the surface, so, since you have sanded the surface to provide the mechanical adhesion, which would you think would hold better, a product that will harden into the scoring you provided by sanding the surface, or the one that dries on the surface? This is another reason that modern polyeurethane coatings are vastly superior to old lacquer paint jobs. They are far more durable.

Sealer also provides a "padded" surface that your base will bond to. Think about the carpeting in you home. You have padding under it for two reasons, one, it's just softer and two, it keeps the carpet from taking the brunt of the abrasions to it by passing the force through to the padding, so it doesn't wear out as quickly.

Downside to sealer, it provides another layer that will have orange peel on it, orange peel compounds with each layer. If you are painting a show car, you might consider not using a sealer, or add extra reducer to allow it to flow flatter. Keep in mind if you add more than the recommended amount in, it will be less thick and will be more prone to run.

I didn't seal my entire paint job, primarily the area I put in the new panels. And with a red pearl, to help,with coverage. It would have taken MANY more coats to cover without that coating. It took four coats of red to cover with the sealer. It would have taken 10-12 coats without it.

Remember, without sealer, you will have to prepare your surface with a finer grit sandpaper than you would with the use of sealer.

So, generally speaking, try to pick a sealer color close to the value (lighter or darker) of the color you have chosen. If you only have values in shades of grey, pick the relative value closest to your color, black sealer for a black color, white sealer for a white color. Varying shades of grey closest to the value of your color. I have found irregardless of the paint system being used, it is preferable to pick a value for you sealer that is just slightly lighter than you color than a darker value.

That's just one coat of red, I hope that helps to understand why I used that green sealer, had this been a solid red, I would have used grey.

Pearl reds seem to like that green color.

RaggedGT said:

Ummmmmm...... 'Cause it will help with the color? Lol

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Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

This is a sun light. It can show if you have covered the surface with enough paint. It cost about $150 for those looking for a new toy. Don't look into the light when it's on. It won't blind you, but you'll be seeing spots for a while.
I have to shut the booth lights off to check, that's why it's dark in this picture. Thought I'd show you how it works
There are some small areas that I need to spray a little in.

Here it is all shiny. Wait till you see this color in the sun!

billison said:

High temp?

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The paint I'm using for the engine bay is just normal refinishing automotive paint. It can handle the heat of the EB, but will cook and blister on a hot area. Definitely not meant for headers or anything like that.

madmike1157 said:

Well there's the difference between my "shiny" and your "shiny".

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I wish I could come paint your car for you Mike.

I think I'm in love with the Monster.....

I have the car blown off and I wiped down where I'll mask, time to get after masking, I'll post again in a couple hours after it's masked.

BTW, this is called back masking, I'll put a piece of paper to fill the hole like the other side. I'm doing basically the same thing with the hatch and door openings.

The car is masked, now to wax and grease remove, then tack and paint...

I'm spraying the stripe grey around the 1/4 windows, the t-top bar, and the cc plates. I had to etch primer the t-top first as it was raw metal, then I sealed it along with the cc plates. Now the grey: