has anyone painted their own car?

chaos254

Founding Member
Jul 27, 2002
467
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29
NJ
Just curious to see if anyone here painted their own car and how it came out? I was thinking about attempting this myself since I'm home for the summer and have the time to do it. I know its a ****load of work but I'd be saving myself a lot of money.
 
oh oh oh I did it... Had help from a body shop. It is a lot of hard work and unless you dont have someone helping you that knows what they are doing... I wouldnt suggest doing it. I'm tired so if you have any questions I'll answer them tomorrow.
 
I just blacked out my engine bay and it was a lot of work just for that. I am very particular and flaws get on my nerves! :mad: I wet sanded the heck out of it to get it right and the whole job took me 2 days and maybe 12 hours in total. Prep sanding to bare metal, primer coating, paint, wet sanding to get out flaws and orange peel, then clear coat and another wet sand to smooth it out. Major PITA but it looks spectacular! :nice:
I could not imagine painting my whole car, I guess that's why my car spent 3 weeks in the shop when it was painted. It's a lot of work! :D
If you paint your car I would prob recmd you putting on some Rolling Stones and singing.."Tiiime.... is on my side, yes it is".
 
my front bumper is pretty bad so I was thinking about trying to paint that first. If it goes well I'll do the rest of my car. There is already a bra on my car because the front bumper looks like **** :(. So even if I do mess it up, no one will be able to see it. The previous owner decided to spray the bumpers. The paint matches really good but I guess he forgot to add the flexable stuff for bumpers. Oh well! I'm going to get some books on it and ask this guy I know that did his 66 gto(looks awesome). I'm pretty sure I can do all the prep work but the spraying(base/clearcoat) kinda scare me. lol
 
here are some pics...my rear bumper/rear quater is the worst. Tried squeezing throw my buddies truck and this tree at night but didn't realize he had this tailgate down lol. The waves in the bumper are from the previous owners half ass paintwork...
 
supposvly(sp?) theres a place round where i live that you can rent out for $50 and you get the booth and all the equipment except for paint. my freind did it with his civic and it came out pretty good. eventually im going to try that because i like doing things myself and i think it would be cool to tell people that you did it yourself. my paint's fine for now except for all the friggin dings.