tackle my own paint job

Two words: prep work!
Prep work is key, making sure the surface is perfect before shooting paint on it will make the difference between an okay paint job and one that looks amazing. Don't be rushed during this stage, take your time and examine every detail. The first time I painted a car, I spent about 11 days doing minor body work and prepping it for paint. Paint only took one evening to complete.

What equipment do you have to work with? Proper ventillation is very important, otherwise you'll end-up with lots of paint dust in your finish and it won't be smooth. The other thing is getting an in-line water separator in the air line to make sure the compressed air doesn't shoot water droplets on the surface, which will cause you to swear a good bit. Also, avoid painting on a humid or rainy day.

I'm sure some guys here have more experience than me in automovite painting and can offer more tips.

Good luck!

Check out www.autobody101.com for some tips/hints.

My 2nd car was a 66impala. Basicly it was a learner car...I learned a LOT about car stuff with it. I re-wired it headlights to taillights, had a 350/350th put in to replace the 283/glide. I then striped the body and did the body work and painted it in a buddy's family dinnet store . I asked MANY body guys for tips along the way. Keep things clean. I got compliments on how straight it was and how the gaps were about perfect for a 1st time car done by a 17yr old.


Take your time and remove as many of the body pannels as you can and prep/paint them off the car so you can focus on those areas better. Remove the head/tail lights and look for some spares...even if you need to resort to "getting" some spares off a say a ranger to keep whatever rims you have nice.

read up on the topic of sanding and primer/sealer. Also use a guide coat to help get things even if there are any low spots. The more you sand the straighter the car will look...and you will hate sanding when your done. You will probably want to at least skuff up and go down to the base coat (not primer) of the whole cars paint before priming/sealing. Lots of light and using your hands to feel for low/rough spots (hands in rubber gloves) will help find areas that need work.

before you spray anything wipe the car down to make sure you have it as clean as possible, use rubber gloves while working any part of the body work...the oil from your skin can get into any part of the product and contaminate it. If your sparying it at home in a makeshift paint booth...aka wraped the garage in plastic drops sheets, it is a good idea to kinda sprinkle a LIGHT mist of water from a hose on the floor to keep the dust down and put a fan in a window/door blowing out of the garage helping air circ. while wrapping a wet towel around the fan part facing the "paint area" as a half arse filter. Doing it in a warmer temp will help with paint dry time...if it is cold try a heater...or a lot of drop lights pointing at the body.

From my exp./what others told me, generally you will need 1gal of paint to get a good coverage of base on the car there are formulas for some paints depending on what the mix ratio is. Then about the same for clear...gen. 3 or so coats of clear is rec. many more and the clear depending on make/type can actually look a little yellow. The 3 coats also gives you some room to wet sand and get rid of any orange peel. Let the paint flash before putting the next coat on this will vary but IIRC it is around 15-20min each. This helps for a even dry with multi layers going on. Get a primer/sealer/paint/clear that all are made to work together...some primer/sealers will not react well to other types of paint/clears and cause bubbles/peeling. Try not to save by using "left overs" as air will already have gotten to that product and it may not match the rest of the stuff your using...or worse peel/bubble because some chem. has evapd.

I would practice a little with the gun like while priming/sealing and when actually sparying the paint/clear run some "tests" on something NOT part of the car to get a feel for how the paint/gun/you work together. Maybe the underside of the hood. You should overlap about 1/2 of each pass and not too much that it runs but not too little it looks blotchy.

The biggest equipment issue for quality is a water sep. for the air line...as well as a evap/dryer setup...some people even run the air line into a bucket of cold water before going into the filters/dryers to cool the air from the compressor. Hot air from a compressor will have water that will not get cought by the dryer/evap until the air is cool...cool it before it gets there and you run a better chance of getting that water (now condensed(sp?) from vapor) out of the line. Use a good name brand gun and make sure the compressor can keep the min. air volume for that gun.

You will need to figure out if your going to use a base clear system or a single stage. The base clear is 2 sep. applications/products. The single stage basicly has the clear in it. Research both and see if one or the other suits you more.

Good info... as said it's mostly all prep work and definately strip the car unless you want paint lines all over, which look cheesy & will tend to crack. I had a bud who was a painter and that was a blessing...he showed and I did. Sanded my ass off for sure..But my paint looks nice and flat, no orange peel and shines like a mofo.

I spent 800.00, including the cost of a gun to shoot mine. Took me a month just taking my time. You can rent booths so check into that..I poly'd a bay all over & wet the floor, had 2 fans exhausting and it worked ok... had a few bugs fall in the clear, sucked bigtime, so get a booth if you can. Paint first thing in the morning if doing it a home, less bugs and dust around.

I used PPG paint and supplies...let it dry 24 hrs then wetsanded it. Having someone who knows how to buff will help as it needs a primo buffing after you wetsand. i used 2 color and 2 clear per PPG.

Ive seen Rio's car, the paint does look very good!

me and dad were thinking about trying to paint my car and we were talking about trying to MAKE a paintbooth out of pvc pipe and tarps or large sheets sewed together (fro the thrift store to keep cost down) do you think this would work. we were goin to paint several cars so that made this more appealing, but i didnt know if it was a good idea or not.

I have heard that some type of brick used to clean grilles can also be used to sand the paint off because it contours to the curvature of the car.

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Yeah, I saw them us it on Spike TV's Muscle Car. The guy called it stink brick, for obvious reasons, but it is sort of "spongy" and will contour the car/panel shape.

A grill brick...
http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/...rvices_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

earleys94gt said:

A grill brick...
http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/...rvices_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

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In the roofing business we call that "fart rock" if its the same stuff i think it is. They used to use it as insulation and it smells god aweful when broken up. I should bag the crap up next time theres a tear off with it in it and sell it in front of paint stores

BlackPearl955.0 said:

any tips on getting the paint off to get bare metal?

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You do not need to go to bare metal on the whole car. You only need to get it were the paint has something to "hold" on to. You want to go past the clear as it can seperate from the base coat/peel easier than the base.

You will go to bare metal for body work. like to apply filler/weld on. Even then there seems to be 2 schools...apply filler to bare metal or over the prim. sealer then re-prime/seal. To get down to bare metal either blast the car (if you think there may be hidden older damage), or hit it with a DA and 80grit. The real work is blending the old paint around the area your taking to bare metal, you do not want to have the nasty looking edges of the paint showing up in the final paint job.