Painting your car; The easy way out!
 

Please note that if you are a professional painter, or body man... you should stop reading NOW!

My methods Don't really follow professional form, but my cars turn out looking Decent.

If you're looking to make your daily driver, or track car look better this post is for you, if you're building a show car, call a professional.

I'll do this in steps, if you need any clarification feel free to pm me.

1: Gather all supplies.

I go to my local paint and body supply store, you'll have to look into where yours is.

Choose your color.
Choose your paint (I use U-tech... the "sam's choice" of auto paints)

They will help you out with what exactly you need, which will be activators, reducers etc..

You'll also need clear coat, this is usually only sold by the gallon so you may have leftovers.

While you're there, grab some sandpaper and a good rattle can filler primer, I like the red stuff.

I usually buy 6" DA stickyback paper, but it depends on the sander you're using.

I buy a range of papers 120,220,320... and get some 800,1000,2000 wet sander paper while you're at it.

You'll also need some red scotch brite pads

Buy a gallon of Thinner to clean your guns, and messes and some wax and grease remover to wipe the car down before paint.

Also, Ask them for a few one quart mixing cups, and mixing sticks.

And, if you're fixing dents, get some Body filler.


2. Gather your tools.

-1 black sharpie
-1 DA sander (round orbital sander)
-Filler Spreaders (the come in a three pack usually, that should be sufficient)
-Rags... a whole lot of rags that you'll be able to throw away
-Any hand tools you'll need for taking lights, bumpers etc. off
-1 paint gun, doesn't need to be the best quality, we rarely use our "good" gun
- Air compressor
-You may find that you need some other things, these are just the basics.

3. Walk around your car with the sharpie, circling any areas that need body work.

4. Remove all lights, mirrors, body panels etc. that you want out of the way.

5. Use the 320 paper on your DA and get the paint scuffed up where you need to apply filler.

6. Mix up your filler and spread it over the dents...

The smoother you spread, the easier the sanding will be. (the more hardener you add, the less time you have to work, I usually add just a few drops, enough to change the color of your filler, but not over power it. You'll figure out how much to mix as you go. It really depends on how bad your dents are.

7. While you wait for that to dry, get out your scotch brite pads

Start scuffing all of the rest of the paint with them...just get the shine away. Be careful of your window trim and such if you care about it.

8. By now you should be ready to sand your body work.

If you spread it terribly you'll want to start with a rougher paper, but just keep sanding until you get it smoother enough to your liking.

I usually finish it up with the 320 grit.

Some prefer to use a board sander, but I'm good with the DA, we're not going for perfection here.

9. If you need to reapply filler to areas, do it...

You can apply as many times as you need to to get it right.

10. Once the body work looks good enough to you, get all of your windows taped up.

this is common sense, tape up anything that shouldn't have paint on it.

You can use any kind of masking tape, but the blue stuff seems to work the best.

I'll use newspaper to cover large areas, but always use the tape to get your trim covered nicely.

Also, if you like your wheels and tires the color that they are cover them.

11. Get out your filler primer.

Spray over all of your body work, and any part of the body that you had to sand down. This stuff is thick so don't spray a ton too quickly.

That will show if your body work needs more attention...If it still looks decent in primer you're ready to move on.

12. once the primer dries, take the scotch brite over it to get it all smoothed out.

13. If everything is looking all nice and smooth we're ready for paint!

14. Cover anything in your garage that shouldn't get over spray on it

Make sure you've got some decent ventilation. The fumes are strong and you'll probably annoy your neighbors with this, but hey... you'll have a nice car in a few hours.

15. Take a few clean rags and your wax and grease remover and wipe the entire car down..

If a rag gets dirty get a new one. You want the car clean. Do a good job at this, it'll save you some hassle in the end.

16.You're ready to mix paint.

Most paints are different, but mine is always mixed 4:1:1... you'll find the ratio on the label.

4 parts paint, 1 part activator 1 part reducer (or whatever your mix ratio is)

Your mixing cups should have a designated area for 4:1:1 (or whatever your mix ratio is)

Decide how much paint you want, if you're painting a whole car, mix the whole quart

the cups are set up so that below your ratio area, there are numbers, follow common sense here

there will be three staggered numbers across your ratio area starting with 1's at the bottom and going to 6's at the top.

pick your amount, start by adding your paint.

say you pick 4's... add the paint to the 4 line in your ratio area first, then the next largest increment, my next two are 1's so it doesn't matter I'll add the activator to the next 4, then the reducer to the next 4.

make sense?

Stir it well.

17. Time to spray

Pour your paint into you gun. Make sure the vent on the top of the gun is open when you put the lid on.

Use a piece of cardboard of something and get your gun setup... spray it and adjust the settings on the gun until you've got a nice fan of spray going.

Start with the roof...your don't want to lean in fresh paint on the doors to get to it later.

You'll figure out what works for you with spraying... I can't really explain how to do it, you've just gotta get a feel for it. Go lightly first and then go back and get it covered.

Don't go too heavy or you'll get runs, and runs are death.
You'll run of of paint a few times, Have someone on hand to mix as you're getting low.

Just pop the lid off of the gun occasionally to check your status.

Once the car is covered to your liking you're good with this step.


18. CLEAN YOUR GUN

I always dump thinner into the cup, and wipe it out. Repeat this until you're good.

Then, I'll pour more into the cup and spray it through the gun until it's spraying clean.

If you want to get really technical you can tear the gun apart and clean the insides. If you care about your gun you'll do this.

Mine is old and dying so I cheat.

19. Now, You need to make a decision; How good do you want this too look?

You should wait until the paint dries, I like to let it go over night and wetsand it before clear.

You can simply clear it, but it won't be quite as nice.

And, you'll probably have some flaws that you'll want to wetsand and fix up first anyway.

If things look good just go over the car with 1000 grit, don't sad through or you'll be mixing more paint.

Do this by hand, just get it nice and smooth.

If you've got imperfections you may need to use more of a grit, for runs and such.

If you're smart enough to get this far, you'll figure it out.

Once you're all sanded, you're ready for a wipe down.

take a very lightly dampen rag with wax and grease remover and wipe the car down again.

Do a test spot first to make sure you're not taking paint away with this.

If you are, tun and buy a tack cloth (walmart has them) and wipe the car over with that.

Again, just make sure it's clean before you spray

20. You're ready for clear.

Follow the mixing instructions above for paint.

Clear is usually only two parts, so this should be simple.

Spray the car, again not too thick or it'll run.

Let it tack up and re-coat it as many times as you'd like.

21. CLEAN YOUR GUN!!!

22.. Either let it dry and put it back together, or let it dry, wetsand and buff, then put it together.

That's all personal preference, I always put the car together and wetsand and buff a week or so later.

23. ENJOY!!!!!

I'm sure I was vague in areas, I forget that you guys have never done this.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Again, I am not a professional...Just a car guy that happens to be too cheap to pay someone to do something I'm capable of doing.

View this photo album to see some in progress pics of this process;
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/inde...lbumId=2292310

good luck-
Jason.

My Eclipse daily driver does need a repaint...
What is the best way of creating a dust free environment so that **** doesn't get under the paint?

sounds good. ill be calling you, haha.

excellent write up. how long would you say to wait before primer than paint? this might have been one of those vague parts you mentioned

nice :thumbup:

haha, sounds good pete.

erik, the primer is sandable in about fifteen minutes.

how much to paint my car :)

Great write-up Jason, I'm gonna sticky this in the tech section for you!

Thats a great write up. Only thing i previewed before was that after the prep work some folks with big enough space, even in a garage have built an enclosed environment via plastic curtains to stop the dust while painting. I believe dust under paint and clear coat is the killer of a paintjob. Right?
Iv always wanted to do this to my beater truck one day to refresh the paint. Hell, maybe even the hood and front of my STI on day.

are you using a gravity feed (top feed) or siphon (bottom feed)? Im asking because i already own a bottom feed and i want to try this i just dont know if my bottom feed will work well for this job.

If you do repaint go black!

thanks doug... this project is why its taking me so long to respond with your answers...

i use a top feed gun, i have no experience with the bottom feeds.

as for dust, yes its simple to build a makeshift booth... i'm just lazy and have had no major issues.

right now, i'm not interested in painting anyone else's car. i'll be happy to help you guys out with tips and info...but this is fun for me. Making it a job will ruin it.

I should repait the scooby black and white CUSTOM STYLE LoL

you're right... being a professional really messes up the reading. lol. those are the basics that just "git 'er dunn!!" haha.

Gotcha.. no big.. just when you have time I need them :P

Ballin' on a budget.. keep up the good work and let's see some pics of my old truck already!

exactly...

I mean I have the know how to do it "right" but it's not worth the time when the car is more than likely gonna wind up in a wall a time or two or three...

and doug, kyle and i lack motivation to work on the truck... it looks sweet as is we just need to do a little more welding and install our big flares..

did you notice a big difference on which colors are harder to get to turn out nice? ive always heard black is hard to do, but i was just wondering your opinion

idk if this was mentioned but how did you remove the moldings cleanly?

every color has its nightmare scenario as far as trying to get it to turn out nicely and having things go wrong. black is very easy to spray, but is very difficult to finish off. white is actually a bit tough to spray because its tough to see coverage, and dirt nibs can show up as black dots and cant be sanded out of the clear... but generally white is very easy to finish sand and buff. reds and blues and greens can go either way (there are sooo many different ones).

silver metaillics can be extremely difficult to spray and prep for. you see everything. sand scratches, DA marks, wavy body work, etc. you'll see everything because of how the metallics flop. every inperfection turns out looking darker silver, so it shows up easily. it's also very easy to stripe metallics. if you get a heavy hand on a few passes, you'll see stripes. if your gun isn't set up properly, you'll see stripes. lol. it's tough. but then again, sanding/buffing silver is easy.

like i said, every color has its issue.

So sand the whole car to ~320 before primer?
then rub with scotch brite? wuts that?
then paint
then wet sand at 1000?
then clear, then we sand again at (1000?) and buff?
AWESOME write up
This is exactly what I was looking for
Thank you so much

i only sand the spots that need body work with 320...

you use the scotch brite on the rest of the car... your body supply store will know what it is, just ask.

and what do you mean by moldings? I just tape all of the window and door moldings off very, very well.

and silver sucks to spray, the car i just did is silver an right now, parts of it look awful so i get to do it over again.

but the paint was free so i won't complain.

I've sprayed a lot of colors and the silver has been the worst.

if you're careful about taping the moldings it can turn out pretty decent, but he's asking about taking them off because that's doing it the 'right way'. in answer to his question, sometimes there are clips that pop the molding into the door. nearly all hondas are like that. there is also double sided molding tape that helps hold them on. some other types of moldings are only held on by the tape.

removing them is a combination of gentle prying, scraping, razor blading, and popping clips from the inside. then you have to use an eraser wheel on the panel to remove the old glue. they can be tough, but you're guaranteed a perfect finish if you take em off. then you dont have to spend time taping either.

any advice for doing door jams? nothing bothers me more than mismatched door jams

good info

im also interested to know how to do door jams?

the posts explaining it must've gotten lost int he mess a few weeks ago...

simple put, remove as much interior and exterior trim as possible, prep it as you did the exterior, cover your interior and spray away.

in the tight areas at the hinges and such, your best bet is just to spray around it all and clean up when you're done unless you want to pull your door off

great write up! awesome info!

any reccommendations on body fillers to use?

avoid bondo brand. it will function, but is a pain in the ass to work with. use a real industry standard brand like Evercoat or USC. I use Evercoat Rage Extreme but anything from Evercoat is decent. think about getting something thinner like glazing putty if you're doing light skimcoat filling only. USC Icing is my fav there.

the "real" brands cost more, but IMO you should buy good materials so your repair turns out as good as it can.

good info thanks.

how about using body fillers for shaving? im only asking because the car im painting was previously shaved and now it has cracked so i want to redo it, but i need to make sure the joint is strong enough so it wont crack again.

i know us drywallers use vinyl drywall tape on joints:mrgreen: i figured there was something similar for cars. or maybe a heavy duty body filler.

Would you consider yourself pretty good w/ wet sanding and buffing? If so PM me, I might be interested in hiring you for some light body work.

To make a long story short I put my car in for a complete re spray....body looks great, no dents, etc.....they had the car for 5 weeks and I finally got the ****s of it and took it because it was sitting outside not being touched for a week.

There are random spots of haze that looks like I waxed like an idiot and the bottom half of the sides of the car need wet sanded/buffed as might the rear bumper.

It passes the 1 ft. test and looks great during the day but it's a pretty ugly sight at night time against light. :(

Needless to say I will not be taking it back to the shop that did this, although they have offered.....I just see it like they took 5 damn weeks to do this, why bother letting them fix it. I had to replace so many cosmetic things out of my pocket, i.e. door weather stripping in multiple places along with like 50 some clips, had to scrap and clay all windows and clay all lenses and replace a bunch of pipes/hoses under the hood due to sloppy ass overspray.

****ty pic but this is what you'd be working with. :D

The good news is it runs as it always does, like a champ and the wheels/tires are about a week old. :lol:

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/k...mage0128-1.jpg

what make silver so hard, would it be better if you went a darker gray, like the color of a lot a civics now a days.

read this \/


silvers of any kind can be difficult because of what i listed. dark silvers sometimes hide imperfections better, but then again i've had dark charcoal type colors stripe unexpectedly as well. you just never know, nothing's set in stone. the general idea is just to become a better painter by making the mistakes once and learning 'on the job' how to fix them and avoid them next time.

haha as weird as it sounds there is actually a use for drywall tape in body work. when a plastic bumper is damaged, you can repair it from behind with a plastic repair epoxy like Crest Code Blue and use drywall tape to reinforce the repair. that's about it though.

for shaving any kind of moldings or whatever, you're going to want to make sure that normal lightweight body filler (the rage extreme) doesn't get built up more than about 1/8". any more than that and you'll just crack it again. for shaving the right way i'd recommend properly welding in a filler panel and using light body filler as a thin leveling skimcoat only. that's your best bet any time you do body work... keep filler as thin as possible and do most of the repair (or in this case, the shaving) with metal. even when shaving plastic bumpers or whatever.. use Code Blue or similar epoxy and keep the filler thin. i've done it many times and it works great.

but, if you don't mind the heavy thick filler, another perfectly acceptable way to do it (done at shops all the time) is to use a fiberglass filler like USC's Duraglas, long 'n strong, or even all-metal. find 'em here. you can then do a rough block sanding (or even the infamous 'cheese grater') and put a lightweight filler skimcoat over top of it. that way, the heavy duty fiberglass reinforced filler is doing the major grip work to the panel and will be strong enough to resist cracking. the lighter, weaker, but smoother filler on top will be thin enough to not crack under stress.

this process is why quality body work costs good money. people compare Maaco work to real paint/body jobs and see only the price. what they don't see is that a Maaco style repair shop will just glob the lightweight stuff on there and leave it prone to cracking.

hope this helps :thumbup:

basically this turned into a huge project that it wasnt meant to be. so we rushed a little more towards the end and sacrificed some perfection. painted this weekend. i gotta sand and buff yet. pics later this week

i might try it myself when i have the money and time. wish me luck!

dose not take much $ just time

how to sand easily
 

to anyone doing this sort of paint job let me speak from my first experience. i did all white body with a black hood and trunk lid. the black looked semi decent but the white was too flat. anyways, when you go through to your sanding every other 2 coats or so, get a medium grit sanding sponge. forget using numbered sandpaper with blocks, etc. get a sanding sponge made for drywall and use that. you can even use them wet too, but i like using them dry. for the final coats and before buffing it out to a shine, use a super fine if you can find it, if not get a fine grit, and sand it using wet probably. if you cant use wet, dry would probably be fine. just make sure you wash it off the dust and squeegee the water so you can see if you got it all flat. the key to the shine is getting it flat. just thought i'd share my experience with the sanding, because it's the hardest part to this paint job. painting and buffing is somewhat fun i think. i used a roller and i speak from experience the finish will turn out much nicer than a spray paint, unless you got a compressor and air gun then thats the best. air compressor/gun > roller > rattle can.

yeah i probably spent over 100 but less than 200 on supplies. i got too much sandpaper, a buffer, and sanding blocks. only get the sanding sponges though. for your first coat get a coarse sponge, between coats get a medium sponge, and the last coats get a super fine/fine sponge. don't waste time on blocks. also get 4" high density rollers they are all you will need. shur fine is the best company. also get the clear mineral spirits if you can, i used the Green environment mineral spirits and i think it killed some of the shine, but i could be wrong.

A
 

yeah i probably spent over 100 but less than 200 on supplies. i got too much sandpaper, a buffer, and sanding blocks. only get the sanding sponges though. for your first coat get a coarse sponge, between coats get a medium sponge, and the last coats get a super fine/fine sponge. don't waste time on blocks. also get 4" high density rollers they are all you will need. shur fine is the best company. also get the clear mineral spirits if you can, i used the Green environment mineral spirits and i think it killed some of the shine, but i could be wrong.