Painting your car; The easy way out!

[FazdaGt]

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.

[DC2.2GSR]

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.

[fakeblood316]

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

[cinder4066]

good info

[supraghost]

im also interested to know how to do door jams?

[FazdaGt]

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

[dsf14212]

great write up! awesome info!

[supraghost]

any reccommendations on body fillers to use?

[DC2.2GSR]

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.

[supraghost]

Originally Posted by DC2.2GSR

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 i figured there was something similar for cars. or maybe a heavy duty body filler.

[ohsixMTee]

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.

[snackman508]

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.

[DC2.2GSR]

Originally Posted by snackman508

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 \/

Originally Posted by DC2.2GSR

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.

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.

[DC2.2GSR]

Originally Posted by supraghost

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 i figured there was something similar for cars. or maybe a heavy duty body filler.

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

[supraghost]

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

[yorni90]

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

[snackman508]

Originally Posted by yorni90

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

dose not take much $ just time

[jschristian44]

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.

[jschristian44]

Originally Posted by snackman508

dose not take much $ just time

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.

[jschristian44]

Originally Posted by snackman508

dose not take much $ just time

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.