Painting a Car

[chrism182]

I'm going to be painting my mates van soon and I'm just trying to get a good tutorial on how to do it. I know the basics such as start off with sanding, then thinner(?) then primer, colour and then clear coat.

I am unsure on how many coats of primer and when to sand etc. I will most likely be painting it with a gravity feed paint gun.

Any tips of help would be much appreciated!

Cheers,
Chris.

[DannyboyDS]

well I hope he knows the skill level your at, otherwise could make for an interesting discussion after the van is sprayed.

Well are you doing inside and out? like engine bay and door jams etc, etc, (Ha I think I spelled jams wrong)

Best bet would be to strip the car back to bare metal and then etch prime it all in one day.

What about body work, are there any dents? ripples? you cant just fill it all with bog as that wont hide the high spots.

Sanding is an art, it can take ages to perfect it and allot of people will disagree with me, but some people have the "feel" for sanding, and others just don't.

Go to the HOWTO section there is a thread there about how to paint your car, one is with rollers and one isn't read them both, they both contain allot of good information.

do a search for "body work" "prep car" etc, etc

Go onto google and do a few searches, believe me there is so much information and only so much people can actually tell you here, and then you will need practice and allot of it.

You do know hwo to use a spray gun right?

[chrism182]

Yeah he knows my skill level, he doesn't wanna spend that much money on a paint job and I said I'd help him out. The bodywork has no dents etc. Yeah I know how to use a spray gun too so that helps.

Cheers mate,
Chris.

[_R_J_K_]

First off, get a couple of panels to test on, and make sure you bake them properly. Believe me, there is a reason that spray painting apprenticeships last so long, so a tutorial ain't gonna be much help, unless it's that one where you paint with rollers.

You might like to also invest in some uniprep to clean your surfaces.

Also, make sure you seal off the area with drop sheets if you are doing large portions of work. You don't want paint over other cars and tools etc...

[acex1138]

how about painting a spoiler that already has white gloss paint on it?

What i got :

Air compressor + spray gun attatch

Grey Primer

Tin of paint (dont know what to mix with or ratio) its Holdren Grey (the grey that looks purple)