No home respray has to look like you parked your car at Redfern station overnight. If you take the time in the preperation, and are prepared to do the hard yards. you can have a quality paint job for a third of the cost.
Materials: Tools:
- Basic toolkit comprising of screwdrives and 1/4 drive socket set.
- 15cfm or greater capacity aircompressor
- Air Spraygun (gravity feed or pot, your choice, just NOT supatool or whatever supercheap auto sells.. it will ruin your paintjob)
- Air Sander (whizzer) 6" disc
- Air Blower
- Applicator card (old licence or atm card can stand in, as long as its flexible)
- Razor blades
Materials: Supplies:
- 2000grit wet/dry sandpaper - 2 sheets.
- 400grit whizzer discs - 20 sheets DONT SKIMP ON THIS. EXPLAINED FURTHER DOWN.
- 240grit whizzer discs - 10 sheets.
- whizzer velcro sponge
- Sanding block
- 2pak putty and hardener. medium sized tub is fine, unless you DID park your car at redfern then get the big one.
- Scourers (scotchbrite) - ****loads. you can do the dishes with what you dont use up
- 3 rolls of masking tape.
- LOTS of rags. not mums placemats . RAGS
Materials: Paints: 4 Door Sedan.
This all really depends on your choice of colour. Pearlescents and metallics require clear after colour, solid colours do not.
Amount of colour required = size of car vs choice of colour. For this DIY we'll go with my cars custom colour. Ford XR6-t Vibe, its a 30% pearl colour so can be quite tricky to cover.
- 2L Vibe colour. Good to have extra paint in the tin so when you ding it, you've got YOUR paint ready to go. no matching required.
- 2L Crap black colour. cheaper the better.
- 1-2L spray putty primer depending on how much repairing your car needs.
- 4L thinners.
- 2L Prepsol. VERY IMPORTANT. get quality prepsol
- Tackrags
PREPARATION
WASH IT THE DAY BEFORE. makes your whizzer discs last longer.
Strip your car down. All the moulds, all the badges, side indicators, undo the headlights (dont need to remove them, just loosen them so you can mask).
Use your common sense about this. if you think it MIGHT have to come off... TAKE IT OFF. this includes door trims.
if you have dints you want repaired, repair them (i wont discuss this here, ill make another post regarding that, this is already a 200 page novel)
-scour all the panel edges well.. paint flakes from panel edges, not panel centres. scour your edges properly.for broad panel surfaces, like bonnets quarterpanels and roofs you can whizz.
- 240grit on the whizzer and sand all the large surface areas. if you have repaired dints, DONT SAND THEM YET, scour around them carefully.
- your car should look like **** right now. good! lol
- get your blower and blow all the dust off the car. INSPECT IT for any bits you've missed. work on ONE panel at a time and FINISH that panel before moving to the next.
- get a rag and soak it with thinners and wash down and dry off each panel one at a time. wax on wax off. you should now be able to see any bits of panel that require further sanding/scouring. do this now if there is, washing thinners afterwards.
- now you do all the little stone chips. again this will be discussed in another thread with dint repairs.
- its now time for the 400grit whizzing. This is so important, because the 240grit is too coarse for painting over. USE FRESH DISCS OFTEN. 400grit whizzing removes all the marks and and gives the final touches to your stone chips to make them perfectly smooth with the rest of the car. dont skimp on the 400.. and USE THE SPONGE, this will soften the whizzer over angles and corners. remember guys, this is your FINAL PREP before you paint.. the 400grit whizzing is your base for painting. . screw this up, your paint you'l lkick yourself when its painted ..
- start masking up. IMPORTANT: the older the car, the less 'airtight' the doors are. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF MASKING UP DOOR JAMBS CORRECTLY. again, use common sense here, i cant explain how to mask tradesman quality, but do your best and cover EVERYTHING, a roll of masking tape costs $2.. it aint gold bricks mate, go through 10 rolls if need be.
- if you have any areas on the carbody where you've rubbed through to the metal. corners are the worst.. and its ok, i still do it fairly often lol. spray your primer on them.
- if you have any primed areas from dint repairs or rubthroughs. give them a scour now. scouring will smooth them down better than sandpaper.
- blow the car off and get rid of as much dust as you can.
- Prepsol is fun. it makes your car the cleanest and prettiest you've ever seen it. until you dry it! wash it properly. nothing half assed, get every millimieter of eveyr panel dripping wet and use a clean fresh rag for every panel to dry it. you'll get rid of 95% of your dust this way.
PAINTING
for you DIYers and novices out there, i dont recommend thinning paints and primers and all that.. all your paint, pay the extra little bit, and buy it ready to go from paint suppliers. you'l lbe glad you did rather than ruin $200 worth of paint. so i wont even post how to do it to stop the temptation to save $50. its worth the money.
DOUBLE CHECK YOUR MASKING NOW
PAINT ON A SUNNY SUNNY SUNNY DAY. leave your car out in the sun for at least an hour to bake the panels and get them hot.
- paint the whole car black .. dont worry about even coats, JUST DONT GET RUNS.
- 20cms from the car, even side to side strokes. if you have a long panel like a quarter, spray out the whole length by walking down the side of the panel as you spray to avoid building paint in one area where your strokes join.
- stand in front of the car to paint the bonnet. dont stand to the side and put side to side strokes on the bonnet, it'll look ridiculous.
- be carefule aobut the boot lid if you havent removed it for painting, runs are easy to get spraying upwards under a boot lid. use fine coats and just mist the black on.
-Give the car one coat of matt black all over. dont be House of Kolor about it .just get the paint on fairly even. If you use a dark/medium metallic or pearlescent paint and you car was a silver, or a light plain colour. spraying the car with cheapo black paint will mean you will use FAR LESS PAINT when you spray your proper colour. dark pearlescents do not cover very well at all over silvers and solids. spraying black will allow the most paint coverage for the least amount of paint. this will save you at least $250.
-allow it to dry for say 15minutes before attempting to move it. WHILE YOUR WAITING - clean your spray gun. . pull it to bits and get an old toothbrush (or ill favoured siblings toothbrush) and drown the thing in thinners. scrub it everywhere and all over.
-put it bcak out in the sun for about half an hour to dry further. then bring it back in the garage and go over all of it with 400grit whizzer again like you did previously.
- blow it off and send it back out to bake the panels in the sun for another 45minutes or so before bringing it in for the paint.
- prepsol it well like before.
- use a tackrag and wipe over the entire car. this actually removes EVEN MORE dust that the prepsol doesnt pick up.
- apply the paint in generous, even coats. the majority of good paint application is a steady hand, 20cm away from the panel spraying side to side and moving with the spray if its a longer panel. hold the trigger about 80% engaged, and RELEASE the trigger fully at the end of each spray.
- allow 10-15mins for the first coat to get stuck, then get a FRESH tackrag and wipe the car down.
- spray another coat.
- wait 15mins and wipe with another tackrag.
- for your last coat... mist the paint on about 50% trigger, as your first two coats have built up enough now to provide the colour. the final 3rd misted coat will "in fill" around the 2nd coat and create a fractionally smoother and less textured finish.. bit more like glass.
- wait 15 minutes and send your car out to bake for half an hour.
- bring it in and tackrag it and then spray your clear coat on. just like your final coat of paint. 50% trigger, even and steady is the key.
- Built up clearcoat over an area is horrible.
now leave it for the rest of the day out in the sun. and take lots of photos ..
dont try and re-assemble it the same day.. leave it as long as possible but AT MINIMUM 24 hours.
dont forget your cut and polish either ... nothing too abrasive, just a hand cut will be fine.
please remember this is NO SUBSTITUTE for a tradesmans job, and most certainly no substitute for a clean oven.
:end notes:
not everybody is capable of painting. get lots of practice with the crappy old black paint before you try spraying out your colour on a car. its harder than you think to avoid runs, fish eyes, cissing etc.
as for paint choices.. TALK to your local auto paint supplier about brands, qualities and clearcoats. everything is different. i use and recommend standox over lesonal for example. costs a little bit more, but is worth it for the final result.
as for costings - if your inexperienced, you'll use a fair bit more in materials. thats only natural. expect to pay around $500 - 600 all up for your paintjob. that includes EVERYHTING. less if you know what your doing.
if i have missed anything, or you feel like you can add something to this i didnt. PLEASE POST IT! everybody's input helps!
if only one person benefits from this post, then it was worth it aye?
EDIT: DO NOT EVER EVER WASH YOUR CAR WITH A WAX ADDITIVE OR TYRE SHINE IF YOU ARE PAINTING THE CAR THE DAY AFTER !!! NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER .. GET IT?
DIY: Respray
