DIY Prepping and Painting your own car!

[vnv8driver]

By popular demand i will go through in detail the basic procedures in which you need to do to paint your car. I can only explain myself so much on the computer and alot of the work, painting especially, comes down to experience and to have a feel for certain things.

TOOLS-
-Closed off space(garage or shed)
-Any half decent air compressor, extention hoses, gravity fed gun, orbital
-10 sheets/pads of 800 wet and dry sand paper
-Bucket
-Rags
-Lead lights
-Acryllic Thinners
-Prepsol
-1-2 litres undercoat
-4 litres acryllic paint from autobahn
-1-2 litres clear of your choice
-2 heat lamps
-1-3 litres acryllic spray putty
-Tape
-Newspaper
-Expensive Mask
-Extraction fan

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Most of the work involved in painting a car is the preperation work, sanding, sanding, and more sanding. Start off by making an enclosure in a hot tin shed or a garage, i used large vinyls to cover my roof and walls supported by some timber i had lying around. Drive your car in and make sure all the windows are up. By using the tape and newspaper you want to completely seal up every single crack around your door locks, bonnet washers, all glass and rubbers/trims not being painted, etc. Because you will get over spray on things and even though its not hard to take off it is annoying and gets into everywhere!. Now come the most repetitive part of prepping, Go and buy an orbital, 2 if possible 1 large one and 1 compact one. Get about 10 pads for each. The grade needed depends on the condition of your paint, in my case i already had a custom paint job, spray putty,etc so i needed a rather coarse type. I used 800 and thats good for keeping the surface your sanding smooth and still takes quite a bit off. In most cases you want to sand all the paint off pretty much to bare metal. Do this by apply very light preasure to the orbital bearing in mind that if you leave the orbital in the same spot youll both heat up and distort the paint as well as make the surface uneven. You want to be always moving the orbital when its on, lean over what your sanding and move your hands up and down, you want to be sanding up and down every second or so.
When you have sanded to what you think is best, you can turn the compressor on and grab your gun and stand, pour the spray putty into a tin can (up to around 3 gun loads). The rest that is added to the mix is thinners, add around a 1/4 to what you have whilst stirring it. Pour the mix into the spray gun and connect the gun to the lead hose. You want to have the gun adjusted to fan and blow to your liking and so the paint wont run. Next, when your painting you want to have the gun dead straight with whatever it is that you are painting. You want to be around 15 cm's off the panel and whilst spraying you need to have the gun moving at all times. Spray the panels left to right evenly and at a brisk rate. When you pull down the trigger you want to have the gun already moving and when you take your finger off, run the gun spraying off the panel then realease the trigger. Spray around 1-2 litre on your car very evenly building up thickness where you need to repair panels or even the paint up. Let the putty dry for about half an hour then you can get back to the sanding!, sand the panels until every imperfection and wave is gone because when your painting the final coat youll be able to see evry imperfection. When the car is sanded to the best of your ability, wipe down the dust with a rag and prepare to lay your undercoat. Same as before, after washing the tin and gun out with thinners mix the undercoat with thinners and spray your undercoat evenly like before, you dont want it too thick a few mm is enough. Let the undercoat dry for 1/4-1 hour then wipe down the whole car with prepsol and a rag, make it very clean. Wash the tin and gun again and mix you final paint with thinners and paint 1 coat of paint on your car.Note- if your painting bumper bars or plastic, you need to also add a flex compound to stop the paint from cracking. Let the paint work dry for about 2 hours in the heat. go back and paint another coat and let it dry. 2 coats is enough but a third can be added. After the paint has dryed and set for around 4-5 hours you can go back and sand the paint with 1200 wet and dry to smooth out to the final finish. Wipe down the car with prepsol and a rag. Buff the paint with medium cutting compound and polish for a shiny finish.

You should let the paint cure for a week then add the clear. But remember to have the paint absolutely cleant and buffed. Painting clear is a bit harder and im not game enough to try it myself, that whats my mate will be painting. Its very easy to run the clear because chances are that the clear is enamel. A paint shop will charge bugger all to paint your car in clear and is best left to the experts.

[big m]

great pot mate just got a quota from a spray painter ere to get the bonnet and fron bumper done and it will cost me $1000 give or take a few dollers o this might help me out alout cheers

[vnv8driver]

just practise on an old oanel first off to get a feel for sanding and painting.

[Joey_19]

rubbish they charge anywhere from 800-1500 just 2 clear coat ur car costs 2 much

[DannyboyDS]

nice post, ive been prepping my car for painting over the last few months, we have been using two pack high fill on my car so its water tight and can kind of stay on the road, its nearly done.

i'd like to saythough I have had the help of a pro panel beater through 80% of this journy, without which this would never have happened.

Just to add to the above and to offer some advice.

assess the costs BEFORE starting, get some free advice if you can from panel beaters/sprayers, assess which panels are rooted and will have to be replaced and which ones may just need some work with the hammers and dollies.

a simple crease in a panel is going to stand out after the job is done, once the clear is on your car you may start crying so be prepared to prepare your car for hours, if you spend 3 to 4 solid days on your car you might be getting it close, i'd also like to point out NOT to get any primer wet as water goes straight through all but most two pack primers.

[jetspin_vn]

By the time I get to my next project I should have use of an old barn, which is kind of a pain in the arse due to the dirt floor. Thinking about building a plastic tent with extractor fans within it for the paint job.

Oooo your all going to love this project. More when I work out the kinks and make some headway on parts. It will be my foray back into VL land. Don't worry the VN ain't going anywhere.

[vnv8driver]

glad everyone finds the guide helpful, makes it sound very simple and quick to do, but its not!!!

[Vtwagoon]

Easy guide to follow... I've just sprayed an old L series Subaru with some mates, rough job and did no where near the work you have explained needs to be done. But relating your steps to what we did, it is pretty straight forward.

[vnv8driver]

Cheers for the comment, i do make it sound a bit easy and in very few words... i hate long essays.....

[wilso]

Sorry to steal the thread, but this is still a DIY paintjob, except I used small foam rollers:



I used 4" foam rollers and thinned down yacht paint. I'm so happy with results and only cost me $160 for the paint.

Some of you may have seen this before on other forums. For more pics checkout my site: Painting VN

[50LTRv8]

Just one question

where did yo get the paint from?

That just looks amazing

Well Done

50LTRv8

[wilso]

Originally Posted by 50LTRv8

Just one question
where did yo get the paint from?
That just looks amazing
Well Done
50LTRv8

Thanks 50LTRv8

I bought the paint online from Welcome to Whitworths Marine & Leisure

And its called International Brightside Gloss.

I should do a how-to on the method....

[shanhsv]

hey guys,i have a VS senator rear wing and rear bar thats still in their old car's colour.How do i remove the old paint so i can respray them to the colour i need