DIY Painting your car with rollers

[wilso]

Paint job almost 4 years old (taken 15-1-2012):

DIY Painting your car with rollers - See my post




The Paintwork 27 Months On:



The Paintwork 16 Months On:


The Method:
Firstly if you bag this method out saying it easier to use a spray gun then I would agree. But to be honest I wasn’t in a position to use a spray gun and I did this in my small shed without any worries. I also wasn’t after a professional $3000 paint job but the end outcome is just as good.

My VN Wagon before I started:


How it looks today:


Some positives about this method:

• CHEAP
• Minimal masking up of panels
• Minimal paint wastage
• Perfect for someone that has a lot of time and enjoys sanding
• No need to have a spray booth
• No need to use special ventilation
• Touch ups in the future are easy as
• Paint is tough as

Some negatives about his method:

• Very time consuming to do it right. Took me 2.5 months to do my car. That was pretty much each night 6pm till 11 or 12pm…
• A lot of wet sanding

Things you will need:

• TIME (and lots of it)
• Lots of 4” high density foam rollers (the white ones)
• International Brightside Yacht Paint
• All grades of wet and dry sandpaper, and lots of it (200 to 2000)
• Bucket
• Couple of glass jars > 500ml
• Penetrol
• Prep Solve
• Mineral Turps
• Masking Tape
• Thick cord to go underneith the windscreen rubbers
• Newspapers for covering up glass etc

You can buy the paint online here: Welcome to Whitworths Marine & Leisure

NOTE: If I refer to "sanding" it actually means "wet sanding". I never did any dry sanding...


Preparation:
Most important step. I won’t go into a great deal of detail because if you are going to paint any car you should already know the basics of repairing body work with bog, priming and wet sanding.
Basically what I did with my car was wet sand all the panels with something around 150 grit to begin with. If you do have rust, scratches or dint you will need to fix these up before you go any further.
Once sanded with 150grit and the clear coat is gone, use the next finest sandpaper and remove any marks left from the 150 grit. Basically keep sanding the panels with finer and finer sand paper until you have hit around the 400-600 grit mark. At this stage you can paint the panel with primer which will help fill in any small scrathes etc or you can move right onto painting the car with paint which is what I did... (If I was to use this method again I would use primer)



The Paint:
The paint MUST be thinned down!

After many trials of working on my car I found a sweet mixture that consisted of:

• 100ml Penetrol
• 75ml Turps
• 375-400ml Paint

What I found works best is to make up the paint mixture in one of the glass jars so you can pour it into your paint tray and then reseal the jar.

Before Painting Each Coat:
Basically you will end up doing 3-5 coats before you get full coverage. Between each coat you will have to wet sand, by doing this it will remove any imperfections from the previous coat.
After 8 or so coats you should be upto using 1500 grit sand paper and your panel will be looking pretty sweet.
Let each coat dry for 18-24 hours before attempting to sand and paint the next coat.
Make sure you thoroughly clean the panel before you paint it, wash it with clean water after wetsanding and then wipe it with prep solve to remove any oil/wax or anything else that will affect the paint.

Painting:
Pour some of the paint into your roller tray. Load up the roller and squash any excess paint out. Then simply go nuts on the panel. Trick here is to do it in very thin coats. If you do it too thick you may end up with an orange peel effect in the paint and you’ll have to do more sanding before the next coat. You'll find as you roll the paint on you'll get millions of air bubbles which should eventually pop themselves if the paint is thin enough. If they aren't popping you can gently blow on them which will make them pop and the paint will merge into the surrounding paint. Another method is using a second clean roller in which you very very lightly go over the entire panel which will help pop any remaining bubbles and should dissipate any light roller marks. The paint mixture above is perfect though as the paint should self-level and you should see this happen before your very eyes.


Finally:
After you have finished let the paint cure for a good 30-60 days. You can now polish it up which will remove any fluff, hair and grit stuck in the paint from the last coat. I’ve half polished mine so far and it comes up so well you’d never know it was done with a roller…
Pic of the roof after a little polishing:


To sum this method up:
Sand panel with 150, 200, 360, 400 then 600. Clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint first coat on. Let dry. Wet sand with 800 grit, clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint second coat. Let dry. Wet sand with 1000 grit, clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint third coat. Let dry. Wet sand with 1200 grit, clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint fourth coat. Let dry. Wet sand with 1500 grit, clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint fifth coat. Let dry. Wet sand with 2000 grit, clean panel thoroughly, prep solve. Paint sixth coat. Let dry. And so forth. Let paint cure properly for 30-60 days then polish and wax.

I will add though that you will soon get a feel of what grit sandpaper you’ll need to use because not every coat will go down perfectly. You may need to go right back to 800 grit on the 7th coat or something because of orange peel.

I have probably left a lot out of this but you hopefully get the general idea.

I’ll be happy to answer questions anyone has but I also suggest trying this on a spare panel first and get used to the method.


Other Tips:

• Use rubber gloves when doing all the wet sanding otherwise you will loose the tips of your fingers from the constant skin+sandpaper contact.
• If possible, paint your bonnet and front guards while they are off the car, but it helps if you have spares to put back on the car so you can still drive it. I was lucky enough to have a red bonnet and front guards. I drove around like this for a couple of weeks. Looked totally bogan...
• 
• Straight after you have painted the panel you can use a clean roller to go over all the air bubbles and pop them using just the weight of the roller.
• Use thick cord and work it in under the windscreen rubbers and go around the whole windscreen, by doing this it'll allow you to get paint under the rubbers, when finished carefully take the cord out.

Facts:

• I used a total of around 86 sheets of sandpaper
• Used about 3.2 litres of paint all up to do my car
• Bonnet had 10 coats, Roof 9 coats, passenger side 7 coats and drivers side 5 coats. I got better longer I did it…
• More progress pictures on my website here

[CANYONERO]

i was skeptical when i read the subject but man that is an awesome effort.

[Ozzie]

well ill be ****ed lol

I honestly didnt think it was possible without something going wrong with the paint

[vlv8vic]

agree with both the comments above. When i read the heading i thought "what is this guy on?"

sensational finish! well done! specially a darker colour!!!

[needwork2-4fillhabbit]

WOW!! nice job nice finish to. What did it cost you all up?

[NickVR]

Thats an amazing finish. Well done. I thought this can't of turned out too good, then I looked at the photos and thought DAMN!. This looks like my paint job and probably cost a hell of a lot less too.

[Joey_21]

done a nice job but how did u go about getting into the tricky spots ? with a normal paint brush? but it came out awsome mate must have takin a lot of labour hours by urself though

[wilso]

Thanks so much for the comments guys, I'd be more than welcome to show anyone it for real if they ever get the chance.

WOW!! nice job nice finish to. What did it cost you all up?

I don't know the exact cost, paint was $160, and sandpaper would have been the next expensive cost. Probably another couple hundred on all the other bits and pieces...

done a nice job but how did u go about getting into the tricky spots ? with a normal paint brush? but it came out awsome mate must have takin a lot of labour hours by urself though

I used those small 1" or 2" wide foam brushes that you find in craft shops. It sure did feel like forever, I got to the 2 month mark and I was over it so you really have to be focused on finishing it before you start.

You'll see in my pics I also polished up the aluminium window surrounds, I love how they came up and it really sets the color and rims off.

[Tom_1569]

LOL, that turned out heaps better then i expected. Is their no need to clear coat?

Though it doesnt seem much cheaper then painting a car with a spray gun, besides the cost of equipment.

[wilso]

LOL, that turned out heaps better then i expected. Is their no need to clear coat?

Though it doesnt seem much cheaper then painting a car with a spray gun, besides the cost of equipment.

Yeah no need to clear coat it. The paint is a single stage polyurethane enamel, so once its cured its rock hard (im yet to see a stone chip on my car) and it has unbelievable gloss as you can see in my pics.

Also, becuase it has no clear coat it makes for touch ups in the future easy as. ie: sand area, paint and polish...

Costs aside, this method may suit a lot of people, I mean you can even paint outside if you really had to. I took a lot of time and effort in this, so I'm sure if I did a quick and nasty job it would have reduced the costs alot. But yeah, once polished there's no way you can tell it was done with a roller.

[Wagon_Wheel]

Thats absolutly insane, there is no way in hell i would have believed that was done with rollers.
Two thumbs up for effort!

[DannyboyDS]

google rustoleum paint job or $70 paint job there are allot of people who have done it.

By the way outstanding effort, I recently put 6 months into my paint job and know the effort you put into it, your car turned out very sexy.

just one more thing, a car can also be painted with a brush, if you get the can of paint and place it with the lid off into a shallow pool of boiling water and slow boil the paint, though I wouldnt be game to try it with two pack but ive seen a few cars turn out mirror finish this way, much the same as mirror finish woodwork in a house painted by a real painter.

[Troy5L]

pics dont work for me

[wilso]

pics dont work for me

I just updated them, should be working now.

google rustoleum paint job or $70 paint job there are allot of people who have done it.

By the way outstanding effort, I recently put 6 months into my paint job and know the effort you put into it, your car turned out very sexy.

just one more thing, a car can also be painted with a brush, if you get the can of paint and place it with the lid off into a shallow pool of boiling water and slow boil the paint, though I wouldnt be game to try it with two pack but ive seen a few cars turn out mirror finish this way, much the same as mirror finish woodwork in a house painted by a real painter.

Thanks mate!
Yeah rustoleum started it all. I read all the posts on the Mopar forums where it was first posted. Check here (part 1), here (part 2) and here (part 3) for the Mopar threads about this kind of method.

I've also heard of people using this thinned down paint method and using the foam brushes instad of rollers. I kinda did this with my door jams as the roller couldn't fit into most of the nooks etc.

[CANYONERO]

i would so give this a crack if i had a project car to stuff around with.

[vlv8vic]

moparts: paint job on a budget!?

i know link a bit late, got sidetracked reading. got me all horned up! girls magna has paint falling to bits and not worth spending much on. I'd do this!

[DannyboyDS]

the good thing about this is any joe blow can do it if they are willing to put the effort into the prep, it will turn out good.

Spraying is like the prep has to be just as good,a nd the spraying is also crucial, paint to dry and its stuffed, paint to thin it sags and runs, forget pack B on the clear coat, burn car for insurance.

[needwork2-4fillhabbit]

Its made me wanna go to the wreckers and source panels to do this as a side project.

[UNKNOWN]

Man that turned out phat!!! Very good job mate.

[Shounak]

Absolute brilliant job. I thought we'd see a car looking like it's been painted with Dulux Wash and Wear.

This is the epitome of awesome.

[CANYONERO]

I thought we'd see a car looking like it's been painted with Dulux Wash and Wear.

that was my first thought!

[matt_hayward]

almost as good as my $68 paint job. i love my barina nah that is amzing! GREAT EFFORT!

[BANKS]

Mate great job!

I know first hard how hard it is to roller, especially if you've never done it before but it becomes an art and you learn little tricks! Like you I can get panels turn out like they have been sprayed and the owner cant tell the difference. Once we rollered the stabilisers on a Boeing 747 because we weren’t aloud to spray. The next day we had the head of engineering come up to us FURIOUS saying I told you not to spray, he wouldn’t believe us that we had rollered it and had to ask several other engineers to back our story up. We got the same finish off the roller as off a spray gun without wet rubbing. Looked great.

I can only dread the amount of wet sanding that must have gone on with it! Do you still have fingerprints? lol I was wet rubbing my jetski down after about 7 coats of clear, then all of a sudden the water started going red, I literally worked my fingers to the bone!! Hurt for weeks!

More photos!

[stockies]

Mate that looks awesome!! I thought you had used some left over house paint on your car. I was waiting for a laugh, but that looks so good!!


Funny Barina, i LOL'd....

[wilso]

I can only dread the amount of wet sanding that must have gone on with it! Do you still have fingerprints? lol I was wet rubbing my jetski down after about 7 coats of clear, then all of a sudden the water started going red, I literally worked my fingers to the bone!! Hurt for weeks!

More photos!

More photo's here, even some "magazine worthy ones" LOL.

Yeah, after the first few days I noticed my finger tips were gone and had small blood pools coming from all my fingers. It killed as you said then I wore rubber gloves. Ended up wearing the finger tips in the rubber gloves away too!

almost as good as my $68 paint job. i love my barina nah that is amzing! GREAT EFFORT!

Love the army colours on the Barina, good stuff!!