Spraying my car

[[JUDGE]]

hey my pop has a spray gun and a compressor and i want to get my car painted cause the paint isnt exectly sexy and is a bit chipped, i would like to do it myself if possible, so can u guys give me some help before i do this, i would like a metallic colour, what would i need thinners? how much bla bla..need info thx guys

[***In The Build***]

A Clean stirring stick, it would be best to use a 30cm long piece of Aluminium, easy to clean, you can buy proper measuring sticks from paint shops, not sure on price. These (for me) serve 2 purposes, 1. to stir the paint, and 2. to indicate if i need more paint or thinners, or if it's spot on.

10-15 sheets of 800 wet & dry. Use this to rub down your old paintwork, to take the glossyness off it. Don't rub it back to hard though, and never use your fingers, finger marks are a bitch. Use th flat of your hand, or a hard, flat solid rubbing block,

5 Litre can of Prepsol (wax & grease remover). Can't stress this enough. Once you have rubbed it down properly, wash it down and dry it off with a clean chamios. Use 2 clean rags, and they need to be clean, once it's dry, pour some prepsol onto a rag, but don't soak it, enough to clean the car. Wipe the car down with the rag, and wipe it off immediately after applying it, as you go.

20 Litres of Thinners. You will need 5L because there is also the clean-up to consider. I'm a panel beater, not a painter, and my rule of thumb of mixing paint and thinners is a simple one. When you have stired the thinners into the paint, and you remove the stick, and you can just see through it, it's usually good to go. Everybody has their own way, but this one works for me.

4 Litre of paint. You will possibly still have some paint left after spraying your car. Put it in a seperate tin, not back in with the leftover paint, it'll go off and you will have none left for something else. Remember to always have a bit more in your gun, than you really need, that way you will not run out half way through. Don't think that the more coats, the better it will be, it doesn't work like that, both with primmer and paint. 3-4 good coats is plenty, possibly 5 at the most.

4 Litres of clear. You will need a fair bit of thinners for this, as clear is thick, right from the word go. Even for me, measuring this is a bit of guess work, i still use the same principle as before, but you may to add a bit more thinners. Make sure you give this a good stir, a damn good stir.

I hope this helps you out. if you need anymore help, just speak up, and i'll see if i can help you out.
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[[JUDGE]]

damn lol this sounds complicated..i thought i might be able to paint it myself, im not to sure now lol

[vt1538]

2 litres of basecoat should be plenty.
When spraying metallics you will need to vary the angle of your coats or you could end up with a pattern in the paint that you cant hide.
Unless you have done a bit of painting before I would not reccomend that your first job is a metallic one. The best way to paint metallics is wet on wet so if you make a mistake with the basecoat it is very hard to repair.

[PaRaDoX]

its alot of work to spray a full car, i would reccomend starting small and working your way up, theres alot more than just pointing and spraying, practice on a bumper, thats what im doing untill i can get enough skill to move onto the other paint...remember, just practice and try not to apply too much paint in one go, its SOOOOOO tempting but it will bubble and you'll end up wasting the paint and having to sand it back to get the holes that the bubbles caused...

remember if everyone could paint professionally the resprayers wouldnt charger 3k for a full spray... btw you'll pay around $500ish in paint costs
and as someone pointed out before... just take the top layer offand go over it rather than go back to metal

[foammedia]

I find painting quite easy, if you prepare the area properly and have plenty of fine wet and dry on hand to smooth anything you stuff up you are almost certain to do a better job than the factory robots did first time up. Metallic is more difficult because if you make a mistake you are about stuffed since it's very hard to get it the same as the first time you painted it, I find I have to do the whole panel again to fix metallic so stick to flat colours. Then it's very easy. This is also the whole reason I like and prefer flat painted cars, but I don't seem to own one very often !

[[JUDGE]]

I find painting quite easy, if you prepare the area properly and have plenty of fine wet and dry on hand to smooth anything you stuff up you are almost certain to do a better job than the factory robots did first time up. Metallic is more difficult because if you make a mistake you are about stuffed since it's very hard to get it the same as the first time you painted it, I find I have to do the whole panel again to fix metallic so stick to flat colours. Then it's very easy. This is also the whole reason I like and prefer flat painted cars, but I don't seem to own one very often !

so how do i do metallic colours is it a different process, cause i was planning on going metallic lol

[vt1538]

With the 2pack metallics a base color is applied then the clear coats. The surface needs to be fully prepared before the base color is applied as sanding is not possible on the base color. The coats of color should be applied wet on wet as the last coat goes tacky. The same goes for the clear coats.
If you have any faults in the clear coat these can be buffed out once the paint has fully hardened.

[NVE_069]

this was done at home give u an idea on wot it looks like, an a b4 pic of it

cheers

[[JUDGE]]

this was done at home give u an idea on wot it looks like, an a b4 pic of it

cheers

Thats a hell good paint job, u did that urself at home? nice work m8, id liek to be able to do that to my car its green and has a few chips out of the paint, id like to make it a dark metallic colour to make it look better and lose the chips outa it

[NVE_069]

a mate did it but he isnt a painter

[chopsy]

Alot of people think you just have to know how to paint and mix paint to spray a car but alot of it has got to do with the prep work of the body.As if you dont prep it properly sand ,clean ect.ect. it'll show when the job is finnished i worked in alot of panel shops when i was young i lear'nt alot there but i taught myself mostly alot of it.When i sprayed my first whole cars i sprayed each coat on lighty and just built each coat up as i went along but not straite away i waited alittle between each coat.Everyone has their own idea's just take your time dont get heavy handed and hit the car with thick coats of paint one after the other.But when it comes down to it it depends on weather you are doing a full re-spray or going the same color if you are only painting the same color you only need to rub the shine of the existing paint.But i would start practicing first go get some old gaurds and stuff and have a practice on them.As some one said before prepsol you must make sure you clean all surface's to be painted properly with prepsol otherwise you'll be painting and thinking gee this is coming up nicely then you will spot places that have'nt been cleaned properly and if you dont know what your doing it can be a nightmare i've been there and done that. There are books you can get from place's like supercheap that are about panel beating and spraypainting have a read.