Okay I am redoing this whole thing because it was in old vortex format and when it got converted over it was all ****ty and its called Respray / Paint DIY so I figured it should be a DIY. There will be updates of my car as well.
Okay, if you want to paint your car yourself you will need: Supplies, a good place with proper ventilation and air filtration, a lot of time and a lot of patience.
When I say a lot of time I figure doing it yourself, about:
***This is considering you have no body work to be done and your not pulling the engine and doing all of the jams ect. If you have a lot of body work to do thats easy another 3-5 hours. Also if you have to setup your own booth that will probably take 4 hours + depending on your situation.
Remember if you take a 10 minute break it adds up. The times here reflect straight concentrated working.
If you have never done this before add 12+ hours of research/ practice and multiply every other number by 2.
If you don't know where to start to learn how to make your own booth its pretty simple. You need:
A larger room (empty garage, a tent ect), you have to be able to mover around the car freely.
A lot of tarps or plastic to completely seal off the area
Intake and Exhaust fans with filters for ventilation
Here's a DIY
Garage: http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/720.cfm
Tent:
Pretty self explanatory. Wrap the tent in plastic and cut two holes for the fans. One going one way and the other opposite.
The supplies you will need:
Prepping
Painting
Post Paint
This is a list I made up off of the top of my head in 5 minutes. There is a lot more that is probably needed and I'll edit it eventually. But its a start.
The basics to painting. (Originally given by inertpyro and edited a bit by me.)
Filler Work
1. Sand down to bare metal with 80 grit and few inches around the spot to be filled.
2. Spread filler, only as much as needed.
3. Rough it down with 80 grit. Use long strokes over it in an alternating cross hatch pattern. This will help reduce deep scratches.
4. Spread a nether layer of filler this time really thin
5. Sand down with 220 so the edges are nice and feathered.
Primer
1. Wet sand with at least 220 at first but you can go lower like to 150 if you like depending on what condition the surface is in. Your going to want to get every last glossy spot. If there is any gloss when you paint, the paint will eventually flake off in the place.
2. Wet sand again with 320 and then 500. I would recommend at least sanding through the clear coat and at least to 400, but have heard people go up to 600-700.
3. Rinse the area off very well.
4. Wipe the area down with a quality paint thiner and go over it with a tack cloth.
5. Spray 3 medium-wet coats of primer. Again pay close attention to the flash times (time in between re-coats).
6. Wet sand with 600, get the area to where you think its good, try not to sand through the primer.
7. Take a spray can, any contrasting color and lightly spray over the area and sand it off. The color you see left is either deep scratches or orange peel.
8. Sand it down until these go away, as long as you again don't go through.
With the sanding its best if you focus on one panel at a time, finish one, move to the next. Again I prefer to cross hatching as I sand, I think it ends up with a more uniform result and less likely to see deep scratches when your finished.
Base/clear
1. Again Clean the surface very well.
2. Spray your base color down. 3 coats. When spraying, overlap each pass of the spray gun by 40-50% and spray 7 to 10 inches away from the panel. Don't spray basecoat too heavily. It's doesn't shine quite like other paints. It dries quickly and appears dull. It's the clearcoat that produces the shine and durability.
3. Wait the flash time between base and clear. Usually 30 minutes or so. This should give you time to clean your gun out and mix the clear
4. Spray the clear. 2-3 coats. Lay it on thin/medium on the first pass then come over heavier in the 2nd/3rd coat.
Going with 3 coats is nice because it give you more room to fix your errors. Such as dirt specs and orange peel, they can be taken out with wet sanding with 2000 grit and a bit of compound. Now this can't how ever fix runs, those your out of luck on.
Between coats carefully inspect the surface and see if maybe you can see some areas where the paint is becoming thick and may possibly run and avoid that the next time. The primer and base a probably the easiest to get runs. I find its pretty hard to go to heavy on clear, its pretty sticky stuff.
As for tips on spraying, start with the hard to reach places first, the roof, top of the hood, bumper vent holes, strange angles, ect. Then fill in the rest working from top to bottom.
Make long smooth strokes.
1. Start out with your gun on the side of what your painting.
2. Pull the trigger so only air comes out.
3. Begin to move
4. Right before you reach what your painting pull all the way so paint comes out
5. Keep a nice smooth pace, maybe a bit slower than walking speed. Keeping the gun about a foot or so away.
6. Once you pass the end of your stoke let up half way on the trigger, air only again for a second or two then let go
7. Repeat
As it started:
![Image]()
Before the paint/body work:
![Image]()
BORDER="0">
![Image]()
Finished is on pg 3!
P.S. Paint is BMP
***edit: This was in the Body Technical forum but its too slow to even watch that one, and a ton of people are always moving through here.
Lets keep the bs to a minimum.
![Image]()
Okay this has more or less turned into my paint "build thread" so I'll give a list of what is to be done:
I think that is it. I'll take as many pics as I can because there are a few people following this now.
5/12/10
The compressor is not what I thought it was going to be when I saw that I could rent one. Therefore the search is on to find one I can buy
Modified by lorge1989 at 11:29 AM 5-2-2010
Okay, if you want to paint your car yourself you will need: Supplies, a good place with proper ventilation and air filtration, a lot of time and a lot of patience.
When I say a lot of time I figure doing it yourself, about:
- Disassembly - 2-3 hours
- Prepping and Sanding all pieces - 8 hours
- Spraying everything - 4 hours
***This is considering you have no body work to be done and your not pulling the engine and doing all of the jams ect. If you have a lot of body work to do thats easy another 3-5 hours. Also if you have to setup your own booth that will probably take 4 hours + depending on your situation.
Remember if you take a 10 minute break it adds up. The times here reflect straight concentrated working.
If you have never done this before add 12+ hours of research/ practice and multiply every other number by 2.
If you don't know where to start to learn how to make your own booth its pretty simple. You need:
A larger room (empty garage, a tent ect), you have to be able to mover around the car freely.
A lot of tarps or plastic to completely seal off the area
Intake and Exhaust fans with filters for ventilation
Here's a DIY
Garage: http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/720.cfm
Tent:
- Get a huge tent. 6 feet tall and 10x20 ft.
- Plastic wrap, a lot of it.
- Two box fans
- two furnace filters
- A lot of tape or staple gun
Pretty self explanatory. Wrap the tent in plastic and cut two holes for the fans. One going one way and the other opposite.
The supplies you will need:
Prepping
- DA Sander (Dual Action)
- Sandpaper for sander. I am using 150 and 250-300.
- Wet/dry 600/500/400 grit paper
- Masking tape
- Masking paper
- Regular 80 grit paper
- Body Filler (Evercoat is a good choice)
- Paint thinner, or a de-greaser of some sort
Painting
- Two HVLP guns (one primer (1.8mm tip) and top coat (1.3mm)
- Air compressor (1.5x the cfm required by your gun, MIN. 60-80 gal. tank)
- Water filter for air line (just in case)
- Respirator
- PAINT! (Primer, base, clear)
Post Paint
- Wet Sand Paper 2000 grit
- Buffer
- Polishing compound
This is a list I made up off of the top of my head in 5 minutes. There is a lot more that is probably needed and I'll edit it eventually. But its a start.
The basics to painting. (Originally given by inertpyro and edited a bit by me.)
Filler Work
1. Sand down to bare metal with 80 grit and few inches around the spot to be filled.
2. Spread filler, only as much as needed.
3. Rough it down with 80 grit. Use long strokes over it in an alternating cross hatch pattern. This will help reduce deep scratches.
4. Spread a nether layer of filler this time really thin
5. Sand down with 220 so the edges are nice and feathered.
Primer
1. Wet sand with at least 220 at first but you can go lower like to 150 if you like depending on what condition the surface is in. Your going to want to get every last glossy spot. If there is any gloss when you paint, the paint will eventually flake off in the place.
2. Wet sand again with 320 and then 500. I would recommend at least sanding through the clear coat and at least to 400, but have heard people go up to 600-700.
3. Rinse the area off very well.
4. Wipe the area down with a quality paint thiner and go over it with a tack cloth.
5. Spray 3 medium-wet coats of primer. Again pay close attention to the flash times (time in between re-coats).
6. Wet sand with 600, get the area to where you think its good, try not to sand through the primer.
7. Take a spray can, any contrasting color and lightly spray over the area and sand it off. The color you see left is either deep scratches or orange peel.
8. Sand it down until these go away, as long as you again don't go through.
With the sanding its best if you focus on one panel at a time, finish one, move to the next. Again I prefer to cross hatching as I sand, I think it ends up with a more uniform result and less likely to see deep scratches when your finished.
Base/clear
1. Again Clean the surface very well.
2. Spray your base color down. 3 coats. When spraying, overlap each pass of the spray gun by 40-50% and spray 7 to 10 inches away from the panel. Don't spray basecoat too heavily. It's doesn't shine quite like other paints. It dries quickly and appears dull. It's the clearcoat that produces the shine and durability.
3. Wait the flash time between base and clear. Usually 30 minutes or so. This should give you time to clean your gun out and mix the clear
4. Spray the clear. 2-3 coats. Lay it on thin/medium on the first pass then come over heavier in the 2nd/3rd coat.
Going with 3 coats is nice because it give you more room to fix your errors. Such as dirt specs and orange peel, they can be taken out with wet sanding with 2000 grit and a bit of compound. Now this can't how ever fix runs, those your out of luck on.
Between coats carefully inspect the surface and see if maybe you can see some areas where the paint is becoming thick and may possibly run and avoid that the next time. The primer and base a probably the easiest to get runs. I find its pretty hard to go to heavy on clear, its pretty sticky stuff.
As for tips on spraying, start with the hard to reach places first, the roof, top of the hood, bumper vent holes, strange angles, ect. Then fill in the rest working from top to bottom.
Make long smooth strokes.
1. Start out with your gun on the side of what your painting.
2. Pull the trigger so only air comes out.
3. Begin to move
4. Right before you reach what your painting pull all the way so paint comes out
5. Keep a nice smooth pace, maybe a bit slower than walking speed. Keeping the gun about a foot or so away.
6. Once you pass the end of your stoke let up half way on the trigger, air only again for a second or two then let go
7. Repeat
As it started:
Before the paint/body work:
P.S. Paint is BMP
***edit: This was in the Body Technical forum but its too slow to even watch that one, and a ton of people are always moving through here.
Lets keep the bs to a minimum.
Okay this has more or less turned into my paint "build thread" so I'll give a list of what is to be done:
- Few dings here and there that will be filled
- Shave the two side vents on the front bumper
- Shave the rub strip markers
- Install my new 20th lips and skirts
I think that is it. I'll take as many pics as I can because there are a few people following this now.
5/12/10
The compressor is not what I thought it was going to be when I saw that I could rent one. Therefore the search is on to find one I can buy
Modified by lorge1989 at 11:29 AM 5-2-2010
