Can we talk about painting your car? It seems like something you need to pay a lot of money if you want done right...

It's more difficult than you imagine.

t. done lots of paint on plant machinery where it doesn't really matter, wouldn't want to do my car

I painted my car White
>went to a paint shop near mecanic school with old uniform
>buy toyota super white 91 and toyota black 89 paints
>bought paint gun, shitload of thinner and acetone

its not that hard if you take your time and prepare the surface properly. Its 90% about sanding the fucking car

My cousin painted my brothers car for some work around his shop. He also painted my bike and a couple guitars I had. He's really good I've never really had anything to botch about since its free

How many layers did you paint? I find it tricky once the first layer is applied, so hard to see if I get an even coat.

He has the lights removed dumbass.

i hate the prep for painting, how do you do the mixing? all i've done is buy the ready to use colors and mox them till i got the shade i wanted, let it dry and put a clear coat over it.

youtube.com/watch?v=Jnymvtf3zPY

Painting a car from start to finish. Doesn't cover everything but gives you a good idea.

I did a shit job on mine but it only cost me $200 and looked fine from 20-feet.

>He has the lights removed
Then what is this, moron.

So when prepping a car, does one typically use a DA or pnuematic sander? Sanding the entire surface of a car down sounds like a nightmare with just sandpaper.

It's not on the car you blithering idiot.

a picture for ants

It could easily be over-sprayed, retard, and so should be taped off.

It's really depends on what your doing.

If youre taking years of paint and old body filler off, da. Then you do bodywork and put a coat of filler primer on you should use sanding blocks to get it flat and non wavy.

It youre just painting a used hood to match your paint you can just scuff it with a scotch pad if the clearcoats not bad.

hivemind

I've never painted a street car, but I've prepped them for paint. What a long pain in the ass.

I'm not sure I would try to paint my every day driver, but I wouldn't hesitate to paint a track car that went on the street from time to time. An amateur paint job is kind of like the uncanny valley. At best, all the bits are there but something just doesn't quite match the real thing.

Had mine painted metallic black.

Came out great. Wasn't cheap

Full wraps are still around $2,500 to $3,000 with the 3M vinyl.

Good prep work is a pain in the ass but essential.

The environment it's painted is important too, some cold dusty shop or open air environment etc will lead to runs and fish eyes and the trash in the paint etc. A heated paint booth is ideal but yeah I know you lack the money to buy one.

For best results don't do it yourself in your garage or yard or some shitty shop. You'll have to dish out close to $10k probably to get it done to a level I would consider great, some people have !more of an eye for these things you might be tickled shitless with a maaco discount job idk.

Also I wouldnt reccomnded changing colors. Shit like engine bays and jams and all add a significant amount of additional labor if you don't want your vehicle to look like niggered up shit.

Shit like overspray isn't really an end of the world ordeal depending where it's located, especially if you find it early, thinner and a rag will get the majority a lot of the time, on glass I've personally never scratched shit up using a wet SOS pad but it's possible considering the steel, I hate clay bars but a clay rag with some soapy water will remove over spray from body panels, roofs, decklids and the like. That's all more of an issue for spot painting and prep work could prevent the need for any of it

Has anyone tried automotive liquid wraps here? I've all but decided to try it on my Scout. Between street driving, autoX, and track days the paint and body work takes quite a beating so I want to see how liquid wrap holds up.

Can second the "environment" part.

You can get a very passable paint job for less than $1k all included. I bought 350 dollar 2in1 paint/clear coat, about 70 bucks worth of sanding and prep equipment, a 50 dollar paint gun, and a weekend.

Then I painted outside. Don't. Paint. Outside.

The part of the car painted in the shade (during summer) turned out FANTASTIC. Shiny, no bleeding, all was good. But some got painted in sunlight. And it was terrible; matte and pitted. Plus, bugs everywhere.

So in my (albeit limited) backyard experience, I'd say your money is better spent on renting a booth or buying your buddy a case of beer to paint in his garage or something than really anything else. The paint, the gun, the prep: take your time and you won't go wrong. It's the drying and application process that gets you.

Just rattlecan it, not like you fags own anything other than shitboxes anyway.

I've painted 5 cars myself (First car turned out not so great). By the time I worked up to my 5th car I could reproduce OEM paint work. I've painted outside and in a booth. Outside paint jobs can look nearly as good as with a booth. I found the colder weather will make it a bit easier to paint because it gives you more time between coats. (Wait longer in colder weather between coats)

It really isn't that hard. If you want the absolute cheapest paint job that will turn out good then I recommend buying a compressor from harbor freight 21 Gallon (Mine is still kicking after 10 years).

You can also buy the spray guns they sell at harbor freight. These guns are really not that bad for the price and will work well for 2 stage paint. Buy all the tubes and air couplings.

Clearcoat from ebay (The cheapest urethane clear coat) is great. I was surprised at how well it looked and how easy it was to work with.

And finally the basecoat. This is where you money will count, go to your local paint store and buy a urethane basecoat (You don't have to use their clear for their basecoat, any clear will work). When laying basecoat, don't go heavy. Misting it on is a cool trick I learned from a bodyshop guy (Helps the metallic paints lay evenly). Let that dry and then clear coat it (Medium coat first past and then a heavier coat)

AFTER all that learn how to buff and you'll be a pro. Buffing clear can correct just about 80% of all mistakes in the clearing process. So as long as you don't screw up the basecoat and your clear comes out looking Ok, buffing it will make it look showroom finish.

That's a lot of info, but just trying to help out. Goodluck

Got a question for all you guys that have painted your cars. How big of a compressor did you get to paint your car? My friend who worked in a body shop said they used a 60 gallon air compressor and it worked perfectly, but thats like 900 dollars which I am willing to spend if it is necessary but my inner jew wants to know if I can cheap out and get a 30 gallon instead and still get a good quality paint job.

A lot of people will say 21 gallons is too small, but it's just fine for 2-3 parts per job.

To spray an entire car with 21 gallons won't work too well because you'll be waiting for the air to pump back up.

I painted my miata over winter break with nothing more than rattle cans from Home Depot, a lot of fucking primer, and a lot of fucking sandpaper. I literally sanded through my entire pinky fingernail at one point because of the constant indirect contact with the sandpaper. I was that dedicated to my car not looking like shit anymore.

It cost me about $500 once everything was said and done and took me a little under a month to do. I learned alot about how paint works and dries.

Honestly the hardest part about painting a car is the work involved in taking off every single panel and part and labeling it. I did a full respray on mine.

I did a 1968 Chevelle with brand new paint and body.

>did rear quarters, door skins and fenders
>stripped all the old paint
>did all the minor body work
>primer
>2 coats base
>3 coats clear with wetsanding between

I hired out the big body work which came to $3200 and paint/materials came to $2000. I ended up spending 140 hours on it but turned out nicely. I suggest going to a post secondary school to actually take paint/body classes before doing an entire car.

Craigslist usually has very good deals for a used compressor. I found a 60 gallon 5 HP compressor for 250$. Compressors will last for a long time so older compressors are still very capable.

PS it used to look like this

I'm going to be doing the entire car so I'll go for the bigger compressor thanks.

Fuck I never even thought about using craigslist for an air compressor. Thank you for saving me a ton of money.

I shudder to think what kind of body shop would be using a 60 gal compressor, must be in Tijuana.

>Moving the goalposts

Our shop has a 400 gal tank with a 3-phase 18 hp compressor.

That's a really nice job for $500 in materials.

>That shit is only good for 2-3 years and can ruin your clear coat if left on long enough.
Wait what? What can do this?

The wrap. It can't be left on for too long.

Oh, shit man I thought you meant plastidip. I was a little worried because I have covered quite a few cars with that shit.

Shit user, that's fucking nice.
And $500 is literally a steal.

Is plastidip a good option for somebody who just wants a coat of something over their car for a year or two to protect it from rust (because the clear coat is gone) while they do other more important repairs to the car before getting around to painting it?

It IS unheard of places to good paint jobs for that cheap

Speaking of painting, I'm doing up a shitbox at the moment to sell, and I'm trying to figure out how to best repair all of the bumps and bruises it has (for example pic related).

Should I sand, bog, and paint with rattle cans and clearcoat or something? What's the best option?

I'd probably use one of the multi-stage auto specific wrap materials. Those have at least a base sealer, color, and some even have a clear. When you wrap a rusty car it will continue to rust underneath. Wrapping doesn't hide imperfections really. You can use a self leveling base coat of removable clear under spray on vinyl or vinyl wrap but it only goes so far.

Paint is what you make it everybody. Most of the cost involved in any form of automotive refinishing is the work it takes to prepare the car. Taking off panels, labelling, masking stuff off, sanding, repairing, priming, and leveling all has to be done before the base coat can be applied. All that prep work is really what takes forever. Spraying the actual paint takes like 10 mins with the proper tools. It can almost be considered just a material cost.

The majority of the cost comes from the prep work mentioned above. If you go and do the work yourself in preparing the car then you can save alot of money. Personally I would ask a shop if they would prime and paint a car that you have already taken all the stuff off of and prepped if they were to give you a cheaper price. Some shops will do that and some shops won't. Places that are used to high volume insurance based work are just going to tell you to fuck off but some more local and smaller shops might do it. Ask around. If none of that works then just do it yourself. Buy the guns and compressor and practice on test panels until you feel ready to spray the car. Do your homework and don't cheap out.

I've painted a few cars/trucks. these are the results

2003 my paint guy moved away. he gave me some pointers on painting so I decided I could figure it out.

painted a 72 vw karman ghia. I had the psi turned up way to high and fucked it all up. had to sand and recoat.

my 93 bmw's paint was fading/pealing. I decided i'd give this paint thing another go. I took my time and made sure I didn't make a mistake turned out great, but didn't put a clearcoat so I waxed it every three months (was ok because made it look really good)

painted a 78 f150 last month, first attempt at tutone and it made me nervous a fuck. it turned out nicely

take your time, read , and take your time. you don't want a ten foot paint job.

Is it possible to get a good paint job for a place like Maaco if you do all the prep work yourself? From what I've heard the main reason their paintjobs are shit is because they really skimp on the prep work which makes me think if I did the prep I could get a nice looking paint job on the cheap.

What about POWDERCOATING your car, Veeky Forums?

Shits better than spray

OK mom

Sure, just drive your car into a 400 degree oven after completely stripping it to the bone, then have a finish that can't be color sanded, repaired, or painted over

dont need to repair or painted over because powdercoating strong :^)

first off you don't want what the guy in your pic is doing.

isocyanate is nothing like cyanide. still its nothing to fuck around with.

not to mention no bondo.

Spraying is a piece of piss, prep work is the absolutely essential process.

If you're not taking out dents or filling them you can get away with just scotching the entire car till it's dull. Then you need to be meticulous with your masking (unless it's a shell of course).

If it's a one off thing you can get away with a rattle can; you can get a paint shop to colour match and make some up for you. If you're going to start doing it properly get a good spray gun and compressor.

Start at the edges, dust a 'gripper coat' on and before that fully dries start building up your coats.. Don't go too wet, nor too dry. Keep the gun perpendicular to the job.

Then get some clear on it and leave it to set ( it's great if you have access to a booth/oven).

If you really fuck up, machine polish your mistakes out of it. But most competent sprayers can get factory (if not better than that orange peeling shit) finish out of the gun without needing to polish.

Re paint health, get a good mask if you can't get an air-fed breather. Don't sniff that shit.

Good luck

tupac nerve gas.