Anybody ever spray painted a vehicle before? Or should I just drop 500 for a cheap maaco paint job

The paint isn't going to be the best.

BUT if you do the prep yourself and DO it properly it'll come out SOMEWHAT decent

t. the previous owner of my car did exactly that with the entire car.

It's easier than they say. Get tractor paint and do the whole job yourself for less than $100- in supplies.

Yes they do. They'll normally even take the price down if you do it. The cheapo Maaco paint is single stage so keep that in mind

Tractor paint? In a rattle can or a compressor?

Just get a wrap?

You will need a compressor and spray gun, or just use a brush, it can come out surprisingly good.

Isn't that more expensive?

nope most of the time cheaper, but it won't last that long either

>cover up a shitty paint job with a temporary wrap....for $4k
LOL wraps are a meme unless you take your cars to shows and don't want to keep painting it.

It is a lot more expensive than a shitty paint job.

Maaco isn't painting shit for $500 unless it's a kei car. They offer 4 levels of paint service and their most bare bones basic one will run you at least $1000.

I cannot imagine any scenario in which a brush comes out good.

What user? Don't you want those old-timey brush strokes so your car looks like a wooden wagon?

Looks like a seventh or sixth gen accord sedan

You can make a rattlecan look acceptable - but that takes a very steady hand, good cans with adjustable nozzles and a right mixture, and also good experience with them & proper preparation

It will never be as good as a paintjob done properly with a compressor, gun and perfectly mixed paint, but if you're just doing this on a daily vehicle then it will always look better than matted/scratched/generally fucked up paint

Is that your shop?

The brush strokes melt into the body of the paint unless you paint in the direct summer sun.

Doubt fills me

Yeah easy breezy man. Just get yourself some good tips and then all you need is a shop, 50 m2 of plastic cover, sawhorses, shop lights, respirators, a friend, and hours to pull each individual part for painting.

We're talking budget jobs here. Your euroautism is not needed.

Or they could air brush with cheapo hobby brush. At least then you can ask toy how to paint shit properly.

rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

My dad painted his old jeep with a brush.

Learn to thin paints and use cutting solutions.

Yeah, I got my 1967 Chevelle sprayed.

I spent $300 in chemical stripper, took it down to bare metal. Then $2000 in panels and welding, $500 in primer, $1500 in paint, $500 in clear and then a shop charged me $1000 to paint it in their booth doing one base and two coats of clear.

Overall came to about $6000 and near a hundred hours of my own time on an already quite clean car.

Probably wouldn't do it again as the work wasn't enjoyable. I hate sanding.

>dat DIY paint booth
i need a garage

OK. Where do I learn? What should I paint to learn on? Should I appropriate 1000 or 2000 hours for this task while I trial and error through all the different thinning solutions/combinations?

This board is shit. 0% help for op, 100% personal blog.

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You said that you had a car faggot.

Sadly no - belongs to best buds father, and they both live 3 hours away. I can come there wherever and use his shop and tools if I need tho, really awesome and friendly guy who also loves to help out. Usually go there for bigger stuff that needs fixing.

This photo is just the main garage - there is another room, half its size, with machining tools, 50 ton press, 12x12 foot wall of hand tools. Further on you'll find a few machines for industrial knife sharpening, parts washer and some assorted stuff. Upstairs you'll find the guys living quarters, where he has tons of model cars, airplanes, remote controlled planes, drones, cases of auto/plane-related litterature and more.

The other garage where the paint-photo is taken is going to become a bigger paint booth & car storage, aswell as what it currently is; the room where he keeps all of his steel and the steel cutter.

Well, if he wants to do it relatively ok and relatively cheap then its a way to go. He also doesnt need all that.

>masking
Cheap tape and old newspapers
>grinding/paint removal
Flap disc on angle grinder, loose paper in hand for tighter/fragile spots
>paint
Rattlecans from fucking anywhere, as long as they have adjustable nozzles and you can find a color you like
>location
Anywhere thats not windy, overly dusty and not too frigid. Its a rattlecan, it won't look 100% no matter what.
>shop light
A tall $10-30 floor lamp from your local classifieds/craiglist works fine
>time
Look at it like a learning experience. And shit, we all know what hurried paint jobs look like

He doesn't even need to pull it apart for painting - he can just grind down the visible stuff and paint it. It will look ok from the outside, and none of his normie friends will ever look the the panels gaps to see the mismatched paint

If he wants to be a lazy fuck then he should just clean it, rub it over with paper and surface cleaner and then plastidip-can the whole thing

>airbrush an whole car
Madman

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coke and aluminium foil the bumper to shine it up man. clean up the wheels and the wheelwells too

Why didn't you mask the bumper or step?

$75 total

i flipped it and made a 2k profit.

nice, how much did you buy it for?
looks like the wheels got repainted too, lots of overspray on them too
you didn't use index cards to not spray the tires?

Unless you know what you're doing this is one of those jobs where you really need to pay a professional to do it properly or you'll regret it when it looks like dogshit.

500, put a tstat and radiator in it, painted it, sold for 2700

>looks like dogshit.
What if I drive a shitpile?

damn well done

You need lacquer or enamels for painting a car and all cars have top coat that can also be lacquer. Acetone, mineral spirits and a few other solutions that can be found for cheap work in thinning the paint/removing it. On /toy/ there are guides under gunpla general that give details on types of paint and what they do. Car model kits are a good starting spot for learning hobby airbrushing and the paint types previously mentioned work on galvanised steel and aluminium though abs(can be the material of trim and bumpers) can become brittle with straight laid enamel/lacquers which is why you need decent primers for the surfaces. Im forgetting some parts but thats the bulk of it.

Believe it or not some user on /toy/ has done that. Cost him around 400$ for paint if i am remembering this correctly. He had the tools for it though already if i recall. I have no fucking clue what his process was though. Looked ok.

So it seems like prep it myself(I have the tools) and let maaco do it for a couple hundred bucks is gonna strike the best middle ground between cheap and good

>maaco do it for a couple hundred bucks
post link

Nvm, they just said it starts around 600 lmao

Shit

Is it possible to do a rattle can job and also clear coat it so it doesn't melt away from petrol?

Yes - 2K paint stands up really nice to chemicals

I'd recommend using 2K paint for both the base and clear coat on the panel where petrol might run, as you don't want to use just 2K clear coat, have a small hole in it and then have the base coat take damage from the petrol that gets into that small hole

>should I just drop 500 for a cheap maaco paint job
Not unless you want your interior painted.
youtube.com/watch?v=6fOpbcInOrY

Fuck it, maybe I'll rhino line the whole thing

Rattle can with practice will come out better than maaco. Those monkeys don't know how to mask or prep, runs everywhere, overspray everywhere.

Shit's expensive
also will look bad

And just do clear coat on top? I've painted bikes with spray before but it took a lot of cans and after wet sanding I still went through to primer pretty quick

>airbrushing before spraying
What, why would he want to do the harder spraying first

Just have a shop do it, I wouldn't feel safe giving a noob urethane paint or primer and a spray gun, you'll end up hurting yourself and the quality of the work will be shit.
Noobs should stick to spray cans and if you want something better let the shop take care of it unless you have an experienced person there to help you.
Pro paint is not a joke.

Dude, the truck is worth like 3k for very good on KBB so I don't want to drop 2k on a paint job.

Just do it yourself. If you do the prep right and have the right equipment and do it in the right place it will be much better than maaco and cheaper.

There's a reason it costs so much to paint a car, it's an insane amount of work and the supplies are very expensive and the safety is extremely important, lots of money goes into supplies and equipment, I spent 1500 on just supplies alone to paint my car.
Primer is 100/gallon, paint is even more, all the shit you need like sand paper, drop cloth, masking tape, paint strainers and stirrers, activators and thinners, it's not a joke.

Very true, I spent like 100 bucks on just the paints needed for my front bumper. Color didnt event match in the end.

You can go super cheap and just do primer with a clear coat though, prolly do that for 400 bucks total with a crap compressor and paint gun from harbor freight

all of your advice is wrong. back to /toy/

This post made me lose more brain cells than the time I shot Imron with no mask

Can you get a refund?

Lies. Quoted a 94 Bronco at $450 scratch and spray. Get fucked.

> Ignore everyone's advice here, including the dumbass that mentioned tractor paint.

Get plastidip kit. It'll run you maybe $400 with the gallons and the gun. Plus you can choose more than just one color and you can design shit if you want. Is really easy.

Plus a $400 job comes out very good where spending $500 or $1000 on a Maaco job is risky.

Just go for it. It'll stay good for at least 3 years and anything beyond that can be peeled off and reapplied. Unless you plan on keeping the same car for 10 years. It's much cheaper than regular paint

Also don't forget to get a glossifier to make it look more like a paint finish.

Fuck off OJ.

Would it be worth it to have Maaco repaint the entire car the same colour? Or is there a better way? They have the no clear coat, single layer for $350 right now.

Great option if you want to spend $400 to make your car look like a rake handle (followed by a peeling rake handle 3 weeks later)

That would be a tough car to paint, every time the painter looked at the horrific 70s rear wheel offset he would be blinded, there would be runs everywhere

Theres nothing wrong with plastidip. And except for matte finished black. They all do look good and it does justice especially for older cars but no one wants to spend $2000 for a paint job.

I don't know what you are complaining about. CVS pharmacy sells hemmroid creams if you feel so butthurt.

Paint doesn't look too bad. Maybe get a heat gun and spray clear over the top and bumper after masking.

>I spent 1500 on just supplies alone
But I just want to paint a $1,200 car.

Paint on the roof is bad and chipping off, but no pics of that and it's dark out for me right now. Front bumper is pretty bad but most cameras "fix" it automatically.

>They allow you to do that?
no actually they dont. you are not allowed to do bodywork to your own car before getting a maaco paint job, it's against hipaa bylaws.

Top i cant tell but most of that looks like clear failure. You can find a lot of videos of people fixing that and most of it you can do reletively cheap.

Hey retard I just meant they would say "congrats you prepped it yourself, we're gonna go ahead and prep it again."

Yeah cheap and it'll look liked mismatched paint you fucking queer.

hey retard, i was serious. the minimum wage tech school dropouts there love doing body work so much that they do it for free. even if you drop your car off and just pay them for a paint job they will keep it for weeks, wet sanding it on their downtime in between vape breaks.

Depends how bad it could have faded. I dont think hes willing for learning how to do colour blending for the paint so its not like he has many options desu. Even then its not like he has the tools or space for that. It would at least keep it from getting worse for a short while.

That's why most folks who are willing to do the prep work won't get within a mile of a cheap paint shop. They'll paint it themselves.

My. Uddys brother rattle canned his beater truck. It doesn't look bad from a distance but up close it looks like shit. But it's a beater truck so he doesn't really care

>"paint problems"
more like patina

this. if you are going through all the trouble of doing the prep work, just spend the extra bucks on a tent and a sprayer.

mexicans do this shit in their backyard all the time.

Hey retard I meant they would re do the prep so they can get the full price out of me.

youtube.com/user/MrZoeystevenson/videos

youtube.com/user/customspraymods/videos

I've seen some maaco jobs done, I don't see what's wrong with going there

so realistically how much money should i save for a paint job?

5-6k

Nahh. That's door jams and engine level paint job. $2k-$3k max for exterior.

I think it differs franchise to franchise. The one I've been talking to seems to get a lot of classic cars. Every time I go they have classic muscle in the back for a show. Seems like if it is good enough for those guys it is good enough for my cheap 80s gbody. I'm taking as many steps as possible beforehand. Removed all trim, bumpers, etc. I'm also not going with the cheapest package. I feel like most negative reviews are for the cheapest package they offer. Going next Monday. We'll see how it turns out.

How much are you paying? What car?

86 El Camino. Taking it in for rust repair and body work. The paint part of the estimate is $559.85. They had three paint packages. This is their mid-end "urethane special." With all the body work they're gonna do it all comes to around $2000. Maybe I should invest in an extra couple hundred bucks for their top paint package. At this point what difference does it make? Reading these horror stories are making me nervous.

Good lcuk user

>spending 2 grand at fucking maaco

m8...