Well, I've been wanting to paint a car forever. MY 88 GTA could use a paint job. I want to paint it the original color, and I could take my time and do it right. I have an automotive spray gun, air compressor, and a garage. Could I use plastic to totally enclose the car, tape everything shut, spray it down and get rid of the dust and paint the car like that? Where can I get good quality auto paint? What's a good brand? Thanks for any tips or info. I'd probably do this next summer by the way. When it's hot and I've learned more. Matt

 

As others have recommended in another post, if its a car you care about don't use it for the first time you are painting a car. If you don't have any experience with it at all, and you don't have someone to sit there and watch you and give you pointers then you are guaranteed to mess up. Your going to need to find someone to vent that garage too, you can't just shut the door and paint away, especially since you aren't going to have a fresh-air system like a shop would. If you do decide to do it yourself, just make sure you get a good quality paint(just pick a brand, most all the major brands out there are good) and tack the car with a tack rag a few times before you start to paint, that will help with the dust. But even then you are still going to have dust floating around and coming down from the ceiling and stuff.

 

To answer your questions, yes you can put plastic up on all your garage walls and ceiling to make a temporary spray booth. It won't be dust-free, but you can wetsand and buff out the imperfections.

To find a local car paint dealer look in the yellow pages under "Automobile Body Shop Equipment & Supplies." DuPont and PPG make quality paint (as do others). Each brand has different grades of paint too, so you can buy a $50 gallon of paint or a $250 (or more) gallon of paint, depending on which line you go with.

As BTS88IROC said, I would paint a couple beaters first as practice before painting something I cared about. Pick up an old car that needs paint & bodywork and practice on it. Then sell it when you're done for a profit. You'll learn a lot and maybe make some money while you're at it.

 

Theres nothing wrong with painting your 'bird a few times is there?

 

Go for it. Take off one of your GFX pieces and practice on that before doing the car. I just got done painting the engine bay of my RS (might as well do it while I got the motor out). Came out pretty good. Soon as the new motor goes in I'm gonna prep the body and get ready to spray it. I'm gonna mix my own custom color. Mixing the paint is alot harder than painting it. A good mix will make or break the paintjob.