***I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING RUST-O-LEUM***

THERE IS A MUCH BETTER ALTERNATIVE HERE:

The "ULTIMATE" budget paint job




I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for what I did , but I don't have a few grand laying around to drop on a "pro" paint job. My car is one of many high mileage base birds that will probably never be worth much to anyone but myself so I'm making it the best looking dependable daily driver that I can on a budget.

Now that I got that out of the way.....

This started out a couple of weeks ago or so, honestly, I've lost track. I've been touching up the car with a rattle can since I got it a year and a half ago. The factory paint was horribly faded where it even existed. I sanded the car down and fixed most of the dings.

I originally started out using the roller method. It may work for some of you, but it didn't work for me. It left roller tracks on the hood that wouldn't wet sand out, runs everywhere, and lots of orange peel. I spent over a week of afternoons trying to get it to work. I finally gave up on it and sanded the car completely back down.

My second try I grabbed the Wagner Power Painter out of my shed. It did a great job painting my house so I decided I'd give it a try.

I used Rust-Oleum Sunrise Red Gloss enamel mixed 2:1 with mineral spirits. I sprayed 8 light coats with about 20-30 minutes between each coat. All the spraying was done this past Saturday. Sure, there was some orange peel, but it was fairly light. If I had sprayed heavier coats there would have been less peel but I didn't want to take a chance on runs...they're alot harder to sand out than peel.

Sunday (yesterday) I started wet sanding. I used my $8 Harbor Freight square 1/4 sheet palm sander with 600 grit wet paper then went over it again with 1000 grit. While running the sander I used a spray bottle of water with a little dish soap mixed in. It sanded evenly and I didn't wear out my arms/hands/fingers using this method.

After the wet sand I wiped off the entire car with Windex and clean rags. I used the Harbor Freight $30 7" grinder/polisher with a wool pad and Turtle Wax liquid polishing compound to buff it out. I wiped the whole car down with a clean rag and then waxed it with Turtle Wax carnuba wax.

I've got about $120 in the paint job including paint, sand paper, buffer, polish, wax, etc... It's not a perfect show quality job, but it's very, very nice. It looks alot better than 90% of the Maaco or Earl Schieb jobs that I've seen and I've got the satisfaction of saying I did it myself...along with everything else I've done to the car.

This was accomplished in a weekend by myself outside on my gravel driveway under an oak tree.

Here are a few pics this afternoon after driving it 80 miles round trip to work and back. It's a little dusty, I noticed some spots of wax that I missed last night in the dark, and I need to clean up everywhere the buffer slung the polishing compound. I also need to repaint my door handles black. The A & B pillars aren't finished because I'm going to paint them a different color. I also need to paint the wing and put it back on. The pics really don't do it justice...it looks sooo much better in person. I can't wait to get it cleaned up nice and get some pics when it's sunny.


Opinions, comments, cussings?

 

Just glancing over it real quick, that actually looks VERY acceptable. Its presentable thats for sure. Nice job!

 

Wow. I was expecting something awful, but that looks pretty good! I noticed a lot of overspray though....Did you mask anything?

 

Not bad .. not bad at all ... does sound like a better option than using the roller method

Can you take some more pics ? Preferably more when it gets closer to dark .. or by a street light at night ?

 

Looks good for a budget job. Congrats!

 

There's some over spray on the tires that I haven't scrubbed off yet, but the pink looking stuff on the wipers and cowl is the polishing compound that was flung off of the buffer. I worked on it until after dark last night and didn't get around to cleaning all that up yet. The side markers have some paint on them from the roller method. I'm planning on taking them all out next weekend and polishing them.

 

wow, looks great, and you can tell people you used a wagner power painter. haha.

seriously she looks great. i was expecting some sort of joke.

 

Dude! Looks great!

If I still lived in Travis county I'd ask you to do mine.

 

looks great way better than i would have ever thought it would I would of never been able to tell you used the wagner

 

that looks really good man! I had the same problem with the rollers, I painted on a spare fender I have and it just isnt working for me. This may be the way to go for a budget. I wonder if you could get it to look "deeper" and more pro looking with some clear coat? Either way, I like it.

 

Looks good, nice work. Never discount a resourceful individual.

 

looks dam good othere than the overspray if u coved everthing better it would be a dam near prefect good work

 

like he said, it's polishing compound, not overspray.

does the wagner have different nozzles? if so, which did you use.
Did you paint it inside a temp garage or out in the open? what temperature was it?

Also, did you use any heaters to dry it or let it air dry ?

150 bucks sounds about doable to give me a temp paint job until i actually make some money. I'd prefer to paint my factory stipes on, as the stickers bleed whenever I wax. I imagine that would be just a matter of very careful taping.

 

I seriously love posts like this. I am going to try something like this, or the roller method, on an old hood and see what I can get. The Power Sprayer method is probably a lot less work than the roller method, too.

 

If i could count on the weather for more than 1 day, i'd be all over it. I cant help but think that he used a garage or temp garage to keep the pollen and crap from blowing on the we paint, along with a heater or two to speed up the process. Sucks not having a garage.

 

thats nice, but why are you going to paint the A and C pillars a different color? dont do that!

 

Trust me....NO garage, no carport, no shelter of any kind! Just a GOOD wet sanding gto get rid of stray debris.

 

I wish I had a garage, or even a carport.....hell, I'd be happy with a paved driveway. The temp was somewhere in the mid to upper 80's and the humidity was fairly high. The wind wasn't blowing hard but there was a slight breeze. The paint dries to the touch in about 2 hours +/-...at least mine did. Fortunately all the pollen was blown out of the trees about a month ago, but I did have issues with mosquitoes and other very small winged insects. If they land in the wet paint you can either pick them out with tweezers or just let them dry in the paint and the wet sanding will get rid of them.

Some Wagners have different or adjustable nozzles. Mine doesn't, it's the cheap base model. I think I paid $20 for it about 3 years ago at Home Depot when I painted my house.

I'm doing the windshield surround and the part between the windows and the hatch in a gloss black similar to the 4th gens. I look at it like this, if I don't like it I can always sand the black off and shoot it in red again. I'm also considering carrying the black onto the top half of my 4th gen wing since the tips of the "arms" start where the dividing line of the two tone will be.

 

wow that looks great for the price.. I went out and spent $600 just on my compressor to get ready and paint mine lol.. Of course it helps with the sanding also i hate sanding

 

Gotta love that.

 

Nice Job cant wait to get my stuff painted

 

I'm currently painting my Camaro using a similar method. It is a race car, so I'm not really taking my time like I would if it was a driver. I bought a HF gravity feed gun for $20 and I'm shooting it with Rustoleum. I've done one coat of primer with great results. I'm doing a little bondo and sanding now then another coat of primer then black Valspar Topside. I know black is difficult, but like I said, it doesn't have to be perfect. I'll post some pics when I finish it.

 

How much did you thin it? And did you use mineral spirits as a thinner?

 

in his post he mentions 2:1 with mineral spirits.

 

Everything I read said to thin the paint 1:1 with mineral spirits. Through trial and error I found that didn't work too good for me so I bumped the mixture up to 2 parts paint 1 part mineral spirits. The 2:1 mixture worked out very nicely for me.

Oh, and if anyone was wondering I DID NOT use any primer. You don't have to with this type of paint. It's made to spray directly on metal.

Here's what it looked like when I sanded it down. I took the hood all the way to the metal. And that is exactly where it was sitting when I sprayed it.

And here's a couple more pics I took yesterday.

 

How long did you take to sand the car down? What materials for this?

IMO, this is what you do to make the biggest impact in the final product (do I hear an AMEN?)

 

Looks really good, too bad it will only last a couple years.......how ever long it takes for house paint to start coming off

 

Read more carefully....It's NOT a house/latex paint. Just your typical house SPRAYER that was used.

 

WOW

Looks Good, Nice Job!

 

if it only cost $120 it cant be much better, i think rustolem is laquer...........it will require alot of buffing over the course of the paint jobs life...........the house sprayer spray well, ive done a few tractors like that............for a 120 bucks you cant complain.........ive done the same kind of jobs before on road tractors and they looked really good for the first year..(i rebuilt my dads 81 kenworth w900....it was jack knifed and i used acyrilic single stage on it)

single stage is a love hate kinda thing, its cheap, but you have to put down a **** load of it to have enough for it to last a while..........most factory cars are 5-8 mils thick, while a good single stage job is about 13-17 mils thick......this can present a chipping issue......but on a 20+ year old car, its fine, and ill say again it looks really good

 

Some people who have used Rustoleum, including with the roller method, report years of continued shine and durability.

 

I'll back that up.

 

Has anyone done the rustoleum then put some clear on top?

 

I tried Rustoleum and mineral spirits on a fiberglass hubcap... with the roller... it was nice and shiney... but the paint never seemed to harden enough...
Even after leaving it outside for a few weeks... ???

I did get a small can of actual Tremclad black and clear coat from Canada, but haven't cracked it open yet...

Raf

 

its enamel which you can add a little hardner to make it harder

jay D, why do you have to rain on others sunny days

maybe it wont last too long but right now he is very proud of his car and he should be

instead of ripping on his job why not give some next time advise

he can take that single stage paint job, sand it down w/400 and urethane clear over the whole thing at any time

 

Jay D just finished paint school. His expectations are a lot higher than the rest of us on this thread. Motives.

 

Man that looks great, especially on a budget. That is probably what I will do on my 3rd Gen. budget racer, except I have a cheap spray gun to use.

 

If you want some cheap, but decent paint...then I'd suggest that you check this company out....

http://www.paintforcars.com

I have no personal experience with any of their products....yet.

 

OK...to clear a few things up. As stated above it's NOT house paint, it's enamel. The total of $120 included EVERYTHING, including the buffer and all the sand paper. The actual paint was $7.97 a quart. I used a little over 3 quarts. If it fades in a few years then oh well, I'll take a weekend and repaint it. Now that I know how to do it it shouldn't take me as long the next time around.

Cadillac-- It took about 2-3 hours or so to sand the car down. I actually don't think it even took me that long. The stock paint (what was left of it) was really, really thin. I used 220 grit on my DA sander then went over the whole car with 400 grit wet paper.

Thanks for all the kind words, I really appreciate it. I fully expected to get completely flamed. I figured I'd try this out and see what kind of results I could get going completely budget. I'm sure most of us don't have several extra thousand $$$$ laying around to spend on a paint job. The best part of a job like this is the fact that you can get everything you need for it at Home Depot or Lowes...well, I got the buffer at Harbor Freight.

 

I think it turned out great for $120

Edit: Get those wipers and cowl cleaned up and it will really look nice

 

Well after seeing this post and actually thinking about it, I knew I had a wagner power painter in my shed so I decided to try this because my car has been sitting around for a while in primer so I could save for a paint job. Well since I already had the sprayer, I went out and bought the mineral spirits and the paint and the tape and some sandpaper and decided to get to work. I started today and this is what I have so far.



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Well sorry that didn't work, check out my garage to see the pictures of my paint job so far. I still need to do another coat tomorrow and then I'm going to wet sand and polish and wax.

 

pictures

 

more pictures

 

If you have extra, why don't you paint the rest of your lawn blue? Kidding, it should grow pretty fast now that summer is comming up. It looks good so far, where did you get the paint? If the finished product is any nicer than that, I may opt for trying this out, with clearcoat on top though.

Eddy, that looks really good. Can't wait to see your car in person.

 

I got the paint from wal mart. It is rustoleum gloss sail blue. Yeah it would be cool to have blue grass, but i don't think i could afford to do the whole backyard haha.

 

Virginia huh? You originally from Kentucky? Wanting a piece of home?

 

haha nah born and raised in virginia, just trying to make a bad joke....the more I look at my car, the more the color reminds me of petty blue for some reason, anyone else think that?

 

I'll see you (FYRCHKN) in the morning, so we can get crackin' on mine. OK? My white should be easier to "hide" any blemishes made.

Your yard or my car port?

 

dang.. now i gotta paint the beast next weekend

 

anymore updated pics?