Guys, I want to paint my car.

I bought the car primered, and took the easy route of spraybombing it and now I'm tired of gray spraybomb.

If anyone with some painting experience could give me a breakdown of EVERYTHING I need, or should use as well as a rough time estimate for each stage that would be wonderful (Military officer & married, not a lot of available time)!

I looked at some of the eHow demos and some of the threads here, but I feel retarded because I just don't get it.

Thanks.

 

Sand, primer, paint, clear coat and sand some more...

Do a search! There are a million threads on here about painting. You might want to do a search on you tube as well...There are numerous how to videos on there about painting cars. You will want to rent a compressor and buy a spray gun from harbor freight.

One other option is to prep the car yourself (sand and primer) and then have maaco actually spray the car. Ive heard that most of the maaco issues have to do with poor prep...

 

I was always told sand, prime, guide coat, sand, prime, paint, clear, sand

 

hi I was actually going through the same thing when I first started a few months back. The good thing was that when I was googling how to paint a car I came across learnautobodyandpaint.com and got the free 85 page manual on auto body and paint.

It was very helpful. What you want to do is decide on the type of paint you want to spray your car with. You can use a single stage enamel, or a base coat clear coat system.

The single stage systems are pretty cheap about $100-200 for all paint materials. Base coat clear coat systems can range from $300-$600 for paint materials but the quality and durability of paint is prominent.

The big puls with 2 stage paints are that you can also mix flake and or pearls in your clear coat to make a custom look. You can further enhance this all by letting your car dry for a few days, then color sanding the car with a 1500-2000 grit paper and buff it out for ultra wet look (what I ended up doing) came out fabulous.

here is a Cheat sheet and what I learned from learnautobodyandpaint.com

1. Clean your car good before going any body work. (use a dish soap).
2. Mark and grind deep dents if any... Then fill with filler after pulling out with a stud welder (they also show you how to use this tool on video if you need it).
3. sand with 80 grit to shape, then with 150-220
4. Prime with a 2k primer (which also fills scratches.
5. Wet sand with 400 grit to flatten orange peel and rub out scratches
6. Fill scratches with glaze putty if needed, let dry, then sand out again with 400.
7. Prime over all glaze spots, sand again with 400.
8. Wash car, and wipe doen with wax and grease remover.
9. Tack rag down and paint in home garage or rented spray booth.

The rest is on video... hard to explain.

Hope you got the gist of it! anyway check that blog out and get the free e-read at learnautobodyandpaint.com

James. I will post pics of my camaro soon! It's actually on their site too!

 

hmm,judging on everyones advice i cant tell wut exact stage ur in,but if the car is all primered already,im assuming u can mask off and paint right now.if this is the case,u need to remove all the parts that will block the paint from getting in all appropriate places(door handles,rear spoiler if u have one,etc.) then u have to clean it with a wax and grease remover and tack cloth as said above.judging on how well u paint,u may have to do a lot less sanding then planned.this is very basic,so if u still need help tell us and ppl can help u.also,a while before i painted my whole car i watched several videos on painting technique.if u wanna see how to do it watch this video its not hard to follow and was really straight forward for me.basically keep the same speed,and always keep the gun moving.always keep the same distance between the gun and car.and to get it even,overlap by 50-75% goodluck!

 

**** sry i forgot to link u.here it is.this video will help.trust mehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY2nQarwVlA&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL020E56C0727021D8

 

fissionfusion
Hey I'm an exmilitary guy here, you should try to see if you got anyone in your dept, who has some body experience.(you could ask for some pointers) I remember when I was in there was a ton of guys who use to do bodywork.(kinda of funny now that I think about it) And one of the funniest things I remember was my senior chief called us all together held out a part and ask if anyone here know what is was. The first guy to answer correctly got a special assignment lol.