DIY painting...recommendations

[TedSlick]

I'm thinking about doing some auto bodywork and painting here at home.

Would appreciate any good leads on the topic (threads, books, websites...). I've done some searching before posting, but wanna know more, such as recommendations for painting equipment, paint, methods, etc.

My plan is to first practice by painting my pickup, then repair some door and bumper damage on my daily driver Integra, then perhaps (if I've made sufficient progress) on to my ultimate goal, the Porsche.

Personal experiences, good and bad, much appreciated. Oh, any pics would be great as well

[85eurocarrera]

www.autobodystore.com
Good info.
Joe

[boyo]

I spent the last week "painting" my 1948 Willys CJ-2A. Truthfully, I had planned it would take a week - but after 4 days I am still in the prep phase, no actual paint applied yet. Next time I'll pay someone to sandblast or dip.

Big surprises: cost of paint+primer+filler, using the least expensive PPG type, came out to about $380. The Dupont paint was looking closer to $700 for an exact color match. Expect to spend bucks here.

Wish I could relate more except it's a lot of work! Like you, I'm starting on the vehicle I don't much care about... And if all goes well I'll approach the 911 repaint myself. If not, seriously consider paying someone a couple grand to repaint. You might think you're saving lots of money doing it yourself, but if you count up the hours spent you might not be.

-Boyo

[PeteT]

Ted,
Check out www.paintucation.com. The owner of the site, Kevin, also sells some videos that are really nice.
Pete

[Harlan Chinn]

Paint supplies materials are expensive as are a good HPLV spray gun. Have a good sized compressor and a water filter in line with the air line to the air gun. Build yourself a paint booth that you can keep dust free. Hang out and be friend owners and operators of car restoration shops to learn of proper techniques in metal work and proper filling of minor imperfections. Surface preparation is 90% of good paint work. Proper paint application is the remainder of the equation. Also operators of auto paint supply houses can provide helpful information on paint mix proportions and to what products work best in the local environment which you will be spraying. Good luck and don't get discourged, it's only money and a lot of your time.

[tobluforu]

Sand, Sand, and sand some more. Take all windows out, strip the weather stripping off of doors and windshield. Take everything off you can. You will need a good compressor and a DA sander. Don't forget to prime bare spots as fast as possible. If sanding down to metal, and you don't have a heated garage, spot prime at end of day.

[912UK]

I did my own paint work I just did not like the jobs done by the paint shops and I know I am doing it right as time is on my side there is no black art to painting follow the rules and the rest is easy. Take your time and if you make a mistake it can be sanded back later so don't apply more paint.......

see my car at www.pelicanparts.com/gallery/912UK

Mark

if you are doing 3 cars then by the time you get to the Porsche you will either a P&^%d off with doing it or ready to get to work on the Porsche will all your new experience.

[73911guy]

I had an "S" bumper painted last week and the shop missed a few spots on the back of the bumper that only I would notice. I thought that rather than drive a total of 3 hours driving time (1 1/2 hours to drop off the bumper and 1 1/2 hours to go get it and bring it back) that I would just pick up a pint of paint and do it myself.

Imagine my surprise when I went to my DuPont dealer and paid $39.45 for a pint of Chromapremier Grand Prix white base coat. No reducer, no activator, just a pint of white paint.

If a 911 takes 1 1/2 gallons of paint to do a complete bare metal job, this would mean that you would have almost $500 in just the base coat materials - add in the reducer, activator, and the clear coat and you have a chunk of change in the materials alone.

How much are you willing to pay to learn this process? You may find you are better off doing disasssembly and reassembly and paying someone to take the risk of having a problem with the painting process. I stripped my car to bare metal and then turned it over to a painter because I wasn't willing to take the chance that I would have a problem with the painting process.

Jim

[targa80]

912UK:

Nice job on the repaint, is the color original or did you change it to what you liked? I'm sure you get lots of comments on the old California plates.

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Not to get into details, but painting a car is basically a whole lot easier than most people--particularly those who have never done it--will tell you. Most people are scared of it, assuming that there is some kind of juju that bodyshop people know and that the rest of us will never be able to figure out. Well, I recently restored a 911SC, painted it brilliant yellowbird yellow, did it both in my dusty old barn and on the grass outside the barn, and even though _I _ know where the few faults are, I have yet to have anybody including Porsche people say anything but wow, you painted it yourself? That's a great paint job. It isn't, but the next one will be better. And it's the first car I've ever painted in my life.

One thing that most people don't realize is that very fine-grit (1,200-2,000) wet sandpaper is a painting tool that will turn an ordinary finish into a superb one and that will correct a huge number of errors. I think people assume that you have to spray paint perfectly to have it come out perfectly. That's as silly as thinking you have to be able to type perfectly to have a message such as this come out...okay, not perfectly but at least right.

Stephan

[turbo6bar]

My single piece of advice after having worked on and painted 3 cars: Wet sand the clearcoat the next day. Not 2 days later. Not 3 days later. Not a week later, like me. Your life will be soooo much easier.

If you have the time and patience, you can create great work. There's a reason good paintjobs cost a fortune, and it isn't magic dust. It's called hard work.

My brother and I purchased supplies from Len at autobodystore.com, and I highly recommend the guy and his web site.

Jurgen

[ruf-porsche]

Paint all the body panel at once, don't do the hood and trunk one day and the door and fenders the next. The temperature of the air as well as the relative humidity in the air and the pressure that you use to shoot the paint out the gun will impact the final color on the car. Metallic color are hard to match and solid such as guard reds are a little easier, but if you paint them on seprate days you may have a slight mismatch shade.

Easiest paint to shoot are lacquers, it dries quickly and you can colorsand it till it smooth as glass.

If you plan on using a two part urethane paint be careful of the fumes. It can prove fatal or at least kill enough brain cells as binge drinking.

It really not that hard to paint a car, just remember as you go back and forth on the paint to release the trigger (just a quick release and back on the trigger almost like double clutching) just so that only air is coming out of the as you switch from right to left or left to right, else you have a lot of paint when you change direction and a lot of paint equal runs.

Practice on you beater or your wife car or your friends car, by the time you have three cars under your belt you will have the technique down and know which air pressure to use with your gun.

Post some photos on the board once it's painted.

[Kurt B]

I just painted my car (again) with a new gun and compressor. Makes all the difference. From the above points while it's all still fresh in my mind.
0) definitely do not change colors. Do a respray.
1) Sand the next day. This will save lots and lots of buffing. Otherwise, the paint gets too hard to buff easily and you'll see scratches.
2) Can't say enough about how to apply paint. It makes everything easier if you do it right. Whereas the first time i spent dozens of hours color sanding, maybe 50, this time I spent around 8 hours color sanding and it looks a lot better.
3) If you don't know what you're doing, lay lots of paint. Thinned, and get the gun right up close to the car. You can lay the first few coats with thicker paint and just get it on there. Then sand it with 400 grit. All you're doing there is making the color deep so you don't sand through later. Then you can use the thinner coats after you've got it on so there's a nice thick layer of 400 sanded paint on everything, to lay the nice looking coats. Long strokes. It should look wet. As it goes, you'll see what you want. A point at which is it almost about to run. It'll look pretty darn good. Unfortunately, you'll make runs doing this, and you'll have to back off: esp on the doors and verticle parts of the front fenders. On the rears and tail, and hood, it will come out lots better but will have particles stuck on the surface more. Always a draw back. Bad orange peel or runs on the verts, but particles on the horzs. I've had great lucky waiting a day to lay another coat. The paint will take the next coat--at least mine did.
4) I used 30% Acetone. Lay lots of coats thinned. If you put it on too thick, you'll get all kinds of problems--among them being, if it does run, you cannot sand the runs out. They'll have micropinholes in them just below the surface impossible to get rid of aside from filling them with putty and reshooting.
5) Pros can paint around a well masked area. We can't. We have to take everything off because we'll need to sand every square inch of the car. Yes, the door handles and rubber parts must come off. Do not try to mask them. This last time I didn't remove the windshield again, and sure enough, it sucks around it--not noticebly bad, but enough I think it sucks. But on a cab, painting that again is easy because it separates into just the long bar atop and the section in front of the hood and fenders. I'll take out the windshield and do it again.
6) Even if you're just redoing a fender or something, always cover the entire car. I don't care if there's wind or not, some paint droplets will get on other places of the car. You won't see it in the daylight. Only at night and at odd angles, it'll look sparkley. If you get to it the next day, it can be buffed off. But you dare not sand already dried paint. After a few weeks, certainly a month, you cannot colorsand without great risk as the paint is so hard it can't be buffed.
Painting is addictive because you can always see where you could have just gone slower, sanded more, done this or done that and you want to shoot it over. You'll always make mistakes. In the end, it's a lot of fun though.
Finally, concentrate your initial sanding and shooting prowess on the parts that are the hardest to get a buffer into/on. You can't buff everything as well as you can the hood, and if you try and squeeze that buffer in those places, you can burn spots of nearby paint, or make scratches, esp if the paint is soft enough take buffing well.

Oh, and get a good mask. I was higher than bloody hell one night and couldn't tell--was sucking in fumes and didn't know it. After I cleaned up and went to get something to eat, i began to realize I was totally flying. I could barely remember the cleaning process...definitely lost a few brain cells that evening.
But no, I couldn't really tell while I was going because I was concentrating a lot--just really, really focused on cleaning the gun. I mean REALLY into cleaning my gun.

[Bill Douglas]

LOL, not that I recommend it, but I painted a VW out on the footpath one day. The only prep' was I masked up the windows, bumpers and lights. I used a cheap electronic spray gun and the results were brilliant. The secret was I got the paint viscosity right.

[greglepore]

I have to disagree with the "sand immediately" comments. My shop, and I believe most pro's, would prefer to allow the clear to cure for a couple days, given that option. Yes buffing is more difficult, but the end result is better.
The buffing compounds are really the "black art" of a deep gloss.

[Bryantch]

If you are trying to save money by
painting the car yourself, my advice is
to get a second or a third job and
leave the painting to a professional...
youll be farther ahead. While it isnt
hard to get a decent paint job with a
little hard work and practice, the time
necessary to correctly prep, paint and
wetsand a car and get a great paint
job is enormous.

This picture is of the passenger door of my project car. The car is Jet Black.






2 coats black, 3 coats clear, 40 hours of
wetsanding by a professional.


If you are doing it just to say you can, then go for it! Learn as much as you can and take your time!

PS. Sorry about the picture size...i cant figure how to make these things smaller.

Ian

[Harlan Chinn]

I did most of the disassembly and cleaning of the car before the shop staff filled any imperfections.

My painter shot 4 color coats with 5 coats clear over my car as everything was painted in the paint booth in one 9 hour day. There is a window in which each successive coat should be applied. Three days later the paint is "opened up" with successive wet sandings using first 1000 grit then 1500, prior to being polished with a 3-M polish and a random orbital buffer.

[widebody911]

Here's some pix from my paint project last summer. I never got around to filling in the text.

http://vintagebus.com/howto/paint/

[MotoSook]

Thom, your case doesn't count as an amatuer home-paint job! And we all can't get cheap child labor!

912U-Mark...nice job!

But! I like this thread...keep it flowing! I am going to give it a shot (no pun intended) this summer.

Give us you thoughts on spray guns, color systems, etc,.. keep it flowing! I want this one to be a printout! Thanks.

[Avery]

Most everyone has mentioned the painting aspects but you mention body work as well which is a whole different ball game. If you have lots of dings, plan to spend most of your time taking care of them. It think body work is the tough part. It is more of an art than painting in some ways. On a 911, which has no flat surfaces...every panel has some curvature to it. There's no sanding block that you can get that will make the job of getting the curves oh so right. If you don't get all the body work taken care of properly, the nice new glossy paint job will show every tiny ding. You'll think Miracle painted your car if you don't take care of the body work correctly. You can do it, but it takes patience and a desire to not stop until you get it right.

Felmir