Paint your own car?

[Brotok]

I recently inherited some painting tools including a spray gun and air compressor from a friend. The thought of replacing and painting a crushed fender and door of my 911 is beginning to tempt me.

I want excellent results. Has anybody here painted their car at home? How difficult is it and is it worth it? Is there a good source of information on how to do this?

Thanks for reading

[ted]

what color?
Some colors are difficult to blend or match.
Fixing the dent may be the easy part.

[Brotok]

The color is Oak Green (dark green for those not familiar).

I think that getting a smooth shiny finish will be more important to me than perfect matching because the color is quite dark. So I am mostly curious how to get those professional results at home, I believe they use heat booths, is that necessary?

Thanks

[carrera turbo]

you can paint your car at home. but you need to check to see what your neighbors will think the smell Carry's very far. i walled off one of my three bays in my garage and have painted several cars in there. air quality is I'mportant for your self and the air around your car.i have a large transfer fan in the door of my garage with particulate filters to keep from blowing crap into the air. on the other end of the booth opposite of the fan i have filter in coming air, and before i paint i wet the floor down and it turns out good. a Porsche is a hard car to paint and cover all the angles for a first tI'mer. prep and body work is the hardest part to making a quality paint job. no matter how well you can lay paint a crap body job shows the worst. I'm sure theres lots of others on here that can help you out as well. a good respirator is a mandatory item.


cheers ed

[carrera turbo]

Originally Posted by Brotok

The color is Oak Green (dark green for those not familiar).

I think that getting a smooth shiny finish will be more important to me than perfect matching because the color is quite dark. So I am mostly curious how to get those professional results at home, I believe they use heat booths, is that necessary?

Thanks

great color my 79 930 is that color and not a easy color to match due to the gold metallic in the paint.

ed

[Matt Smith]

Body work isn't easy.
Having said that, almost everyone I spoke to when I asked the same question two decades ago said the same thing, and I refused to believe them and did it anyway.

It really depends on whether you have a feel and aptitude for that sort of work. You probably already know this. If you do, you would be beating on anything metal you can find, welding everything with all sorts of cheap ***** (been there x 6), learning it doesn't work- and reading as much literature as you can get. Then practice and ask so many questions it hurts.

Always, always buy the best tools & welders and offset them against the money you will save paying someone else for labour. Bodywork is art, and you should love doing it or forget it.

Priming, sanding and painting is the cake: so hard it will make you cry, but so rewarding you will do anything to perfect it.

[tharbert]

Things you ought to consider:

Air supply: does the unit have a drier? You don't want water spitting out with your paint.
Compressor: Is it rated high enough for spray painting. You don't want to wait for it to catch up.
Hoses: long enough?
Gun/Components: The gun should be spotless, inside and out. Dismantle and CLEAN ALL!
Spray booth (garage?): If you search here, you will see folks who have set up spray booths in their garages. Booth should be sealed to exclude dust, many hang curtains of plastic and tape it all together. Incoming air needs to be filtered and diffused so airflow doesn't interfere with spraying. Beware that the fan you use may be exposed to flammable vapors. You can water down the floor to reduce dust when you spray.
Surface to paint: Immaculately spotless! Absolutely no dust!
Paint: the correct viscosity for the temp/humidity is needed to avoid orange peal and avoid runs/drips/errors.
Painting: Always keep the gun in motion before during and after each spray stroke. Light but complete coverage is important.

Practice, practice, practice.

[regency]

I painted my car ( 73 911 T ), at my shop ( contractor ), we built a "paint booth" out of 1" PVC and covered it with clear plastic. each end of this booth, I framed free standing "2x4 walls" and on one end i added three box fans.......blowing air in through furnace filters and the other end had three outlets covered by three more furnace filters. i used a lot of duct tape but in the end, it was a pretty cool booth. the best thing i did was to employ a experienced painter to come and advise / help. the car turned out very well. if you google " homemade paint booths" ( like i did ) you'll get some good ideas.

[Porsche_monkey]

The Paint & Bodywork Forum isn't quite as fast paced as this one, but there is a lot of info here:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/paint-bodywork-detailing-forum/

My tale of home painting woe can be found here, scroll down to the last post for my status now. Bottom line, there is a valid reason a good job costs up to $10k.

Project Zeke - Part II

[T77911S]

if you want "excellent" results...no. mainly because excellent paint work is an art that you just dont learn on your first paint job. not only that paint matching is tough if the paint is old.not intended to insult you in any way. if you accept your work for the best you could do at the time, then give it a shot. what do you to loose, a little money but you bought the experience.
i have painted a few at home, no im not that good but i was happy with what i did because i did it. i will most likely paint my car when the time comes. i know i can do better than what the last guy did. i recently had to do the the hood on my volvo, the wife did some body work on the front end...ouch. even though i had the paint code, the color was off.
i new a guy that use to go around to the dealers and do touch up work. he painted his truck in his front yard. incredible! he did better work in his front yard than i have seen come out of shops, now he was an artist with a paint gun.
if you do here are some tips.
paint early in the morning when the wind is calm and the bugs are not out.
the better the body looks before you paint the better the paint will look
i used a sears 5hp 40 gallon compressor and it worked fine.
you need to get the water traps that attach to the bottom of the gun, if you use those, water should not be a problem. the ones here were orange.

[MikeDL]

I did a complete car at home and it came out perfect -- using lacquer (easy to work with but fragile).

My suggestion is that you use your tools to do the body work, paint prep, and primer but have the color shoot done by someone with a booth and experience doing color matching and blends. Unless you don't mind the repair standing out you'll have a very hard time doing as well as a good pro can.

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

I painted my car not only at home but most of it outdoors and it looks just fine. Not perfect but just fine, and the reward of being able to tell people you did it yourself is worth it. (No, nobody has ever said, "Yeah, it looks it," they've all be amazed, even disbelieving.)

Lot of good advice above, but one thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is that a basic paint job--not talking some fancy metallic or whatever, I painted my car bright Yellowbird Yellow--is made to look great not by being applied perfectly but by being rubbed out once it's good and dry. Which means literally sanding it, to start, obviously with various degrees of extremely fine-grit sandpaper. And you have to put on enough paint to allow that.

[Porsche_monkey]

Originally Posted by MikeDL

I did a complete car at home and it came out perfect -- using lacquer (easy to work with but fragile).

My suggestion is that you use your tools to do the body work, paint prep, and primer but have the color shoot done by someone with a booth and experience doing color matching and blends. Unless you don't mind the repair standing out you'll have a very hard time doing as well as a good pro can.

Excellent advice. 90% of the work is done when the primer is finish sanded. Let a pro finish it off.

[Porsche_monkey]

Originally Posted by Formerly Steve Wilkinson

... one thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is that a basic paint job....is made to look great not by being applied perfectly but by being rubbed out once it's good and dry. Which means literally sanding it, to start, obviously with various degrees of extremely fine-grit sandpaper. And you have to put on enough paint to allow that.

True, but at the price of paint today possibly false economy. You can easily spend an additional $750 on paint to get to this point, whereas a pro will get it right with half the paint.

[Aust 911]

Hey Brotok,

It can be difficult for someone with no experience.

I am a panelbeater by trade (few yrs ago) so I am confident with bodywork and have done my fair share of backyard resprays in my time. Dark green metallic you say? I dont want to be problematic but, this could be difficult, as some dark greens can be as hard to paint as black. This is complicated by the fact thats it metallic. And then you need to consider the condition of the other paint on the car, an edge to edge match that looks good with fresh paint on a slightly faded car, painted by a newbie could be a good challenge.

However... get a good water trap and mount it low and run your initial air hose high away from it so that water runs back to the trap. Keep your compressor drained.

Acrylic paint (soft) is easy to paint in the shed at home. It flashes off quick and the over spray isnt too aggresive. Needs to be cut back and buffed to make it shiny.

Two pack - urethane paint (hard) is another ballgame. Sticks like the proverbial and takes many hours to flash off. So dust etc in the paint is a typical issue - good painters get great gloss off the gun in an oven, but dust will need to be cut back and buffed. Runs can be hard to cut out. Overspray from this stuff is poisonous (illegal in the open here) and stick to anything it lands on - trust me on this. Park your other cars way down the street!

Go acrylic, use a prepwash solvent. Rub all over with 400 grade wet. A couple of full coats of primer, light guide coat to help you rub (GMH black - dont know what they call it there). Then guide coat again (light) and rub with 800 grade wet. Use a block both times. Rub along the door as you look at it. I'd go 3 coats of green then 4 coats of clear - mixed 50/50 for both (with thinners). Use a steady consistent spray pattern or the metallic can be an issue.

Practice on something else first. There is so much to say that I cant cover it here. I recently did the bodywork on my 911 and I could have painted it myself but got a painter mate to do it. Try to find some handy folk at your car club or pay someone who knows what they are doing for a good job.

Good luck

Long Live the 911 - Cheers

[afterburn 549]

I have painted a few things...I will say this, the spray part is EZ ! and about 1 % of the whole job, The spray person gets all the credit most the work is under the glossy paint.
If you will allow your self mistakes and learn and grow from them you will get great !
If you cant stand a blunder...don't bother as you can only make mistakes with what yo work with
As a Brain surgeon I have a 100% success rate ! ..But I have yet to touch a brain...........
Every thing else I get success,, if it is truly hard it may take a couple of times..but I get it

[scarceller]

I have painted many things in my garage including full cars with very good results.

One thing I did not see mentioned is oil.

Beware of any oil left in or near the paint area it will magically move to the fresh paint and cause what is known as fisheye. Cleanup all oil and remove all oil from the area.

Also, if the paint job is large I tend to wait for slightly rainy day, it helps keep dust down. Water is your friend.

[3.2 CAB]

DO NOT USE ANY NEWSPRINT for taping off. The ink can also cause problems(fish-eye) avoid anything with any types of oils/silicones in their make-up. You can paint at home, but you really do need to have a good idea of just what is involved. It can easily become, beyond the talent of some people.

[the]

I've done a few. Painting a whole car is doable, but not super easy. You have a lot of different surfaces (horizontal, vertical, in between) to work with. You have a lot of surface area to cover. You have a very large, sticky object that can pick up all sorts of things. You need a really big supply of compressed dry air - needs to be dry and have enough capacity to keep the proper PSI up at the gun. The longer you run a compressor, lines and a gun, the more tendency there is to pick up moisture. Moisture is deadly (dust, or even bugs, can be colorsanded out ok, if a water droplet makes it onto the paint, it is very hard to fix).

That being said, with some research, educating yourself, the right equipment and a lot of patience, a whole car certainly can be done, and done pretty well.

One thing, I previously had worked with only single stage solids. I recently did some metallic base/clear (Dupont Chroma system). Wow! Super easy to work with. The base goes on almost dry, very easy to control. The clear also goes on easy, and flows out super nice (once you get it on, it "flows" i.e., levels itself out). I was very surprised at how easy it was.

Doing a door or a fender is world's easier than doing a whole car. I think on your color, and the age of the car, you certainly are going to have color match problems, though. A pro shop would "blend" the panels into the surrounding panels, to hide the slight color difference. You can do an internet search on "automotive paint blending" and there is some good info.

[pozee]

I suggest you pick up a used door or fender from the junk yard and have at it. The process and results will answer all your questions. Good luck! There's very little out there like the satisfaction of doing it yourself.