Diy Respray

[adamskill]

hey lads im super keen to have a go at respraying a car. my mate has an sr silvia for sale, cheep as chips, but it is a dirty rotten 2 tone. i figure its a project im willing to under take, and i dont mind having a crack on a car i paid not much for. what i wanna know is if anyone on here has given it a go?? and yeah i searched the forums.

i have access to a shed that could be sued as a booth, and a decent air compressor, plus a bucket full of common sense.

if anyone has any advice/hot tips please post away!!

cheers adam

[mad082]

i have recently done it and it's a prick of a job, LOL. if you like sanding, and sanding, and more sanding, then following that with a bit more sanding, then it is the thing for you.

you will hear people say that preparation are the key, and they are 100% spot on. i just did a dodgy job to get some paint on it cause the old paint was lifting and it looked terrible (is on a vh commodore). i didn't put that much time into the prep work. i just sanded it back enough to get it done and did a bit of a rough job. while the paint came out good, you can see that i went a bit light on the prep work. didn't smooth out all the dents, didn't make sure all the panels were smooth, etc. so it turned out to be a bit of a 10ft paint job (looks good from 10ft away, but any closer and it looks a bit dodgy, LOL). but i honestly don't care. i just wanted to get it done and over with.

[adamskill]

yea i get the idea that prep is the key. correct me if im wrong, but i want to go for a simple gloss black, so would the process be

-corse sand and bog

-clear the dust

-finer sand and smooth the boged areas

-clear the dust

-finest sand

-prepsol and fine sand

-dry

-tape up the car

-primer

-sand????

-1st coat

-dry

2nd coat

-dry

-3rd coat

-dry

-do i need a clear with gloss paint?? im thinking no??

-let the paint harden, and give it a cut and polish after about a week???

at what stage do i remove all the tape and masked up area? do i do it while the paint is wet to stop cracking, or is that not the case with auto motive paint?

im not after any awards for worlds best paint job, but i do want to put the effort in to get a good result.

cheers

[Hanaldo]

Yep, +1 ^

Painting is 100% preparation and 10% spraying It is definitely something you have to be passionate about, otherwise you will get bored or frustrated and perhaps think "ah maybe I'll just cut a corner here and not worry about the prep so much", and then that's how you end up with dodgy paint that you regret doing... So if you can't commit to hours and hours (literally like days if you are doing a whole car) of labor just sanding and cleaning, don't bother even starting it. I recently repainted my bonnet, took me 4 days to get it perfect so that I was happy with it. Had to sand it back 4 times

Also my advice would be to not spray while it is this cold, your paint will not shine and will come out looking matte. If you are really keen to spray now, get a decent heater to warm up the shed you are using above 22 degrees. Also get a heat lamp to warm up the parts of the car you are spraying. I would advise painting parts individually, like bonnet and guards and things, get them all off the car to spray. Makes it easier to get a good coat.

Other than that it is a bit hard to give advice unless there is something you are not sure about?

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

i would clear all the sand at the end mate rather than doing it 5 times over lol

ur ideas is pretty good, however i would remove the windows and get new seals it would make it that much better, trust me lol

make sure its warm as well and not windy coz wind will blow dust under the cracks in the shed and f**k up the paint.

and yes go over it in clear coat, u can never have too much clear i reckon

[Hanaldo]

i would clear all the sand at the end mate rather than doing it 5 times over lol

ur ideas is pretty good, however i would remove the windows and get new seals it would make it that much better, trust me lol

make sure its warm as well and not windy coz wind will blow dust under the cracks in the shed and f**k up the paint.

and yes go over it in clear coat, u can never have too much clear i reckon

What? Lol

I was assuming the car has an interior lol, in which case you would want to leave the windows on and just mask it up well so that you don't get any overspray onto the windows. If it is just an empty shell then it probably wouldn't have windows lol. It's not necessary to remove windows and seals to respray a car, you just have to be a bit more careful. A quick way of doing it is to cover the windows and seals with Vaseline, then after you have sprayed you can just wipe the paint off the glass.

And when your clear coat starts to run, that's when you have too much Also if you are worried about weight, you wouldn't use clear coat. So if it was for a dedicated race car then you wouldn't use clear coat, in fact you would probably only want to use a couple layers of base coat in the first place.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Hanaldo

[adamskill]

What? Lol

I was assuming the car has an interior lol, in which case you would want to leave the windows on and just mask it up well so that you don't get any overspray onto the windows. If it is just an empty shell then it probably wouldn't have windows lol. It's not necessary to remove windows and seals to respray a car, you just have to be a bit more careful. A quick way of doing it is to cover the windows and seals with Vaseline, then after you have sprayed you can just wipe the paint off the glass.

And when your clear coat starts to run, that's when you have too much Also if you are worried about weight, you wouldn't use clear coat. So if it was for a dedicated race car then you wouldn't use clear coat, in fact you would probably only want to use a couple layers of base coat in the first place.

yeah the car has an interior. it is most definitely not going to be a track car, so weight is not really an issue, its going to be my girlfriends daily. im going to take the doors off so i can do the jams properly, and the front and rear bars separately too.

gunmetal- i was thinking of doing all the seals and rubbers but this car is probably not worth the effort to be quite honest. if all goes well tho, it would definitely be on the cards for my next NEXT project.

[Hanaldo]

yeah the car has an interior. it is most definitely not going to be a track car, so weight is not really an issue, its going to be my girlfriends daily. im going to take the doors off so i can do the jams properly, and the front and rear bars separately too.

gunmetal- i was thinking of doing all the seals and rubbers but this car is probably not worth the effort to be quite honest. if all goes well tho, it would definitely be on the cards for my next NEXT project.

Might be worth giving it a go still mate. If you find it's too much for you or it's not something you would do again, then you know for any future cars you get... And if you do a good job then it adds a bit of value to the car

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

boys im not trying to tell u what to do but have u ever had a car resprayed.... ive had a couple now.

believe me, do all the prep work and remove the windows and seals, tape and paper everything up and order new seals from nissan, its a much cleaner look dude, the vaseline is also a good idea me and a friend painted a set of rims not that long ago for his carolla panel van in a 2tone effect and used the vasilene and it came out coota

[Mr Eps]

okay okay okay okay

here's what you do...

ready??

get ready i'll tell you what to do.

you don't do it.

you leave it how it is. you polish and cutback the paint and get it looking great how it is. and you just LEAVE IT ALONE.

trust me.

you're young. don't turn your hair gray.

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

i agree with eps

for all the f**king around ur gonna do u can go out and spend 2.5k and get a real nice paint job done

[Hanaldo]

I painted my car for the experience of it, and the satisfaction of having done something like that myself... Turned out great, check my signature photo's. I got a perfect respray for $165, not 3k.

But I made sure I was dedicated enough to do it before I started it. It's definitely a tough job.

[adamskill]

okay okay okay okay

here's what you do...

ready??

get ready i'll tell you what to do.

you don't do it.

you leave it how it is. you polish and cutback the paint and get it looking great how it is. and you just LEAVE IT ALONE.

trust me.

you're young. don't turn your hair gray.

thanks for the input bloke, but this is something i WANT to do.

[lonleylad]

to do a even half reasonable job ,there is a lot more to it than gear and brains..first you need to know about setting your spray guns (air and paint flow ),,then you need to make sure your compesser is big enough (min 15 cf pm)..set air pressure out put ..depends on if you are using 2 pac ,,spraying enamel or acrylic lacquer..when this is worked out ..you need your supplies eg paper ,thinners (whether it is gp or what ..you can get a retarder to slow drying time to help settle paint if it is acrylic..if you go with retarder it is even harder as the paint will run a lot easier .then decide if you are going to do a bare metal respray or not ..you have to learn how to rub down (biggest process)..if you dont feather the edges properly it shows up like crap..you have to learn how to do body repairs so they dont show..as it was said before prep is the key ,if it is not done right it is a waste of time as your hard earned cash and time will come to a crappy end very quickly when you have finished ..after you learn all of this ,you then have to learn how to control your gun(speed at which you move ,follow the shape of the panels ,flowing the paint so you dont get missed spots (also if it is mica or not (metalic or non metalic paint ,as the process to applying is different for both...make sure you are in a dust free place as paint seems to attract any dust bugs , you name seem to appear when you are about to paint ..so as you can see ,if it was that easy there would be no painters and beaters around ,,but it is a good feeling when you learn and do the job yourself ..so my advise is ,,get someone to take you through the process and show you before you attemp this job..it is darn expensive in time and money if you fail..also you need to have a very very very very large amount of patience ..so good luck and let us know ..i have been doing resprays just about all my life

[lonleylad]

forgot to add...black has to be the worst colour you can pick as it shows up every mark fault and problem with the panels ..you have to be more than perfect with this colour

[Hanaldo]

Yeh spot on if not hard to read lol ^

I did sort of assume he knew how to use the equipment, and knowing how to mix paint is a given... But it's not that hard, if it comes out grainy then thin it down more, too thin and it will be a thin coat and it will run. A couple of test sprays to work it out and you should be fine. Really the hardest part is making sure you get enough paint out to not cause orange peel, if you get orange peel then you're not getting enough paint on...

It does take some practice, but it's not like it's an impossible thing to learn. It's actually easy if you're patient with it and just realize that if it doesn't work then you're doing it wrong and you just need to get it right. I learned by trial and error, I didn't have anyone teaching me, so if you're enthusiastic enough to give it a go then I say go for it, don't be scared to try things.

[lonleylad]

Yeh spot on if not hard to read lol ^

I did sort of assume he knew how to use the equipment, and knowing how to mix paint is a given... But it's not that hard, if it comes out grainy then thin it down more, too thin and it will be a thin coat and it will run. A couple of test sprays to work it out and you should be fine. Really the hardest part is making sure you get enough paint out to not cause orange peel, if you get orange peel then you're not getting enough paint on...

It does take some practice, but it's not like it's an impossible thing to learn. It's actually easy if you're patient with it and just realize that if it doesn't work then you're doing it wrong and you just need to get it right. I learned by trial and error, I didn't have anyone teaching me, so if you're enthusiastic enough to give it a go then I say go for it, don't be scared to try things.

yeah hanaldo it is a good feeling ,,if you are good with your hands at doing things it is easy to pick up..i am doing my bluebird around oct/nov this yeah ,,not looking forward to it but i like my cars to look good

[adamskill]

Yeh spot on if not hard to read lol ^

I did sort of assume he knew how to use the equipment, and knowing how to mix paint is a given... But it's not that hard, if it comes out grainy then thin it down more, too thin and it will be a thin coat and it will run. A couple of test sprays to work it out and you should be fine. Really the hardest part is making sure you get enough paint out to not cause orange peel, if you get orange peel then you're not getting enough paint on...

It does take some practice, but it's not like it's an impossible thing to learn. It's actually easy if you're patient with it and just realize that if it doesn't work then you're doing it wrong and you just need to get it right. I learned by trial and error, I didn't have anyone teaching me, so if you're enthusiastic enough to give it a go then I say go for it, don't be scared to try things.

cheers martin. i have more than enough patients, and i want to learn.

and yes i have already got pretty sound knowledge on how spray guns work.

my compressor is well up to the job too.

[Hanaldo]

Well then in my opinion you should go for it. Just do what I did, start out with something like the fenders. Remove the fenders from the car and try your luck with them. They are nicely sized for a first time effort, you don't have to spend ages rubbing them down if you get it wrong so you get plenty of practice with the gun. If you start off trying to paint the body of the car then it will turn into a hell of a job if you get something wrong, and you are more likely to get frustrated and give up on the idea. If you do get it wrong, make sure you rub it down the very next day! That is when the paint is at it's softest and is very easy to sand off, the longer you wait to sand it down the harder it is going to be.

Also, what paint are you using? I forget if you have mentioned it already... But if you are a beginner, I would recommend not using metallic paint, it's helluva hard to paint with! Especially if you get something wrong you have to start again completely or the flake will not match up, you gotta get it perfect straight out of the gun. And you need the correct size nozzle for your spray gun. Way too much effort for a first timer, just stick to regular gloss or matte paints.

Good luck with it mate, if you need any help with anything feel free to ask and I'll try to help out where I can

[mawzy]

I have mucked round doing front bumpers and gaurds for a while, and recently gave a whole car a go. All the above advice is very good, but at end the day it was very satisfying to be able to stand back and look at it and say I did that. My points of advice would be to put on a couple boxes of beer and rope your mates into the sanding. Makes life a bit more easier. Lighting was the biggest problem I had especially when it came to clearing. A friend followed me with a bright lamp in the end, because as you spray the clear, it's very hard to see where you have been with poor light. And wet your entire floor before starting. I did mine in my garage, and there's always a bitta dust etc, but as the air starts moving from the gun and movement etc, the water stops whatever comes into contact with it. Not perfect but helps a bit. And as long as you aren't expecting a showcar, you'll be happy with your results, and you only get good at things by trying and practising. Good luck.