Brangeta

Yeah, there's nothing quite like seeing orange peel on a self-painted car. I saw a Jaguar XKE from the 1960s that was absolutely ruined by its overconfident owner. It was AWFUL. The seam where the door hinge is was covered in paint-spider-webs. *shivers*

transAMdriv3r

Thanks everyone for your advice and comments discouraging or not, I know it is not going to be easy,and I didnt expect it to be, But what I am going to do is take my time, buy the best supplies I can and of course, speak to professionals. I am not worried about if I screw up, and I know I may very well do so, but its not going to get me down. Ill just sand it down and retry. This will be a alsome learning experiance and I cant wait.
I hope I will shock all of you, and dont put it past me.

CALL911

With an attitude as good as that, I'm confident you will learn a lot, and eventually get a great paintjob done. Perhaps you might get lucky as well and have a good first paintjob! Keep us up to date, and send pics!

GETGONE

Sandpaper is your friend. 90% of a good paint job is proper prep and sanding. My dad and I have painted several vehicles(mostly mine). If it's your first time painting, go find a scrap hood or fender and practice on that. You're NOT going to be able to buy all your material for $800 with red paint. Reds are the most expensive paints and even in a cheap line paint still will cost a lot. I have $750 in repainting my Sonoma and that was using some of the leftover stuff my dad had from previous stuff we've painted. We also used PPG's cheaper Omni AU paint line. If you have access to these guys in the body shop, why are you even asking on here?!?! Go ask them! They have lots of real experience, not just what someone read somewhere!

transAMdriv3r

well I started to tear it down...first i am going to be painting the engine bay.

here is how it looks now (body)

Jim the Nomad

Painting is more about a steady hand moving at a steady speed at a consistant distance from the surface being painted... preparing the car correctly, masking it off properly, and keeping the area über clean are almost more important than technique or talent...

I HIGHLY recommend painting something besides a car for your first go.

Single stage will look nice for a few months, but after that, anyone will be able to see that you went the cheap way, and at that point, it's arguably better to have left it in it's original condition.

Basecoat/Clearcoat is the best way to go, and DEFINITELY practice on a sheet of metal or something first.

fasteddie94

Bottom line is that nothing anyone can say here is going to prepare you for the problems you MAY come across. We can only toss out the basics over the interweb. I've been doing this stuff for five years(as a helper and secondary painter). What Marc said is pretty much on the numbers and by the books (except the overlap ) but prep is 100% of the paint job. Nearly every flaw can be taken back to a prep mistake.

Runs and orange peel are the only two I can think of that are mostly controlled by you with the gun in your hand. Both of those can be fixed by watersanding and buffing. Not very plesant IMO but that'll fix those issues. And every vehicle on the road unless it's been buffed has orange peel to some degree. All cars have texture.

Proper sanding and cleaning of the surface will prevent fisheye, dirt, snadscratch, the list goes on. Another note is to allow ample flash time between coats. Refer to the manufacturer on that one.

Another important thing to take note of is that reducers are based on temp. For example PPGs line of reducers are all numbered. The most common being 60, 70 and 80. If you are painting in 60* weather 60 is the ideal reducer for the conditions and so forth. If you use 60 on a 80* day it will dry too fast and have a dry texture. If you flip in and use 80 on an 60* day it will seemingly never dry, and possibly run as soon as you walk away.

There is so much more that to tell you all of it eveyone on here would have to write a book. I am just touching on what I feel is not the obvious here, that could be overlooked by a beginer. You need to look at priming and sealing, the paint manufactures specs, gun setup, your compressor, and every print material you can get your hands on. Plus if you do know someone that has been around the block so to speak have them guide you through your practice run.

My final advice, that actually just came to mind, DON'T TRY TO BURY FLAWS! Burying dirt, sandscratch, and fisheye will not work and only lead to headache. If you come across problems, stop, let it dry and take a step back before it's too late.

transAMdriv3r

thanks for the advise guys, keep it coming

JC95Z

Jut came across this and thought i would add my 2 cents. fasteddie94 has alot of good advice. A couple things I am hearing i disagree with though. You should have only 50% overlap on anything you spray unless it is a metalic base coat wich requires a 100% overlap but with a medium coat verses a full wet with 50%. From what you said You dont have to worry about metalics if you are going with non metalic red. The advice I can give you is surface prep is 90% of the paint job."Your paint job is only as good as the surface underneath it" After removing all pieces necesary (trim, lights,emblems,ect.)Wash everything with soap and water,then grease and wax remover. I would then mask any pieces that could not be removed to ensure that you dont sand unwanted pieces like glass ect. DA(dual action) sand the vehicle with 150 grit. Use scotch brite to abrate any hard to reach areas that you cant sand with the da.Next step is to use air tool to blow off the surface. Clean vehicle with grease and wax remover again. Mask everything that you dont want painted. Use a tack cloth and wipe everything clean. Apply an Epoxy primer or self etching epoxy primer using a medium-wet coat. You generaly only need one coat. After sufficent drying time,Apply 3-4 coats of primer surfacer with about 10 minutes inbetween coats.After recommended drying time.Block sand with 150-220 girt paper.You can use a "guide coat" wich you can get in a powder that you spred on the surface and when sading it will show you the high and low spots.The area were you can still see the guide coat is low and what you are sading off is high.After the surface is level use air to blow dry the surface clean.Apply a second application of primer surfacer.Hand sand second application using a soft pad between hand and sand paper to prevent finger grooving Appropriate grit sand paper is 280-320 dry and 320-400 wet. If proper leveling is achieved blow dry surface and clean with grease and wax remover agian.wipe clean with tack cloth.Apply a sealer coat.Epoxy primer may be used as a sealer coat. Once dry(always read the label for proper dry times.) Use 2-3 coats of base color. Being red you should only need 2.Usually flash time inbetween coats is about 8 min.If you are using a paint booth you should bake the last coat after flash time for about 20 min at about 160 degrees.Put on atleast 3 coats of clear.Rule of thumb the label is not going to tell you to reduce it,exspecially if you live in a high regulated area.You should def use atleast 1 part reducer or it will spray on like syrup and you will sand you *** of to remove orange peel. This is a short write up but i hope it helps.Im not and expert but I took auto body in high school and am finishing up my collage right now with a 4.0. Just be patient and dont try to cut corners and rush things. Pay attention to detail.Good luck and feel free to ask any questions.

fasteddie94

You can't do that. you'd just be painting the same spot over again, adding more paint and giving the metallics a chance to sag or model. The less base you spray at a time while working with metallics the better off you are. I always dust the first coat on the go a little bit heavier but still medium wet, as you said, at best. If you still run into a modeling problem change your spray pattern to compensate. example being if you spray from left to right and you get the tiger stripe look spray a very light dusting vertically or diagonally, whatever you prefer. This will help to even out the metallics. Naturally if you were trying to color match you'd have to do a spray out card and see how heavy or light you would need to apply and how many coats it's going to take to cover and match.

Another thing that I think can be missread by the thread starter is all the mentions of applying more than the standard coats of clear, 2. If you are going to wetsand and buff, and you know it ahead of time, go for it. It never hurts to have a little extra material to work with. However, what is not being mentioned is that too much material is nearly as bad as not enough. Every paint manufacturer has a specific "millage" of paint that is considered the fail point for their product. When painting a car that has been painted previously this becomes a factor. If your car has the factory paint you'll be fine, if not you need to determine if you should strip it and start from scratch.

Two gauges are made to measure this. One is a metal square with tabs that are marked with the millage. You use this in WET paint and see what tabs touched the paint to determine your millage. Similar to sticking a yardstick in a pile of snow to see how deep it is.

The other method is a magnet ment to use on DRY finishes. This magnet is sensitive and is marked similar to that of a tire gauge. Stick it to the side of your carand slowly try to remove it. When pay attention to the marks just before the magnet releases it's hold and that's your paint thickness.

I know a lot of this is useless info in your application but I just want to throw out there that there is such a thing as too much, and you may not have to run it for it to reach that point. If I could find my I-CAR cdroms I'd send them to you. There is so much info covered in them from setting up your gun to wetsanding and detailing.

JC95Z

fasteddie94,
The reason for a 100% overlap is because you are basically dusting it on and you dont want to spray too heavy in one pass because you will get modeling ore metallic sag.Also if you are getting tiger stripes you never want to spray up and down because then you are just going to get a checkered effect.A common cause for tiger striping is A.Spraying to close without enough overlap and B.cloged or defective gun.Many other reasons as well.
As far as paint thickness goes or "millage" The range of mils on new vehicles worldwide is 4-8 mils.You can safely have 10-12 mils with most product lines out there without your paint checking or cracking,or your paint being too soft.Two of the types of gauges you can use are the tinsly gauge wich the one you spoke of with the magnet and spring,and the Elcometer wich is electronic and is the most accurate. I have never heard of the first one you spoke of and would be useless on a car because you wouldnt want to cause more damage to the surface to see how thick the paint is. I see your point but if the car has never been repainted he wont have any problem with millage. The reason I said 3 coates of clear is because of the skill level and the more clear you have the more material you have to level with wet sanding. Dont get me wrong im not trying to start and argument or a flame war, I respect your input and you do have a point.Too much isnt good,just thought i would clear it up a lil.

sn8ke eatr

hey man im painting my cay myself too. good luck to you!

fasteddie94

Oh no man, not going down the flame road at all. I've seen a lot of people in these types of threads recommending 3,4, or 5 coats of clear. A lot of guys think that piling it on is the best route for that "deep" finish, which is not the case. You and I are on the same page.

With the modeling, if you use my method you won't get any checker patterns. I'm not saying make an actual coat out of it. More like fogging or dusting the whole panel. You won't do it at the same distance as you normally spray, but farther back.

The first gauge I spoke of was an old method. I have never come across the electrometer. The first gauge is meant to be used in an area you won't see once the car is together, like a core support. But in all honestly the only time I ver saw anyone use any type of mil-gauge was in class. In the real world body shops it just doesn't happen.

As I said already, I think we're on the same page just putting it a little different. I even said that if his car has factory paint he'll be fine. The only thing we don’t agree on would be the overlap, but that's a rule of thumb and it just depends on what you are comfortable with. I would just hate to see this guy take all this info and use it not understanding that there are such things as not enough AND too much. Not trying to bust your ***** or anyone else's.