Painting my Car Myself

[Tim]

hi all,

im thinking of having a go at spraying my car myself and doing all the bodywork. im no expert but have had some good results in the past with spraying with rattle cans.

i have a compressor and a spray gun and an environment which would be suitable for sparying, what i need to know is things like how much paint, thinners, primer, etc etc i would need to spray my car including the engine bay and door stuts etc. i intend on painting it glacier white which is what colour it is at the moment.

who is the best supplier of the paint?

how much should i expect to pay for all the stuff to do it?

any advice would be much appreciated, and any pics of peoples home done paint jobs would be great.

Thanks for looking

Tim :thumb:

[c20xesleeper]

hello mate go for it im doing mine my self . i sprayed a mk 3 golf with ratlle cans the whole car on my drive way and it came out good so now have compressor and a workshop so going to spray my nova my self 2 . good luck mate

[Graeme789]

to do a whole car i would reccomend the following:

2k primer = 2 Litres (its mixed at normally 3:1 so you will get a good amount more)

Hardener = 3 Litres should be ok

Thinners = 2 litres will be enough for the primer, bascoat and laquer

basecoat = 3 litres of solvent basecoat its mixed at 2:1 so you will get more and if you want spare just order a bit more

Laquer = 2 Litres will be more than plenty


the key is in the preperation, it 90% 10 Painting so if you get the 1st stage right you are well on your way!

if you have anyproblems whilst spraying just stop and you can always start again when its dry, if you rub it back down!

i use a local paint supplier called NU-AGANE they have an ebay shop or search them on google, very friendly guys and they post aswell!

[Pillar]

ive just got 5l of glacier white of ebay for 65 quid free spray gun + 2 1/2 of hardener

[Graeme789]

i presume that is direct gloss then?

[smithsnoop10]

Hello people, i am a car body repairer ,sprayer. I would say take your time on your car mate, its not a hard thing to do ,but you can face a few problems if havent got the experience. The one of the most important things is your prep work,that will affect the finish big time.

Its good to read or ask people in the know what the proserdures are mate. keep you place clean,dust free and keep out the wet and damp as much as poss mate. before painting always decrease and use a tag rag to clean off any unwanted nastys.

good luck hope ive helped a little matey

[novacabrio]

Also de=grease the car before any suraface preperations, wax can stay on the paint and rubbing down just moves it around

you got a link to where you got the stuf on ebay?

[london_chris]

i used to paint helecopters now and then when i was an aircraft engineer, de greasing is a never important part, i would recomend some degreasing on the primer when its dry before basecoat,obviously let the degreasnt dry first,

[Tim]

thanks for all the info lads.

all much appreciated.

how much do you think i should be expecting to spend on all of the nessessary paints, etc to do the job, including things such as tac rags etc??

i know that if im hoping for a good finish then its all in the preperation work.

is there a preferred temprature that the paint should be applied in?

Tim

[london_chris]

probably about ?150- 200 with decent stuff well the hotter you can get the better really i think its like 80degrees or something so i dont think you will manage to get that

[london_chris]

for bumpers etc use a heat gun to dry the paint but not too much as it will bubble

[Graeme789]

tempreture when spraying, ideally you want it to be around 25 decgrees C and not much more, to hot and if your using solvent it will go all patchy and look ****!

only thing if your doing it out of a spray booth i would put some accelrante in the laquer, basically it makes it go off faster, popular one is called rocket!

[london_chris]

i tkae it i must mean 80 degrees F then?

[Graeme789]

i dont know what that is in C but most ovens bake at around 80degrees c if you were maybe thinking that?

[Stuart]

I sprayed mine.

I got 5 Litres of High Build primer with associated hardener, used nearly all of it for a full respray of all pannels/bumpers/skirts etc.

Then had 4 Litres of white for the body and used nearly all of it for 3 coats.
a couple of litres of blue for the wings and a splash of red for other bits.

be very very very very carefull with the de greaser! I used some, left it for a few days then painted and the paint just seperated etc and looked awfull.

as said, take your time. get a stance like youve pooed yourself and do a funny dance so as to keep the gun parrallel to the body.

[Pillar]

heres the link you wanted:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=016&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=260036354156&rd=1&rd=1

[Rexy]

make sure you polish the car first :D

[Rexy]

I sprayed mine.

I got 5 Litres of High Build primer with associated hardener, used nearly all of it for a full respray of all pannels/bumpers/skirts etc.

Then had 4 Litres of white for the body and used nearly all of it for 3 coats.
a couple of litres of blue for the wings and a splash of red for other bits.

be very very very very carefull with the de greaser! I used some, left it for a few days then painted and the paint just seperated etc and looked awfull.

as said, take your time. get a stance like youve pooed yourself and do a funny dance so as to keep the gun parrallel to the body.

That made me laff rather a lot stu... I can imagine you doing a monkey dance while trying to paint a car :thumb:

Oh, and again make sure the prep is right Scotch the edges don't skimp out on cheap nasty masking tape and newspaper. Make sure the edges get good coverage of paint if you run on the first coat you might as well give up, let it dry and flat it down and start again.

Full color changes require more paint than usual unless they are a sim shade, 2 pack is easy to work with if its your first time but 2k paints are only avi in solid colours. Take all your windows out bar the windscreen, for the windscreen rubber lift it and get some electrical wire to hold the seal away from the edge ;) pointless advice but i always do this because I hate seeing paint edges. Take the bonnet off and spray this against a wall,

Oh and get stuck in, If your scared about paint it you will prob **** up.

Some piks for you...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/E756%20RNX/9d7642b8.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/E756%20RNX/ef976243.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon54.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon59.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon62.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon64.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon26.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/Rexy_nova/NovaSaloon27.jpg

[SRlew]

i love spraying cars, wish i had the money for a workshop so i could get a compressor tho. as said its all in the prep

[dannyb]

i have a compressor and a spray gun and an environment which would be suitable for spraying

Have you got a water/moisture trap for the spray gun, I left this off when I resprayed a bike and ended up having to start all over again! And I didn't clean the space before, so dust was flying about lol it looked alright for a 14 year old. With special needs. lol

[ade]

I did mine with 2k paint about 4 years ago and looking back I wouldnt do it again.

If you dont get the environment right (eg spray booth with extractor) you can get yourself into all sorts of bother.

Personally when I come to spray my car after the rebuild I'm giving it to a body shop to do.

I think i spent (including hiring compressor, fresh air respirator and building a spray booth in my garage) about ?600 in total - inc paint. Still had to pay ?100 to local vauxhall garage to get car buffed up. Was my 1st attempt at spraying a car and although I enjoyed it it was hard work.

Ade

[Adam]

Are you going to be using 2pack paint or cellulose?
Celly sposed to be easier spray, so ive heard, and its less dangerous.

[Tim]

Are you going to be using 2pack paint or cellulose?
Celly sposed to be easier spray, so ive heard, and its less dangerous.

im not to sure to be honest, what are peoples thoughts about this??

i will be definatly giving this a go, as far as the prep work goes, there is no problem. And if it doesnt go to plan then ill just have to flat it all back and pay a pro to do it. But i would love to be able to take full credit for it, its an ego thinglol .

tim

[Jon_nova1]

and when you make the..i sprayed that comment, you dont want people saying.. oo look you've f*cked up there lol

it can be done, but theres stuff involved, you need the right day etc, id suggest getting a heater out, especially in this cold weather, and make it a day there isn't lots of moisture in the air, if its too cold the paint will look poo, also moisture can comtaminate it and make it look poo, the most important part is preperation, at the moment im having trouble with the primer it kind of seperates, and leaves dots where the primer wont stick to it, would a degreaser sort this?

[Rexy]

lol, yeah i know that feeling :) esp when peeps say Ahhh thats a ****ing aweful job mate ;)

[Rexy]

and when you make the..i sprayed that comment, you dont want people saying.. oo look you've f*cked up there lol

it can be done, but theres stuff involved, you need the right day etc, id suggest getting a heater out, especially in this cold weather, and make it a day there isn't lots of moisture in the air, if its too cold the paint will look poo, also moisture can comtaminate it and make it look poo, the most important part is preperation, at the moment im having trouble with the primer it kind of seperates, and leaves dots where the primer wont stick to it, would a degreaser sort this?

Thats silicons mate, caused by polish, wax, wd40 etc etc etc... Thinners the panel with a clean rag and start again.

[Tim]

lol, yeah i know that feeling :) esp when peeps say Ahhh thats a ****ing aweful job mate ;)


Exactly, lol lol

im not going to be doing it for a while, the weather will deffo be better berore i attempt it.

Tim

[Jon_nova1]

so get a paint thinner on it??

and at the edges where the primer meets the original paintwork, is it best to feather that?

[Rexy]

mate if you dont you will see the primer lines.

Use wet 800's/1200's to flat the primer down with depends how ruff it is and what kind of primer you used...

[Jon_nova1]

yer i thought that, i've already got the 800 ready with water and washing up liquid ;)

cheers for the help mate :D

im using cellulose white primer as the cars white

sorry to highjack, but thought i might aswell seems as the topics herelol

[Rexy]

yeah either 800 or 1200 then fella,

[Jon_nova1]

sound as, i've always done my own spraying where i've filled etc, and thats the main thing thats always had me thinking lol

[Rexy]

lol i do it everyday mate so it kinda well just gets done now.

[Pillar]

Are you going to be using 2pack paint or cellulose?
Celly sposed to be easier spray, so ive heard, and its less dangerous.

less dangerous yes! easier to paint no it reacts with its self that stuff use 2k if you can get hold of it. they stoped producing it this year. :thumb: