Re-painting entire car, anyone got pointers?

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

hey guys.

well, i'm at a point now where my car is pretty ****ed up and i'm tired of dealing with people to do work on my car. about 90% of any work that has been done on my car was done by me as i just hate having people work on my car. the only thing that i need others to do is my wheel alignments and a recent paint job for areas that needed repair.

well, late 2007 i was involved in a fender bender and had panels replaced on my car along with my headlights. well, i never had the panels painted until about a month ago. initially the first paint job which was to just be painting a brand new never been mounted bumper and drivers side fender.

well, when i took the car to the shop they repainted it with a paint found using the color code of my car. the paint turned out to have too much red pigment so the car had to be repainted. i was not happy for numerous things. the color of the paint, the fact they painted my drivers side door in an attempt to "blend/fade" the paint, painting over the sticker pinstripe, poor surface prep on the door, over spray over the entire car.

when i took the car back they had repainted it again with a color match from taking my gas tank door to a 3M place. they repainted the car again with poor surface prep, lacked clear in areas, drops of clear in some areas, orange peel up the ***, painted over the pinstripe again, a spray of paint on my windshield, over spray on my passenger side rim/tire, overs pray on rest of the car. not happy with the second result and the color STILL being off i'm forced to say **** them and sick of dealing with them.

today, i spent 7 hours wet sanding the orange peel off so i can buff it with my DA buffer. i would say i took care of 90% of the orange peel but found some areas where the clear was so thin i got into the paint. thus also where i found over spray on my tire/rim. also i had taped off 2 areas on my door so i could wet sand the side trim, when i removed the tape, along came the paint. the paint has been on the car for over a week now too. great!

here's some pics for you guys.

Cliffs:Shitty paint job.

(thread continued on post 2)

Click to read more...

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

Well, right now, i'm at the point where i would just rather paint the car myself. yes this will be my first time ever painting a car and i'm looking for pointers and help gathering equipment. a friend and i already have an enclosed site to work at and will be using his car(a 98 civic ex coupe) first since his entire front end has his clear coat and paint peeling and fading. we have been interested in learning to paint for a very long time and now have an opportunity to learn.

i'm a very picky person as to how things turn out and take my time with a lot of things so i'm expecting a pretty good turn out. plus, i'm sure it'll turn out better than his current paint job.

anyways, what i need help with are what Paint guns would one recommend?

what type/brand of primer would be good?

is there a prefference in type of paint and maker of paint? how much paint for a whole car?

i was looking at paint by Kustoms to see if they could match me the color off a 2006+ Lexus is250 which is a Smokey Granite Mica.. with it i was considering on adding .008 Gunmetal flake but a very light amount into the paint to give it some additional sparkle.

is there a preference of clear coat? how much clear coat? also how many coats would it take to achieve a deep gloss? i know the more amounts of clear will give me a better chance of NOT sanding into the paint when wet sanding out any orange peel from the clear.

also, how large of an air compressor will i need that can be met at bare minimum?

i'm sure i could rent a large one but i need to know at least how large i need one for.

when is the flake added? is it mixed in the paint? or added to a top clear layer right after the base color coat?

also any tips and pointers will be much appreciated.

 

[Frijoles24 10+ year member]

sorry im not here to help..

just gota tell you that the avatar for a second made me think that chick was prego..

on second look.. f**k d**m that is hot! haha =p

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

you may want to try the Paint shop kit from Duplicolor if it's your first time. easy to use and doesn't look too bad. I painted a go kart for my neighbor's cousin and it looked pretty good considering that the the kit to do the kart and all the cover pieces was under $25. the kit has a primer, color, and clear. easy to spray and cheap. keep in mind that it isn't expensive so don't expect an awesome paint job. If I were you I'd get a kit and try it on something small like a bumper or fender to see if you like it. I'll be trying this on a whole car in the future.

 

[Integra2468 10+ year member]

No help here on actually painting the car but my truck just recently got hit in a parking lot and I had to pay to get the dent taken out and the rear quarter panel painted white diamond. White diamond is no fucking joke and the guy charged me $325 overall. After the first time I noticed how it didn't match up (the clear coat ran on some spots, they missed spots of clear, and various other BS), and I took it back. He ended up having to paint it three different times to get it right. In other words, my advice is find yourself a decent body shop and have them fix that shit. If it isn't fixed, don't accept their work. They have to give you your car looking right or paint it again. That's why you are paying them.

 

[mackin 10+ year member]

have you tried getting money out of this shitty shop? maybe post the shop name so people know they blow?

 

[ShiningBuick 10+ year member]

Make 100% sure to sand into all the tiny nooks and crannys, and remove as much molding as possible sintead of just taping over it, same with door handles.

That was my mistake on my car, and now on some of the edges the paint is flaking off.. absolutely maddening. Could've been avoided if I knew what I know now.

That was my only problem so far..

 

[naughty240 10+ year member]

On the areas the paint came off with the tape I would DA all that off with 150 grit, finsh it off with some 320 grit. Then prime the entire panel with a good 2k primer and dont forget to hit the bare metal with a etch primer. Do one panel at a time that would be my advise.

 

[mazzasec 5,000+ posts]

Similiar thing happened to me. Someone had hit my car and this guy came to my house to fix it. Got the paint code off the car and sprayed it where my car got hit and the paint peeled. Turns out now it looks like more of a brownish black trying to be blended in with bluish clear black. It pisses me off.

 

[Kountz430]

mask off anything that cant be removed with basic had tools, remove all headlights and tail lights,windshield wipers. any and all custom parts should be placed far far away. The hardest part is the trying to keep the dust and things of that of that nature out of the air.Ambient temp plays a big part on overall outcome as well. one more thing ya might wanna look into is finding a little 2 300 dollar beater and practice on that. then that way you can learn the proper gun and trigger control. Iirc the proper technic is to spray left to right overlapping each line,releasing the trigger after each pass and appyling the trigger at the beginning of the next pass.try it with a rattle can and some card board so you can get the feel for it.I hope this is helpful for ya and good luck and by the way that is a hot avatar and sig