Painting a car.

[Quint]

Getting the ma45 prepped for painting, going to try and crack it myself, save some $$ and learn something new at the same time.

Atm all panels are straight and its got various colours of primer scattered over it. My understanding of the procedure:
Take everything off (panels, bumpers, bonnets etc.)
Mask.
Spray it with a high fill primer.
Sand that.
Spray with colour.
Mask again (i'm going with two tone in an attempt to 'hide' the bumpers)
Spray the other half.
Apply pin strip (what's an 80s car without a pinstripe)
Spray with clear coat.

I've got access to a smallish compressor, Is this going to cause me problems? What is a good 'bang for buck' spray gun? Any tips for mixing the paint? How many coats of colour will I need? What paint should i use?

Bottom half will be black, top half copper. If I spray the entire car black then mask it for the copper, is this the better way to do it?

Not too worried about $&#$% it up, can always sand it and try again. Paint shops aren't to eager to discuss their trade secrets with me (fair enough) so a bit of blunt stick in the dark atm.

[xsspeed]

jump onto oldschool.co.nz and look up the paint thread, should pretty much answer all your q's

[h8wrxs]

when i painted my evo i got alot of advice from paint shops

as for the gun, same deal, ask the guys at the paint shops what they recomend for an amateur

i found youtube had heaps of tutorials which were helpful

[Emperor]

Supercheap guns do the job, according to PPG. I went in to get a price on their guns, and their 200 and under guns are the same as SCA.

[mjrstar]

I am by no means an expert on painting but i did do my own car with reasonable results..
Below is what worked for me.....

buy a air powered random orbital sander... best things ever..

Run over the car with some 120-140 on the sander (this sounds rough but the high fill will sort it out)

Apply high fill.

320 grade wet.

more primer (if needed)

sand again with 600 wet.

colour (as required)

the main things to remember, the finish will only be as good as the prep..

Get a water trap for the air lines. the compressor could well be an issue, although you don't need a huge amount of air to paint it does need to be at a pretty steady pressure.

as for guns, i used a reasonably cheap suction gun to do the primer (with a decent sized nozzle) and a finer gravity gun t apply the colour.. there is no real point in spending megabucks if you are not going to use the guns much in the future..

Find yourself a nice dust (and bug) free environment, it sucks when you have laid down the final coat and a mosquito decides to have a hoon around on it..

[h8wrxs]

be careful when using those orbital sanders too, dont hold them in one spot too long, they can heat up the metal and warp it a little bit and youll see it once the paint/clearcoat goes on


dont be cheap though, go rent a spray booth somewhere

[Emperor]

You're safe with a garage. If it has no power to it, wet down the walls a day before, and the floor the morning of painting.

We used the old coast to coast transport building as a mega spray booth with good results. Just has to be dust free.

[Bling]

Wet down the walls of the garage? Interesting. Safe in the garage, I guess that comes down to what you consider safe to be.

Most important thing (if you care about your health) is the safety equipment, masks etc. Paint is evil shit, a dust mask is not safety equipment either

[neo]

The bigger the compressor the better, as with small ones you end up with heaps of water in the lines @ 100% duty cycle. The mega sized ones can be hired for SFA.

A large water trap and a vapour trap a few meters from the gun is good insurance, but you'd have to buy these and there goes $200 odd.

Thinners is your friend, I've sprayed with upto 50% before, if its not gelling together, you need more (once I tried to spray 100% pure and that ended in orange peel)

Gravy fed gun can be had for around $150, done me right thus far but I haven't sprayed any metallics with good success yet.

Prepsol and (cant remember what I have at home) the surface to remove all the wax before sanding

[Quint]

Cheers guys.

Read that paint thread on old skool, 26 pages later *mind splode*
1K base with 2K clears is the way to go by the sounds of things. Will be good to get the high fill and guide coat on to see if i've managed to nail the panel beating side of things.
Just need to wait for a day when the humidity isn't close on 100% now.