Outer Limits 4x4 Board

could someone in the game please teach me on painting vehicles?
thinking about pulling it off the road for a lick of paint but not sure on the preperation required.
using a simple air operated paint gun.

i need to get the old paint off... whats the best way?
it needs an undercoat of some kind.... what kind?
and for a nice finish, how many coats could i expect to do. what kind of paint?

are there any other thing i should look out for or be aware of?

I am not being a smarty-bum here, but it needs to be said.

If your experience of painting cars is at the point where you need to ask the questions that you asked...I would seriously consider getting some professional (or at least someone who knows what they are doing) help. Have them there to help you, show you and guide you through the process. Painting a car is not as easy as it looks, especially if you are wanting a 'nice' finish.

For example...

How bad is the original paintwork? That determines the prep work.

Do you want to use enamel or 2Pac paint? That determines what undercoat you use.

Its easy to read a thread and think thats easy, but prac is another story.

I did plenty of practise on old panels before I sprayed my first car at the age of 12. The first car I painted was a VW Beetle in enamel, and only had two minor 'ifs' that were easily fixed. But like I said, there were many old doors, bootlids and bonnets painted before I did the VW.

The type of topcoat you want to use doesnt determine what undercoat, unless you use enamel. The 3 types of topcoat you have to look at are, acrylic, enamel and 2pac. 2pac will give you the best look of the gun but you need a well ventilated are to paint. If the original paint isnt in to bad condition, you could just give it a sand and paint over the top after a good wet n dry sand with 600 to 800 grit paper.
There are some great TAFE courses to teach you what you need.

I disagree with G-loomis, if you want to learn how to paint a car, doing it on youre beatup fourby is the best way, as results dont have to be great, it will be a great learning curve. I am assuming youre painting youre fourby.

As for youre actual questions about painting, i cant much answer, as my experience consists of rubbing back with sandpaper, cleaning with brake clean, then dipping the paintbrush into tin and slopping it on.

Getting the paint off however there are a few methods, including sanding the shite out of it with a grinder attatchment, media blasting, chemical stripping, etc...

Get yourself a DIY spray painting book, I've done things the wrong way several times. Its better to do it the right way the first time.

You can either sand blast, paint strip or sand the paint off. all have their pro's and cons.

Yes you will need and undercoat, it depends on what type of paint you use.

You will need 5-20 coats. depends on how thick you want it.

You can use enamel which is the easiest and cheapeast to apply. Acrylic, which will give a better finish and be more durable but has to be sanded 2-3 times after painting to get a shine. Or 2-pac which is very toxic but gives excellent results with no sanding.

loomis. perhaps i should expand..

to get the paint of obviously i need to use a grinder... i dont really want to use grinding disc's as i find their too savage. The paper disc, just dont last long enough. so is there something i could apply to help the proecedure or should i just use a grinding disc with soft hands.
to answer you on the condition of the body- the bodys faarked which is why im getting new panels which brings me to the painting. the panels i dont replace im not worried about. any bogging that does need to be done is easy with 5 years plastering experience.... and the right bog.

the different kinds of paint i was asking about should probably be researched elsewhere as i have no idea about different finishes or types of paint. which, as you say, would determin the amount of coats and undercoating ect.

and pj zook is right. beleive me, if im gonna learn how to paint this is the car to do it on..lol

Check this site out!, for the budget minded

http://rollyourcar.com/default.aspx

If when you say grinding disk you mean the hard thick disks normally used for grinding and blending of steel then you have to be kidding. Not sure if there is any other kind of grinding disk so I'll say no way should you remove paint with one. If you can't afford sanding disks there are not a lot of practical cheap options except for a lot of elbow grease and manual sanding.

but seriously there are several ways of attackign it some better than others some cheaper than others depending on what the paint is like you need to remove.

Paint stripper - for harder paint it still takes a bit especially for large panels that may require a couple of applications and it's not that cheap and you haev to make sure there is no residue hiding in cracks and joins etc.
Commercial blasting/stripping of any kind - I suspect too dear for you if you need to look at DIY paint.
Sanding disks - good but still add up.
Scotchbrite disks - good, I think better than sanding disks but dearer again.
Sheet sander - 1/3rd sheet sanders are cheap and so are sheets especially if you buy the lengths and cut them up. But not necessarily the best way to sand curved panels but with care can work.
Orbital snaders of some description - disks still nto cheap.

The cheapest method my father in law and I used years ago on many things from trailers, to motorbikes, to cars was that he was able to get offcut scrap sections from sawmill belt sanders (talking a metre wide here). We used to cut them to round shape as close as we could to suit 4" grinder and had a sharpened bit of tube to punch the centre hole. WE could sand till the cows come home anything we wanted and cost us nothing.

Recently I purchased some scotchbrite disks that are supposed to be velcro mounted I think but I just punched the centre hole out with the trusty bit of pipe I still have and used them in my 4". I reckon they strip paint faster than anything I've seen (except overly course sanding disks whihc you shouldn't use) and last reasonable distance. Trouble is they still cost a fair bit. Can't remember how much but I onyl bought a handful to test so they were probably a couple of bucks each. I'd buy them again and probably will when I strip my cruiser and will probably buy the correct velcro pad to get better mielage out of them but ultimately your budget will determine what you go with.

Check this site out!, for the budget minded

http://rollyourcar.com/default.aspx

I just finished painting mine with a roller.

these public forums are a great larf sometimes
one person will suggest a method he has used
(practise spraying on old panels,one of the tips u will read about in any painting guide books)
and someone will knock that ???
his method is painting with a brush !!!!!WTF
ive painted a few cars over the years and practise spraying or setting up the guns on old panels is used
anyway back on topic
how good do u want the finish
do u want it to last a while,or do u want to repaint it again in 12 months
how much $$$$ do u want to spend ???
blasting of vechicles cost a lota $$$
paint stripping cost lots to
theres been heaps written regarding this subject recently

nerida67 wrote:these public forums are a great larf sometimes
one person will suggest a method he has used
(practise spraying on old panels,one of the tips u will read about in any painting guide books)
and someone will knock that ???
his method is painting with a brush !!!!!WTF
ive painted a few cars over the years and practise spraying or setting up the guns on old panels is used
anyway back on topic
how good do u want the finish
do u want it to last a while,or do u want to repaint it again in 12 months
how much $$$$ do u want to spend ???
blasting of vechicles cost a lota $$$
paint stripping cost lots to
theres been heaps written regarding this subject recently

PMSLOTF AGREE The amount of times i've given advice on my trade and i bloody well know they've going to do it totally opposite, then you get the ones that dont know and all they can do is pick on your spelling.
I LOVE FORUMS.

There is nothing wrong with using a brush (or roller for the bonnet and larger panels), it creates artistic streak marks, and is easy to touch up those scratches.

tanz-e wrote: and for a nice finish, how many coats could i expect to do. what kind of paint?

Hmmmm. I don't think nice and paintbrush should actually be seen together in the same sentence in this thread.

I've decided that half the people who come to a forum asking questions merely want just one other person to tell them the answer they want.

It doesn't matter what other opinions are offered, or how well the answers are backed up by theory, or experience, or just plain old common sense - all it takes is for one person to post the answer they want, and that's what they'll do.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

as said, dont use a grinding disk, you wont have much panel left to paint,

i have used a steel wire brush on a grinder to remove paint, and if i was going back to bare metal i would use it again, (that is untill i talk to the missues brother who is a sprayer and ask if i should or some one here with more experiance than i lets me know i shouldnt)

other than that, i have not done a whole heap of spraying, with a gun, ive done heaps with a preassure pack, which is no where near as good as a gun, and at that, i havent sprayed acylic or enamal, only 2pac with air gun, and the whole time i had no idea what i was doing, but, my paint stuck, and it didnt peel, or run, it looked nice, and i took my time and i think i done well. and the stuff was for hydraulic equipment, so the oil would of let me know if i had of done something wrong i think.

any ways, for you i would say a few words of advice, no 1, if your doing it at home, have you got a well ventilated, yet well wind protected area to do this, ie not out in the padock?? as wind will stuff you up, not only in how well the paint gets to the metal and over spray, but with dust sticking to your paint.

2, your compressor, any air compressor that is used for running spraying equipment, is ment to have quite a number of attachments, filters to take out both moisture and oil, so that niether get into your paint and have it pealing off 6 months later, that being said i have seen people do decent jobs with unfiltered equipment, but personaly i would rather not risk it, i dont want to have my paint falling off. or bubling.

3, on the prep side, that is the main part of the job, dont do a half assed job on your prep, and with the sanding back what you currently have paintd on the vhicle, that is your easyest way to go, unless you have to knock some dings out, and weld in some plates where rust once was,

if your wanting to go back to bare metal, and some one can tell me i am wrong, but i would say using a wire brush on your grinder is the cheapest way, not the easyest but the cheapest, and for them hard to reach spots use the spray on paint stripper, but once the paint is strpped, clean it properly, which i dont know how to do except for douse it in break clean and i am not sure that is the correct way either.


also like the guys said, using some old pannels to practice on first would definatly help you out, as when you do your undercoat you might have to have the nozzle set one way, and when doing your top coat have it set annother, and this will help you find out the correct way of over lapping your sprays, and not making runs, and all that fun tricky stuff that takes people a whole apprentice ship to understand.


and if you have some dents, try using a dolly and hammer to get them out first so that your not bogging to much, cause it wont hold, i think anything more than a 1/4 thick will fal out after the first bump. and at that i would try to avoid even a that, i would be cutting pannels and welding in new ones or trying to get them out as far as i could.



end of my un educated novel

Al

I have no knowledge of this stuff myself, but on another forum a spray painter posted that it's illegal to spray 2 pack outside a spray booth. I think he claimed the fine was $10k?

He only sprays acrylic at home.

arcylic is very forgiving
if it runs , it can be blocked out
anyway it really depends on how much u want to spent
go to the local automotive paint supplier (preferably not supacrap)
and talk to them, they will at least tell u wat u require and the costs
once u know wat u require ring around for a better price

As a point of interest my mates father used to paint hearses a deep black with a paintbrush. Yes there was a special method, not just open the tin and dip in the brush. The brush was special bristle as was the paint and panel temperature. The result was a very deep shiny finish. This was probably 60 years ago. So just because we have fancy paints and equipment don't think that that the old methods don't work. Like anything, you have to have the skills.

On another point, if you use paint stripper then cover the areas that you coated with gladwrap. It slows the drying down and lets the goo eat deeper into the paint so that you use less coats of stripper.

id love to see a deep black done with a brush ???
black is not forgiving at all , and piks up any imperfections
but if u say it was done, well it was ???
but would love to see one done
or maybe i need to have a coupla more cones ???
mite look better with a slight hazed vision

I went through this recently and while I got very helpful advice here in gen tech, it did turn into a bit of a shitfight between people with different views.

For what it's worth, as a pure backyarder here is what I settled on and I am very happy I settled on it (so far).

1. Go with acrylic. Forget enamel and 2-pack. 2-pack is too hazardous. Enamel is a debatable option but I guarantee you that if you walk into an auto paint shop they will look at you funny if you go for enamel instead of acrylic.

2. Use a gravity fed HVLP (high volume low pressure) gun with a ~2mm nozzle.

3. For panels you need to get back to bare metal, use an angle grinder with the plastic "graffiti removal" discs. I have used wire brush wheels on the angle grinder and there are still spots where I'd use them but the plastic discs are just brilliant. They were a godsend for a few panels for me.

4. Where you've gone to bare metal, etch prime. But do not overspray the etch prime (onto painted surfaces) as you will create a nightmare of fixing up reactions.

5. Panels where the original paint is nice and smooth and not flaking or anything you can sand back a little and paint over.

6. Use an acrylic high fill primer over the etch primer or old paint. Thin it about 50:50 with multipurpose thinners.

7. Get this primer as smooth as you can and then spray your colour over it. You will probably use a guide coat ("dust" with an aerosol can of acrylic, sand, fill the low spots, dust, sand, etc).

For sanding I have ended up finding 60 grit, 80 grit, 320, 400, 800, 1200, and 2000 all useful for different aspects of the job.

Here are the links that I found useful:

http://users.chariot.net.au/~stmezz/paint.htm
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/spray-painting.htm (several subpages).

... plus a few more I didn't bookmark.

The links have more info about the paint, mixing it with thinners, etc. You will be doing multiple coats at each point.

A GOOD regulator on your air compressor is absolutely essential. I could not believe the difference a $80ish regulator made compared to the one built into the compressor.

I am absolutely not claiming to be an expert, a few months ago I was asking the n00b questions about painting myself, the info above is based on all the info I got then and what I ended up thinking was probably the best way to go. Once I decided not to mess around with 2k it became pretty easy to press on and just farking do it. This is all based on exactly one car that I am partway through.

To state the obvious one of the key things is how you use the gun, you have to spray across the panels but not in a "fan" sort of way, you need to keep the gun parallel with the panel and slide across it.

You kind of need to get your head around what you're trying to achieve which is:

a) a good "foundation" (metal, bodyfiller, or the old paint) for your undercoat to stick to - no rust, no dirt, no flaky old paint, no oil, grease, etc

b) a perfectly smooth surface you make with the undercoat for the colour to stick to

Getting (a) right is the horrible bit, getting (b) right is still a lot of work but it is a lot more enjoyable imho as it is a cleaner (dusty but clean) job.

If the pros speak up then listen to them not me, I am just relaying what I decided on after a lot of reading around and I hope it helps.

I am using my ryobi electric orbital sander heaps for the basic prep, small angle grinder a little bit (with the graffiti disc for going to bare metal or flapper sanding disc only for really rough stuff). You should not need any mechanical help sanding the primer coats or later, just a sanding block.

BTW it doesn't end up being incredibly cheap, I think $1000 all up plus a lot of hours, easily.

Give it a go mate, if your not happy with it you can always do it again. And you can guarantee you'll get better each time. I painted a Torana a couple of years ago with no experience and it looked ok…. From a distance I would have liked to have another go at it but never got around to it. The biggest things I learnt were:
- make sure you use good bog and mix it in the right ratio. If it cracks or moves it’ll look cr@p no matter how good the paint job is.
- Clean the gun really well by running a heap of thinners through it after finishing the undercoat / top coat when it’s gonna sit for a while otherwise the gun will get clogged and it’s a pain to pull apart and clean.

Last and probably most important, hiring a spray booth for a day would probably be money well spent to get a dust free environment. I painted mine in a garage and I vacuumed really well and wet the walls and floor (I was advised to do this by a panel beater to keep the dust down) but I guess with all the air circulating around dust still got stirred up and got onto the paint and made it look pretty average. If I was going to paint another car I would definitely hire a spray booth.

Ive heard of people spending a hundred bucks and buying one of those large plastic car tents to spray in, nice clean environment.

wow some of these replies are just EXCELLENT ???
did hear of a lady who painted a car in the shed and pushed it out side to dry,wind picked up and blew leaves and cr*p all over the car
sorta had the multi coloured leaf effect
had to strip it all of and start again
SO sift threw some off the tall stories,grab a hand full of common sense
and maybe do it half properly
as said ,if u want it to look like cr*p,thats not hard any monkey can do that

thanks everyone, ill surely be checking back to this site in a few weeks. ill let you all know how it goes...

Hot off the roller !

1 L of paint and a little time. Good enough for a FWD.

[img][img]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x296 ... -10006.jpg[/img]


In my opinion anyway.

Cheers

not having a go but that is a ShortyIQ great job for a rolla braudy i cant even paint that good at work of the gun and been doing it for nine yers but not is that from a rolla if so im going to give up the gun and invest in a rolla looks tops

Thanks.

More pics at

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic38884-660.php

if your intrested

Cheers

Braudy wrote:Hot off the roller !

1 L of paint and a little time. Good enough for a FWD.

[img][img]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x296 ... -10006.jpg[/img]


In my opinion anyway.

Cheers

What paint etc did you end up using, this looks like a good idea for something that's only gonna get scratched and fcked anyway

What did it cost for this paint job start to finish?

Cheers

Hi There.

Not including my time , the paint job prob cost me about $ 300.00 , but to do it again I could do it cheaper due to less experimentation and using less materials.

After ALOT of research I ended using a product called " International Brightside " Which is a polyurethane boat paint .

1 L cost $ 46.95

Got it from this lot

http://www.whitworths.com.au/main_itemd ... lutePage=3

More info .

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/us ... .do?pid=64#

http://carpainting.wetpaint.com/page/Ro ... hane+Paint

These other sites were handy for info and techniques .

http://www.rickwrench.com/index79.htm

http://forums.justcommodores.com.au/hol ... post823456

http://rollyourcar.com/default.aspx

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/sho ... art=1&vc=1

http://forums.austarion.com/viewtopic.p ... sc&start=0

http://www.ausrotary.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=146781


All the other forums say to sand between coats to get a smooth finish ( color sanding ) but I thought f#ck it and diddn't bother.

But it turned out fine for what I wanted.

Cheers

Braudy wrote:Hot off the roller !

1 L of paint and a little time. Good enough for a FWD.

[img][img]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x296 ... -10006.jpg[/img]


In my opinion anyway.

Cheers

Man that's shiny


It's not all that hard to paint your own car, especially a 4B.

Just try to get the best info from the replies above and then give it a go.

Chimpboys reply is probably the most useful one to study I think.

Certainly one trick is to ensure you coat all the hard sharp edges first before trying to apply a top coat.

I found that several light and reasonably dry coats (2 to 3) to get the colour solid and ensure all the edges are well coated, followed by a decent wet top coat really works well. You just have to be very careful when applying the last wet top coat. Runs are a complet PIA.

Enamel can be used successfully and more easily as well but acrylic is better paint.

Cheers