DIY Respray

[garth]

Rightio

Before I decend into a massive FAIL, I was wondering if there are any sprayers here who could give me some tips on how to spray a car. What I mean is what grades of paper to rub down, how much rubbing down and general body prep etc. I'm not going to use spray cans because it'll just look shaite. What primer and how much primer.

Also, what's the best enviroment to do it in? Winter I've heard is a no no.

So just some tips, as I have access to a compressor and a gun, so what paint/mixture to use etc.

Any help is mint, in a step by step sort of way.

Garth

[magnumpi]

The rule to remember when painting anything from cars to house decoration, is that preperation is 90% of a paint job, if you spend time on this you will get a better result.

How bad is your paint now, if it's fairly decent you'll just need to key the surface with a low grade wet and dry paper before getting the primer on. Then rub down the primer between coats aswell to get rid of any imperfections.

My dad and i sprayed my Mini on the drive with tarpaulins attatched to a scaffold tower around the car, making an open topped spray booth, but this was done in the summer.

Not a load of help but hope it's still useful.

[garth]

Paint's not bad at all, just dull. It's not something I'm looking to do just for the hell of it or anytime soon. I just wanted to get peoples advice on prep, paint and finish.

Cheers for the info though dude.

[macplaxton]

Give you a tip, don't take advice from this fella....

[SteveP]

Have you tried any serious polishes or a machine polish on the original paint? You can bring paint back like you wouldn't believe sometimes!

[Ride_on]

If the paint is just dull, I would definitely try a T-Cut and wax polish (on non-metallic), a respray is a huge undertaking. I've tried spraying with basic equipment, and if you want to a good job that will last you should leave it to the professionals. Preparation is important and rust repairs/welding/filling/flatting all doable at home, but the colour spraying and and any lacquer coats is very difficult to get a good results on a whole car. It is a delicate balance between achieving 'flow/wetting' and 'no runs', never mind fibres or hairs. Also unless you have access to a professional spray booth with air cleaning, heaters, air-fed masks and head-toe covering you will be restricted to spraying cellulose or acrylic which is isn't going to be as durable coating as the original paint.

I've done many repairs in the past and even tried spraying a few whole cars, with quite variable results. Mostly it was possible to fix runs and so on by rubbing down with fine wet/dry (1200) and T-cutting. The cars were old and the owners didn't care very much.

If you are just looking for a colour change on a clunker then a brush job can be done, you can get brushable paint. Otherwise if you want a pimp-my-ride perfection custom job that looks beautiful, use a professional.

[garth]

Good advice there, thanks boys.

[340GLT]

If you want to see it really polish up, drop round mine one day dude!! Sure we can get it shiny again.
Adam