does anyone know how to paint cars?

remkye08

Learner
Oct 1, 2009
82
0
0
Round Rock, TX (Austin)
i have this black mkIII and my front bumper is gray and i dont like it so i want to repaint it black

can any1 give me like the steps to paint it and leave it like factory paint?

like sand it and the mixtures that you have to do, the coats of paint and all that please :)
 

Flateric

New Member
Mar 26, 2008
946
0
0
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
This question is a little to wide and vast for an easy answer. The mix and ratios are also completely dependent upon the brand of paint and even within a brand can vary from line to line.

I would recommend you start by going through all the youtube videos you can find on the topics of mix, preping and spraying. Even if each video isn't dead on to what your doing you will catch some tips. Then you'll find alot of good reading around the web.

Painting your car or parts of your car is not a simple thing. Which is by nmo means any attempt on my part to try to convince you not to.

I had never painted a car in my life, or done any body work and I recently painted mine and I really think it turned out great!

Here's a link to my painting gallery on streetfire...

http://photos.streetfire.net/album/Begining-to-paint-the_1422983.htm

I also gotta tell you I had to restart the job 3 times (I was practicing on a fender), and also that the bumpers are the hardest portion of the job to do. Due to the fact they flex and have so many nooks and crannies to get into.

If you just want to do a fast job that more than likely will not last you may be able to get away with sanding every inch of the bumper with 400grit wet/dry paper, keep it real moist. make sure you get the whole bumper nice and evenly. Apply your on this.

You also gotta remember your black may have faded slightly and not actually be black anymore and then it's going to be hard to get it to match. Although luckily black is often less problematic in this regard compared to say metallics or red.

It's a huge job, but very satisfying to complete.

The best single thing I can advise is that automotive painting is 90% preparation and cleaning and 10% actualy painting. And then onto the finishing, wetsanding which is a whole ball of wax (haha) on it own.
 

remkye08

Learner
Oct 1, 2009
82
0
0
Round Rock, TX (Austin)
Flateric;1464033 said:
This question is a little to wide and vast for an easy answer. The mix and ratios are also completely dependent upon the brand of paint and even within a brand can vary from line to line.

I would recommend you start by going through all the youtube videos you can find on the topics of mix, preping and spraying. Even if each video isn't dead on to what your doing you will catch some tips. Then you'll find alot of good reading around the web.

Painting your car or parts of your car is not a simple thing. Which is by nmo means any attempt on my part to try to convince you not to.

I had never painted a car in my life, or done any body work and I recently painted mine and I really think it turned out great!

Here's a link to my painting gallery on streetfire...

http://photos.streetfire.net/album/Begining-to-paint-the_1422983.htm

I also gotta tell you I had to restart the job 3 times (I was practicing on a fender), and also that the bumpers are the hardest portion of the job to do. Due to the fact they flex and have so many nooks and crannies to get into.

If you just want to do a fast job that more than likely will not last you may be able to get away with sanding every inch of the bumper with 400grit wet/dry paper, keep it real moist. make sure you get the whole bumper nice and evenly. Apply your on this.

You also gotta remember your black may have faded slightly and not actually be black anymore and then it's going to be hard to get it to match. Although luckily black is often less problematic in this regard compared to say metallics or red.

It's a huge job, but very satisfying to complete.

The best single thing I can advise is that automotive painting is 90% preparation and cleaning and 10% actualy painting. And then onto the finishing, wetsanding which is a whole ball of wax (haha) on it own.

ok look i want to go with duplicolor paint

what steps did u did on ur car to paint it?

what number of sand paper did u used on it to take out old paint?
did u put primer on it before paint? how many layers of primer?
how many layers of paint? and clear coat?

oh bro ur car turned out great i wa slooking at the pics and it looks awesome :)
i want to paint full car outside too :d
 

supramk3speed

New Member
Dec 4, 2008
305
0
0
Texas
I use 280 grit sandpaper with a D/A then use red scotchbrite in tight areas. When you sand you want to take off any loose paint or bad paint because if you don't later it will begin to peel. Also you will notice when you sand there are four different colors, the clear (powdery white) then your paint(the color of car) and then the primer(grey) then the plastic or metal. What you want to do is think of sanding like a topagraphical map, the different colors will indicate high spots, you want to try to widen the colors away from each other to make the hills smaller. If you do this it will keep it from looking all wavey, and yes it is a pain in the arse!!! After you sand you want to clean it as much as possible then spray on some primer then guide coat. Then begin to sand all over again! Get all the guide coat off and make it as smooth as possible. Clean it once again, and that is how you prep. There is so much to painting you will have to research that for yourself. The best thing to do is get a colormatch because it will be closer to the older paint on your vehicle and will therefore match a hole lot better. Find out what you need from the paint code you get, thats a good start.
 

RPSil13

New Member
Nov 30, 2006
464
0
0
Anaheim, CA
to OP please resize your sig,

FLATERIC: in your album are those 2 diff cars, it looks like you painted it white and then red over that, is that correct, if so why so many diff coats (Green, grey, white, red)?
 

Ma70.Ent

Supramania Contributor
Feb 26, 2006
1,871
1
0
NJ
OP, I just removed your signature. Not to be harsh, but I don't even know what the hell you were thinking when you put that as your signature. Read the signature rules, thanks.
 

suprajztwenty

Member
Nov 5, 2009
369
0
16
corinth tx
looks like they just about got you covered...its really all personal preference on what sandpaper to start with. really it depends on the shape of the bumper...if it requires filling then id use a pretty rough grit like 80-120 to get that area ready (NOT the whole bumper)

remember that when sanding, all youre doing is removing imperfections and then removing scratches that the sandpaper leaves behind. the finer paper you can start with, the more time youll save.

when everything is prepped and ready for primer, get everything clean with paint prep, like alcohol or anything that removes oils and grease but doesnt leave a residue. then shoot it with a high build primer and wet sand that with 1200-1500. clean it again and you should be ready for color...like another user said, get some practice, use a box so you can learn to paint edges without runs or thin spots in the paint on the corners...these bumpers have PLENTY of them that you can make mistakes.
 

Flateric

New Member
Mar 26, 2008
946
0
0
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
RPSil13;1464100 said:
to OP please resize your sig,

FLATERIC: in your album are those 2 diff cars, it looks like you painted it white and then red over that, is that correct, if so why so many diff coats (Green, grey, white, red)?

Nope all the same car. I did alot of blending of my bodywork on my car. For instance in some of the other galleries in my profile you can see more clearly that I have, shaved my door handles, smoothed the seam out where the rear spoiler meets the rear fenders, deleted my rear wiper and antenna.

I had the car stripped down to the bare metal for the entire car. Then the body work was sealed with a duplicolor (sherwin williams) sealer. This is to prevent any possible problems or interactions through the various layers of paint. I did 2 solid built up coats of sealer.

Then I did a highbuild primer, and sanded it down. Followed by a high build primer, more sanding. Repeat....until I thought I had the most ideally smooth and imperfection free surface.

I followed that with a bright white color, which is also commonly called and undercoat. The purpose of the undercoat is to influence your color coat in different ways. In my case I wanted the color coat (red in my case) to be as bright as possible. So that it literally looks as if it is glowing in the sunlight. I did 2 layers of undercoat, 1 light coat and then 1 heavy coat.

I then finally sprayed my color coat (red) I did 4 layers of this,
** 1 extremely light pass, almost what I would call a heavy dusting, this gives the following coats something to adhere to and helps prevent sags and runs from happening so easily.
** 2nd pass a light coat but enough for coverage with no undercoat exposed. However this coat is not your final color. In my case the car of course looked fairly pink because of the light red over the white. You want this pass to be nice and even.
** 3rd coat was a medium pass with concentration being on even and moderate spray. You should be near your final color at this point.
** 4th pass, a heavy coverage pass, but no so heavy you start getting runs all over. But this is the pass that you want to achieve your final color result in. At this point it will be easier to finish with an even coverage of color because you 2 previous passes sort of act as a buffer smoothing it all together.

Now I went to a clear coat. Clearcoat for me was the easiest of all the passes once I got the hang of it. I made the mistake of trying to spray it with the same technic and gun settings as my color and undercoat passes. This resulted in a "dry" application of the clear coat which appears to be shiny but not GLOSSY and wet when dry.

Clearcoat also dries MUCH faster than the color coats and must also be sprayed on much thicker and more quickly to overcoming this.

Work in small to medium sized sections. Meaning, you should attempt to complete the whole fender before stopping. the whole hood, etc. You do not want to run out of clearcoat halfway through a panel. This is usually disasterous.

Clearcoat in should for sure be started with a light dusting for the next layers to grip to. No waiting period should be given between the light dusting and the first pass of medium thickness clear. By the time you finish the light dust pass you should be able to go back to the point where you started the dust pass and follow again with the medium pass.

Then give the paint it's recoat period (different for every clearcoat and grade of clearcoat, check instructions) and while still within the recoat period apply your next layer of clear (if you want to, you may be happy with 1 layer of clear).

I did atleast 3 layers of clear over my entire car because I was aware that I would be doing alot of wet sanding to further smooth the final finish. You don't want to have so little clear that you sand through you clear into your color coat at the finishing stage.

If you miss the recoat period for any steps of sealer/primer/paint you may have to wait 4 days and sand again before continuing. This sucks and if you try to ignore that you missed the recoat period and paint over anyways, it's not gonna stick in the long run. Meaning after a few months of nice summer days, cool evenings you paint will start to seperate at the layers where the recoat period was ignored. Could take a year, could take a week, but it WILL be way more work for you then over now. You can't be lazy and skip anything.

******** My absolute biggest tip for a smooth artifact free surface is to get yourself a "paint snake", it's a section of hose about twice the thickness of a regular air hose that is filled with a dissicant (sp?). It removes all moisture from the air as it passes through before your gun. The air must be absolutey positively dry before it hits your gun. If the air has the slightest moisture in it it will cause tons of problems. Fisheye's, craters, blobs in clearcoat. All of which are a nightmare to try to fix AFTER your done.

If while you are painting, a hair, fuzzy bit, fleck or whatever lands on the wet paint. DO NOT TRY TO PICK IT OFF, SMEAR IT, TOUCH IT OR ANYTHING. Leave it be. no matter how bad it looks now it will look much worse everytime if you try to "save" the part or "fix" the fuzzy thing. It will be much easier to correct towards the end of the recoat period when the paint is more set. Or even after you are done depending. I got this advice a few times, and still yet, I thought, well, I can tweeze this now and it will save me trying to in a bit. If you tweeze or correct anything there is going to be this big crater left behind that more than likely will be always there right through until the last clearcoat. Leave it, don't do it, I know your thinking about, just don't.

As you can see I painted in my garage, a far less then ideal location for dust and contaminents. However I minimized issues by spraying down my floor about 1/2 hour before paint with a mineraloil and water mix solution. Not really even enough to make it slippery or wet, just to moisten it. The mineral oil basically evaporates after a few days but works well to catch and hold any dust and prevents you from kicking up dust (or dried paint) from the floor with your feet or the airblast from the spray gun.

I sprayed my car in my heated garage in the wintertime when the outside temperature was -38c. The air was VERY dry and this helped more than I though at the time because when I tried to do some parts again near spring I noticed how much humidity affects the job.

Painting a color like black is both easier and harder in some ways. No undercoat to worry about, easier to match, but far better at showing through any lazy mistakes or steps you skipped over previously. Black shows imperfections better than any color.

Metallics are also hard to paint, hard to keep your color consistant and even harder to match to old colors that have more than likely faded or discolored in the sun.

Alot of poeple mix their clear and color coats together and paint them in one go. I have no experience doing this myself. But I do think a seperate color and clear coat makes the final effect "pop" more and look deeper and "wetter".

When buying your paint, be sure to by the correct reducer for the time of year and temperatures your painting under. Slow, medium and fast are the common designations and they help make your life easier by keeping the paint workable for a longer period of time in your conditions without over extending your dry times.

Hmm, if I can think of any other tips I will post em up too.

Paint is all about patience and being clean and consistent.

It took me 2 months to prep my car and less than 3 days to paint it. Then about 2 weeks of wet sanding and polishing. But I am of the mindset to do it right, or you'll be doing it again later. Or everytime you look at it, it will bug you just that little bit that you didn't take that extra 20 minutes to sand a little more and smooth that issue out, or whatever you halfassed.

Good luck!, It's super satisfying.
 

Flateric

New Member
Mar 26, 2008
946
0
0
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
RPSil13;1464100 said:
to OP please resize your sig,

FLATERIC: in your album are those 2 diff cars, it looks like you painted it white and then red over that, is that correct, if so why so many diff coats (Green, grey, white, red)?

remkye08;1464190 said:
ok bro so how much u wait between primer coats, how much time between each color coat and same with clear coat ??

Every paint is different. Download the specs for your specific paint to be sure. Guessing isn't an option. I've seen everywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours.

But make sure you find out before you spray.

Take care.
 

supramk3speed

New Member
Dec 4, 2008
305
0
0
Texas
It will take a lot longer for it to dry, just set up a heater in a confined area like a garage or if its just the bumper or parts that are removable just set them in a room (make sure nothing flamable is nearby). When it was 60 degrees here it almost took twice as long for the primer to dry, it was still really tacky. So we just set up a heater and baked it. Dried quickly that way. It also works very well for paint and clear coat. We had my wifes saturn ion out of the shop the same day we painted and clear coated it, wasn't tacky at all. We baked it at 116 degrees in the paint booth.
 

toy fanatic78

addicted to toy's
Oct 17, 2008
689
0
0
Elkhart,IN
suprajztwenty;1464114 said:
looks like they just about got you covered...its really all personal preference on what sandpaper to start with. really it depends on the shape of the bumper...if it requires filling then id use a pretty rough grit like 80-120 to get that area ready (NOT the whole bumper)

remember that when sanding, all youre doing is removing imperfections and then removing scratches that the sandpaper leaves behind. the finer paper you can start with, the more time youll save.

when everything is prepped and ready for primer, get everything clean with paint prep, like alcohol or anything that removes oils and grease but doesnt leave a residue. then shoot it with a high build primer and wet sand that with 1200-1500. clean it again and you should be ready for color...like another user said, get some practice, use a box so you can learn to paint edges without runs or thin spots in the paint on the corners...these bumpers have PLENTY of them that you can make mistakes.
If the bumper paint is in good shape (just faded,or different color) then the job is a little easier.I'll assume the paint isn't peeling or anything for the following steps.
1:wash part with dawn dish soap(removes all waxes and dirt)
2:fix any chips/scratches etc. with glazing putty
3:block sand flat areas with 320-400 grit sandpaper,scuff entire bumper with red scotchbrite ( red scotchbrite is roughly 400 grit)
* coarser grit can actually cause the plastic to get "fuzzy",which is actually damage to the plastic that can be tough to get rid of.Too fine of a grit(1000 or finer)can cause peeling/other issues later down the road due to not leaving enough "tooth" for the paint to bite into.
4:wash part with precleaner/degreaser
5:anywhere you burn through should be primed,not neccasary to prime whole part
6:sand primer with 400-600 grit,then precleaner again
7:paint(mixing ratios,dry times,tecniques,will vary with paint brand and type.Just follow manufacturers instructions)
8:clear(again,follow man. instr.)would recommend 2 coats
9:finish(wet sand,buff,polish)may not be needed if you're just matching factory finish
 

remkye08

Learner
Oct 1, 2009
82
0
0
Round Rock, TX (Austin)
toy fanatic78;1464738 said:
If the bumper paint is in good shape (just faded,or different color) then the job is a little easier.I'll assume the paint isn't peeling or anything for the following steps.
1:wash part with dawn dish soap(removes all waxes and dirt)
2:fix any chips/scratches etc. with glazing putty
3:block sand flat areas with 320-400 grit sandpaper,scuff entire bumper with red scotchbrite ( red scotchbrite is roughly 400 grit)
* coarser grit can actually cause the plastic to get "fuzzy",which is actually damage to the plastic that can be tough to get rid of.Too fine of a grit(1000 or finer)can cause peeling/other issues later down the road due to not leaving enough "tooth" for the paint to bite into.
4:wash part with precleaner/degreaser
5:anywhere you burn through should be primed,not neccasary to prime whole part
6:sand primer with 400-600 grit,then precleaner again
7:paint(mixing ratios,dry times,tecniques,will vary with paint brand and type.Just follow manufacturers instructions)
8:clear(again,follow man. instr.)would recommend 2 coats
9:finish(wet sand,buff,polish)may not be needed if you're just matching factory finish


wow thanks alot for that :D
now im not trying to match, i want to paint full car
 

cuel

Supramania Contributor
Jan 8, 2007
1,536
0
0
Baytown, Texas
Like previously stated(some things need to be beaten in), prep work makes the paint job. Also, you should use a flex agent on your bumpers. It'll keep the paint from cracking as easily.
 

jonny87turbo

Member
Dec 9, 2006
203
0
16
ohio
If you have all the body work and stuff done to the car. It would be better to spray the car with a sandable sealer. The point of a sealer is so you dont have to sand the car after you seal it unless you want to. Before you paint it.
 

toy fanatic78

addicted to toy's
Oct 17, 2008
689
0
0
Elkhart,IN
jonny87turbo;1464894 said:
If you have all the body work and stuff done to the car. It would be better to spray the car with a sandable sealer. The point of a sealer is so you dont have to sand the car after you seal it unless you want to. Before you paint it.

Sandable sealer=primer
wet on wet sealer (type you don't sand) typically will not have as quality of a finish in the end product