DIY Paint Jobs

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > DIY Paint Jobs

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

I'm sorta wondering how much more automotive paint would actually be. I get the impression that PPG and other "name brand" paints are pretty expensive but surely there's gotta be something available that works out pretty well from a gun.

Isn't part of the appeal of the Rustoleum job that it's pretty dense and will self-level to a certain extent as opposed to spray paint which makes ugly runs if your technique is poo poo? Whenever I've used a spray bomb I've always made terrible ugly runs when I change direction, so all of my paint jobs are a combination of me repeatedly wet sanding the runs down and then going "don't gently caress up this time don't gently caress up this time don't gently caress up this time" instead of being loose and pleasant.

Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 30, 2014

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 22:39

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:25

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

Powershift posted:

[..] This was with a custom mix spraybomb, [..]

Where are you getting custom mix spraybombs from in AB? Eastwood won't ship anything aerosol to AB because our recycling laws are apparently somehow strange.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 22:40

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

I'm kinda curious about painting a car with industrial-grade paint like POR Hardnose; according to POR it's supposed to be resistant against brake fluid, paint stripper and "strong acids."

I think it's supposed to be a chassis paint, but then they also have a clearcoat available and Hardnose is UV-resistant unlike regular POR15 so I'm surprised to see nobody's done it on a car yet. It has scary words like "isocyanate" however so maybe that's why.

I've seen a car painted in Endura (dump truck paint) before but the prep work was terrible and corrosion is showing through.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 05:10

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

So what you're saying is I need to buy more lovely, rusty cars to use as canvases. Gotcha!

Can I come along with you to the next auction?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 20:52

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

Yeah, the radial pattern thing is a big deal. I was watching one of the Eastwood "how to paint" videos where that was his main advice. Even do a practice run with no trigger just to make sure you don't trip yourself up with the hose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9WQmicyJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coZ6NA-KJdo

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 02:34

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

Speaking of, what are you guys using for power sanding? I can't possibly imagine that you hand sand an entire car like I do for individual panels.

Is an off the shelf cordless random orbital sander enough?

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 17:53

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

So my buddy rattlecanned his Miata, and after several iterations of miserable sanding and painting he's given up on it. The surface of the car is really rough and unpleasant to the touch. It's almost grabby.

Would something like a dual action polisher help knock that down so it feels more like car paint should?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 00:34

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

So I'm about to paint a pair of IL Motorsport mirrors for my Miata. I don't have a lot of experience with painting plastics.

I'm using duplicolor paint match and acrylic clear but I want to set up a good foundation. I've cleaned it a few times with coffee filters and wax and grease remover and scuffed them with a red scotchbrite pad.

Is it a worthwhile idea to use both adhesion promoter and self etch primer, or is self etch more of a metal thing?

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 06:34

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

Seat Safety Switch posted:

So I'm about to paint a pair of IL Motorsport mirrors for my Miata. I don't have a lot of experience with painting plastics.

I'm using duplicolor paint match and acrylic clear but I want to set up a good foundation. I've cleaned it a few times with coffee filters and wax and grease remover and scuffed them with a red scotchbrite pad.

Is it a worthwhile idea to use both adhesion promoter and self etch primer, or is self etch more of a metal thing?

Any advice on this one? I feel like self etch is a metal thing but I've yet to hear of anyone using it on plastics. I think I'm going to avoid it.

How long should you wait after your colour coat to apply the clear coat? I've heard that the colour coat offgassing as it cures can gently caress up the clear. Should I wait like 4-5 hours in between?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 03:26

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 04:25

Seat Safety Switch: May 27, 2008; MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.; Pillbug

Things with the mirrors went alright. I could be happier but it's not bad at all. They're good enough to whack bugs with.

Historically I'd only ever spray painted stuff that was lying on a table or propped up against a wall, and really only like a straight vertical surface. When that happens things are easy to do, the mirror shells were a challenge.

Things I learned:

Don't forget that you bought tack cloths from a previous project
Make sure you bought lint-free cloths for applying wax and grease remover with, don't assume
Don't gently caress around on the adhesion promoter's rules - I put a second layer of adhesion promoter on top of the first layer without waiting the 3-4 minutes and it crazed the poo poo out of the basecoat when I applied it within the 10 minute window.
Set up some kind of wind guard, even if it's not perfect. It makes a huge difference.
Left to right in one row is for idiots, the job went much easier when I propped the mirror shells up with two Coke cans and just sprayed around them in a semi-continuous spherical arc, pushing the still-liquid paint around. This is a 'feel' kind of thing (see the difference from one mirror's finish to the other as I got more of my poo poo together) but it was pretty enjoyable.
The Duplicolor stuff is actually mad awesome. Their clear practically self-levelled, which was a welcome change from other clears I've used that just turned great basecoat work into a runny mess.

Painting plastic was kind of a new adventure, definitely different from spraying suspension components, Chinese fenders and wheels. We'll see how it looks once it's in the car.

Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jul 5, 2015

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 04:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > DIY Paint Jobs