Painting a car at home

In reply to JoeyM:

I rolled on the WestMarine stuff, don't know if it's the same as the rustoleum marine as I couldn't find that when I went looking. The WestMarine stuff is really nice. I rolled it on, cut it 3 parts paint to 1 part thinner, rolled on with a high density foam roller from Home Depot. You have to roll the areas in thin coats many times until all the air bubbles pop and it will self level nicely and if your base surface prep is really nice you should have a damn good finish. I used a total of 1 quart of paint on an entire XR4Ti. I wetsanded between the last 2 coats and realized I should have probably gone through another quart as there are some thin spots. The downside to the WestMarine stuff is it's expensive ($35/quart), but we had it out at the autoX at Turner field over the weekend in the blazing sun and it stayed very cool to the touch, and when it got wet on Saturday the water beads up on the paint, and there is no wax on it! In all I'm very impressed with it. Since ours is a track rat our surface prep was poor but the results were still good, I would like to see it sprayed on a little thicker with a full polish, I bet it would look even more fantastic...

Raze: How did you handle the bumpers, anything special there or just roll with the same paint?

pres589 wrote:

Raze: How did you handle the bumpers, anything special there or just roll with the same paint?

I scuffed the whole surface with a scotchbrite pad, made sure every paint surface was 'hazy and dull'. Then I just rolled it on, I did use painters tape on all trim, and around the lights, but otherwise since it's roll on you can control where you want the paint and when it's cut real thin like that (2% milk consistency) it's easy to wipe down. I didn't paint down into the grooves so there's black outline hiding down there (original paint) but a paint brush would have corrected that. If you're asking about the difference in binding agents that usually accompany rubber bumpers that flex vs the sheet metal of the car, I can tell you we have no cracking or peeling on the bumpers at all, the paint seems quite flexible. I've dinged it a couple places back down to primer and it 'tore' instead of 'chipped', so I think it will hold up fine. If it doesn't, a little more paint and you're good to go!

Honestly my #1 concern was preventing rust, #2 was durabilty and keeping surface temps down for driver comfort, both of which seem to have been met.

I painted my 64 Spitfire at home inside the garage in a homemade spray booth. I still got bugs in the paint.

An old friend of mine used to spray lacquer out in the drive way all the time. He put lots on because because you are going to sand lots off. Probably won't be much longer before lacquer is banned in all states.

I've been thinking about home-based paint jobs for awhile now, as my Bronzit E30 has officially lost any semblance of a clear coat and is now showing what looks like sun spots in the paint...that and it's 80s PC beige to begin with.

My problem is I don't have a garage or access to one, so I've been looking at how the body can be split up using the trim as a natural break point (i.e. rattlecan the top of the doors and the bottom separately to avoid too much striping). I have a diagram somewhere, and it looks like the main problem is still the roof and hood...just no way to break them up.

The roll-on paint jobs look good in pictures, but my worry is that I'd be doing everything outside, and pollen/bugs/dirt would cover the car by the time the ultra thin paint had a chance to dry.

The vinyl wrap idea is interesting...

In reply to speedblind:

I was thinking of wrapping the dangler wrangler in odb green...

Joey

In reply to joey48442:

I'm planning on doing my '66 CJ5 in Durabak OD Green bedliner & the frame in black. Looks like a couple hundred in materials, but I can roll it on right over the flaws in the sheetmetal & not worry about it.

In reply to petegossett:

Sweet!

Joey

Speedblind,

I painted my E30 mostly outdoors. I did a few coats in the garage but started doing it outside because the fumes were still pretty potent. Bugs weren't much of a problem. Anything you get in the paint can be sanded out and some more paint rolled on. I even pulled some paint off mine when removing tape (my fault, not the paint's) and it was pretty easy to touch up. A rattlecan is never going to give you a good finish out of the can. This stuff will.

I painted my 944 turbo in my garage. Hung plastic on the walls, setup fans, wet the floor, and setup additional lighting. I used PPG 2k primer, House of Kolor black, and SPI Universal clear. It actually turned out pretty good....the paint not the bodywork. Now all they pretty paint is sanded off both quarters while they get reworked. Fun stuff. I did get some trash in the paint, but it wasn't bad at all. I tried painting outside, but got a lot more trash in the paint.

I plan to paint my 75 Chevy 4x4 and 72 Firebird in the next few months in the same garage. The biggest change will be better air filtration and a highend clear gun.

Also, once you scuff the old paint up, if you have a lot of chips, scratches, other defects you can use something like evercoat slicksand which is basically a sprayable filler. You'll need at least a 2.0 tip, but this can really help get the car smooth. I used it before spaying the 2k primer on my firebird and I'm sold. It builds more than your typical high build primer and sands great.

One more thing Red and yellow seem to be the most expensive paints. The maroon I want to use on the firebird is close to 500 a gallon, while the same quality black was around 150. I'm just saying this because depending on the color you pick you might get sticker shock. House of Kolor is great paint and has a lot of different colors, but if you want a factory match I usually shop around with different PPG and Dupont suppliers.

ddavidv wrote: Roller painting FTW. No overspray issues, no compressed air needed. Yeah, it's more work in some ways, but it's a great answer for the guy who doesn't have the equipment to spray. And yes, I've done it. Nobody can believe it when I tell them I roller painted my race car. That alone makes the extra effort worth it.

If you don't have the tools I agree this is a decent alternative, but as long as you have a decent compressor and a few bucks for a paint gun I see no benefit to rolling (other than to say you did it and save a little money on paint). A BC/CC job will look better and last longer.

just a side note question; (besides that Volvo CM did)

Has anybody done a trim/parts stripdown, done all body work at home and then taken it and gotten Maaco type paint job?

Quick question about roller paint, which I'm really intrigued by:

Do you lay any kind of primer down first, or do you put color right over old (prepped) paint?

Cotton wrote: I painted my 944 turbo in my garage. Hung plastic on the walls, setup fans, wet the floor, and setup additional lighting. I used PPG 2k primer, House of Kolor black, and SPI Universal clear. It actually turned out pretty good....the paint not the bodywork. Now all they pretty paint is sanded off both quarters while they get reworked.

A bit off topic

You didnt happen to go down e44th st around 8:30 tonight did ya?

In reply to mrhappy:

No, I was in my old Suburban today.

Claff, you paint over the existing paint. Unless you have bare spots or filler showing, then you should spray on some primer on those areas. Automotive factory paint is a great primer unless it's peeling off like the paint on a Neon.

In reply to Claff:

either will work, but if it's over a hard clear I'm not 100% sure how well it's going to work, single stage jobs it'll go over easy...

ddavidv wrote: Claff, you paint over the existing paint. Unless you have bare spots or filler showing, then you should spray on some primer on those areas. Automotive factory paint is a great primer unless it's peeling off like the paint on a Neon.

Or an early white Miata. This is what I'm staring down:

Big thanks to the junky used car lot we got the car from for trying (using that term loosely) to fix a problem where there was none with body putty.

Looks like all the white in the affected areas (rear quarters and deck lid, plus it's just starting to come up off of parts of the windshield frame) is going to have to come off, then I can roll paint on over the residual primer.

Can't wait till the wife comes home one day soon to find her car half stripped to the primer and say WHAT IN TARNATION ARE YOU DOING

In reply to Claff:

post pics when you can please

A good way to strip the peeling white paint on a Miata is with a plastic paint scraper. I got about 90% of mine off that way.

My "paint booth"

For you guys that have rolled on paint before, how do you paint things like bumpers, and say..engine bays and door jambs if you're doing a color change?

Foam brush. Yes, really. It's not that difficult.

pete240z wrote: just a side note question; (besides that Volvo CM did) Has anybody done a trim/parts stripdown, done all body work at home and then taken it and gotten Maaco type paint job?

Yes, I have with a Celica All-Trac bought from eBay which was not advertized as being an original MN car. So, I got to practice and hone my body work skills, including zip ties on rare bumper covers, and plenty of block sanding. After dinking around with body work I scuffed the whole thing, brought it down to the local Earl Shieb's.

Paid $400 (in 2003) for a respray in 'viper red' they shot all the jambs, and even taped up around the original decals very well since they are unobtanium-laced.

I brought the car as 'stripped' as I could and still be legal on the road. I then removed the taillights and headlights at the shop and they went to town.

Except for a light spot on the roof (about 2 inches diameter, could've been a contaminant) the car looked fabulous.

Tip the workers that are doing your car, it seems to help.

Eric G

John Brown wrote: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=376442

I saw that the other day on one of the big auto blog sites. Pretty nice results for $120.

Cotton wrote: If you don't have the tools I agree this is a decent alternative, but as long as you have a decent compressor and a few bucks for a paint gun I see no benefit to rolling (other than to say you did it and save a little money on paint). A BC/CC job will look better and last longer.

Yeah, it's cool to see it done well, but I remember the days of owning the custom body shop and having to fix rolled on paint. it was actually pretty easy 'caus you simply pulled up an edge, then peeled it off in a big sheet. Without being aerated, it comes off quite nicely. ;)

I hated doing repairs on spray can painted stuff, however, as it often looked like real paint until you sanded it and sprayed catalyzed proper paint on it and it wrinkled all up or reacted badly.

Luckily I have a SataJet HVLP spray gun and compressor and the ability to shoot standard automotive paint.