To rattlecan or not?

Well, the economy finally hit me too. I work in TV, and I'm still doing OK since everyone's staying home and watching, but my girlfriend's gone to part time hours (but back in school! Yay!), and our roommate's not making the tips he used to at the restraunt.

In `06, my Mk.2 Golf was hit from behind at a stoplight. I had the bodywork done, but my buddy that did the work doesn't paint cars anymore. I decided I'd let it go until I could afford to get the doors straightened out as well, but now it looks like it's going to be awhile before I can do that. I stink at bodywork, or I'd do it myself. I'd always avoided spray cans painting any car bigger than 1/12th scale, but at the parts store the other day I saw something claiming to be real auto paint in spray cans.

Here's how much area I'd have to cover:

It's raining a lot here, I'm kinda tempted to get something on it before it starts to rust..anybody got advice/success/horror stories?

I did my whole car is rustolium rattlecan (with rusty metal primer)

surface prep is the bulk of your paint job, another biggie is dealing with the orange peel afterwards.

it depends on how nice you want it to look

I did fully strip one fender and that fender looks pretty nice where i prepped it (wish i had prepped the whole car, but it was a rust prevention measure and im repainting this summer)

Edd China seems to use rattle cans a lot on wheeler dealers and auto traders. I guess it depends on whether you want a 20'/30mph paint job or a 12"/0mph paint job. And how good you are at spray cans. Whats the worst that can happen? You have a crappy paint job and your car is no longer a primer color on a quarter of the sheet metal? You can always get it resprayed later.

A good chunk of my DSM is rattle canned. As long as the color itself matches, the quality of the finished product will depend a lot on the quality of the prep work. Now I probably wouldn't recommend someone rattle can a brand new car, but on a car as old as yours, go for it.

I painted part of my old shelby charger with rattle cans becasue the paint had peeled off and was getting rusty, and it was alright. It certainly was an improvement over the big patches of primer where the paint had fallen off. Id say just do it, and do the best job you can with prep work and it will be fine for a couple of years if you need it to be.

I saw an E30 with satin black rustoleum rattle can job the other day. On some awesome gold wheels.

It looked AMAZING. He said he went through about 15 cans, minimal prep. If you REALLY looked, you could see a little bit of tiger striping, but not a ton of orange peel. He hadn't even really finished it.

I say go for it.

I painted the LF fender on my car with krylon. You can barely tell unless you are a foot away. It's all in the prep. I took it all the way to bare metal.

It's expensive, and difficult to achieve a nice finish. For myself, I'd use the roller method. If that black isn't a metallic, color matching shouldn't be an issue.

If you've left that primer exposed for longer than a few days, it will need to be stripped anyway. Why not go ahead and rattle can it. Black spray can looks better than gray primer. Just be sure to get proper coverage, which may take a few coats.

Check some previous issues of GRM and CM- Per did a good paint repair on the Alfa GTV they had in CM, and I recall them doing a job on the Saab, too. You can have a paint shop mix the colors, and put in a can- I've done that, too.

ddv's probably right, though. Get a decent can mixed up, thin it a lot, roller it.

E-

my e30 was all satin black, someone keys my car? just go over it with some rattle...

I watch "Wheeler Dealers" on Discovery HD Theater alot.

The lanky mechanic chap does awesome job with rattle cans.

Spray paint is a pain in the ass to sand down if you ever decide to do it "right" later. That being said, if you're not a painter, and it's pretty much going to look like crap either way (no offense,) might as well go with the cheapest option.

If you're going to go the rattle can route, I'd avoid the duplicolor "REAL CAR PAINT" garbage like the plague. I tried it once on a bumper and it was HORRIBLY thin. For rattle cans, my first choice is Krylon. Rustoleum is second.

The key thing is (and other people have mentioned this in similar threads,) don't try to paint it like you would with a real gun and real paint. Lay it down pretty randomly rather than nice even back-and-forth lines, and do multiple coats. If you have a spare panel laying around, you might even want to give a quick wetsand and buff a shot.

My $.02

[rawhide] Rollin', Rollin', ROLLIN' [/rawhide]

Fried, where do you live? Is that Hampton Hills? If so I used to live there almost 20 years ago.

Some auto body supply stores can package up real automotive paint in spray cans. I've used it a couple times, and it worked pretty well. If I recall correctly, one quart of paint filled six spray cans.

stuart in mn wrote: Some auto body supply stores can package up real automotive paint in spray cans. I've used it a couple times, and it worked pretty well. If I recall correctly, one quart of paint filled six spray cans.

IIRC both the GRM SAAB rally project and the Spec e30 project both used "real" paint in spray cans.

poopshovel wrote: Spray paint is a pain in the ass to sand down if you ever decide to do it "right" later.

Tell me about it. I'm like 1/4 of the way through sanding stupid flat black spray paint off my Datsun and I've gone through a zillion sheets of paper for my DA sander.

Honestly, I think it would come out a lot nicer if you bought a HF HVLP touch up gun (they go on sale for $20 often) and had a paint shop mix up a quart of single stage paint. It probably wouldn't cost much more than a few spray cans.

It will look a ton better and can actually be sanded and painted over again in the future if you want the whole car resprayed.

porksboy wrote: Fried, where do you live? Is that Hampton Hills? If so I used to live there almost 20 years ago.

I just posted a couple of old pics `cause I'm too lazy to shoot new ones.

First one's from our new place in Acworth, near the lake. Second one's from our old apartment near Woodstock (but an Acworth address). "The Peaks at Bells Ferry". Stinking thieves...they tried to raise the rent $120 a month after our first year there. Yeah, it was our only year there...

Thanks to everybody! Rolling it sounds interesting, but I may just spray it and deal with the sanding down for real paint down the road. Gonna be awhile. Poopshovel, thanks for the tip on the Duplicolor stuff..I hear ya, man-but I may actually use that crap. If it's going to flake off anyway, wouldn't it be easier to sand off for the real painting I want to do one day?

Almost forgot...hey Tommy! Good advice, but the car's been hit. Can't do down to bare metal, because it's bent. I'm just covering Bondo around the tail light & hatch.

stuart in mn wrote: Some auto body supply stores can package up real automotive paint in spray cans. I've used it a couple times, and it worked pretty well. If I recall correctly, one quart of paint filled six spray cans.

[Ben Stiller in Starsky and Hutch]Do it...DO IT! [/Ben Stiller in Starsky and Hutch]

fried, if you are still in the Acworth/ Kennesaw area so am I. I also have a shop, compressor, and HF cheapo paint gun. We can learn a little moore about painting one Sunday if you want.

PM me.

My Rattlecanned Fender:

Wow Tommy, I can see myself in that fender sitting at home behind my computer!

tommy, what kind of sanding and afterwork was done on that? how many coats of paint?