How I painted my car

[grizz]

When I figure out how to scan a bunch of pics from old style photos, I will post a thread on a 1963 Beetle I did years ago,
AK and others have me inspired now.
I have a neighbour who works in comercial airconditioning, who has offered to set up extraction ducting for me, to spray by, and also an extractor for where my welding table is going.
I want to het a project going, specificaly to paint and customise a car for Claire and her daughter soonish.......

This is an inspirational thread, thanks guys.

[whitbytom]

Just a quick question in terms of room, did you find you had enough space to get round the car in that garage AK? I have a single garage, but have been told you can't get enough distance between gun and panel walking around the car in that confined a space?

[akku]

almost. That was a 22 foot wide double garage. I had enough space in the centre but the run down the side of the car next to the wall was tight.

[whitbytom]

Ah I see. I'll have to look into using a mate's unit as I'm fairly certain I'll end up bumping into the wet paint, or trailing the air line across it.

Cheers!

[bstardchild]

Nice bump for a good thread that deserves a place elsewhere

[paulb]

Alistair.........Thank You
for taking the time to make this thread......

and a bumpety bump for free

[anewman]

Nice read. Was just about to ask about DIY painting. I found this thread on another forum board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=2331682&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 which is very very long and makes reference to brush painting, with some people apparently getting quite good results.

Could one expect to get half decent well lasting results from rattle cans - or does it really have to be a respirator, compressor, 2k etc etc job?

[akku]

I've seen a couple of cars painted in rattle cans over the years which looked as good as I'd get with proper kit! The problem is the cost. A rattle can respray could cost you more than buying a compressor and all the kit would because its the most expensive way to buy paint.

[mikemai47]

Dec 13, 2008 10:38:02 GMT anewman said:

Nice read. Was just about to ask about DIY painting. I found this thread on another forum board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=2331682&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 which is very very long and makes reference to brush painting, with some people apparently getting quite good results.

Could one expect to get half decent well lasting results from rattle cans - or does it really have to be a respirator, compressor, 2k etc etc job?

The secret to a good paint job is in the preparation, rust kill prime and fill etc, I did my time as a decorator in the 60s when there were coach painters and painted many a car by hand myself, it does take longer because of drying times between coats, but it was my trade and the finish was as good as a spray job. train carriages, gun and the royal carriages were all hand finished in those days. I still do my nephews tractor tin by brush and get a good quality finish, also the paint is cheap, gotta be a bonus these days

[akku]

Indeed, Rolls Royce used to brush paint their cars until the 1950s or 60s.

[cobblers]

Dec 15, 2008 13:44:01 GMT akku said:

I've seen a couple of cars painted in rattle cans over the years which looked as good as I'd get with proper kit! The problem is the cost. A rattle can respray could cost you more than buying a compressor and all the kit would because its the most expensive way to buy paint.

People are often shocked at work when they ask me how much an aerosol will cover. when I reply "about 2 square feet if you are lucky" I usually find out they were expecting to spray a whole car with 4 cans or something!

By the time you've bought 10 big cans of primer and 25 cans of paint you could have just taken the car for a cheap and nasty blow over at a back street garage that would probably look better!

[akku]

occasionally you will see a lot of 25 aerosols the same colour on eBay or at a autojumble for like £20 the lot. You could probaby paint a small car with 25 rattle cans. You'd have a sore index finger at the end of it though....

[Pillock]

Hmmm. I once used four rattle cans to paint a Golf door, it was Mars Red. Three went on really well, good coverage and I just got one run that would hardly have been noticable. Started with the fourth can and even as it was going on, it was clearly a different shade. Ended up really pinkish

That's the problem with rattlecans, since their little automatic mixers are set up for 500ml cans, and not "make 2 litres of paint and put it into four cans", you run the risk of variations. It shouldn't happen, it rarely does, but it'll really pee you off!

[cobblers]

Dec 17, 2008 21:58:13 GMT Pillock said:

Hmmm. I once used four rattle cans to paint a Golf door, it was Mars Red. Three went on really well, good coverage and I just got one run that would hardly have been noticable. Started with the fourth can and even as it was going on, it was clearly a different shade. Ended up really pinkish

That's the problem with rattlecans, since their little automatic mixers are set up for 500ml cans, and not "make 2 litres of paint and put it into four cans", you run the risk of variations. It shouldn't happen, it rarely does, but it'll really pee you off!

Depends where they come from - If you get pre-mixed paint then the factory should make a batch of many gallons and then fill a bunch of cans from one batch.

When getting custom mixed cans it depends who's doing the mixing. If I get asked for half a dozen cans, I'll mix all the paint up in one go, mix it well and then split it between the cans, but a load of people will mix six different lots

[Hirst]

Hey Akku I've been learning about paint (yet to buy the books recommended to me, need to wait until payday) and been doing some prep on the Mazda wagon, starting to look a lot classier, all the brush paint is slowly being forced to disappear, replaced by lovely smooth primer.

Quite a rewarding thing to do really, wish I'd got stuck in earlier. For now it'll just be mixed-up rattlecans for the paint, but it's only the sills and door bottoms so they can cope for now, I can revisit them later.

[akku]

beware of rattle can top coat this time of year, you are very likely for it to bloom. Thats our weather for you.

[Hirst]

What if it's indoors and dry? I've still a fair bit of paint to do so it might be a while yet anyway.

[akku]

bloom is caused either by moisture in the air or by the temperature dropping before the paint has properly cured. Or a mixture of both.

Sadly many a DIY paint job jas looked lovely at 5pm on Saturday and blloomed to hell when the guy comes to look at 9 am on Sunday...

Its the low overnight temperatures in winter which is the sucker. If you can keep it warm over night for the first couple of days or three then you should be fine.

With a simple rattle can repair you should be oK If you make it through the first night - less solvent is trapped in a rattle can job than a spray job.

One of the good things about 2K is it does not suffer blooming. Celly and 1K do though.

[Hirst]

Akku, I'm pondering the lacquer stage and have some questions.

I'd be doing it from a rattlecan for now, so would I need to do anything different? As for the sanding back stage, presumably that'd be the same - but for the polishing part would it take absolutely forever to do it by hand? Would my usual £3.99 roll of cloth work or would I need to get a finer one?

[akku]

sandling back rattle can paint needs to be done carefully as usually there is not as much paint on the car so its much easier to break through. Also I have noticed a number of rattle can paints seem softer than sprayed paint (even sprayed Celly or 1K) so go easy.

Polishing by hand is good excercise. I often do the last polish by hand anyway as it gives you the "control" to get everything "perfect" which you don't get with the machine. Compounds to be used by hand and compounds to be used by machine are different though and sometimes you can make a bit of a mess using a machine compound by hand.

Nice soft cloth is what you want for final buffing. I noticed Aldi had some nice Microfibre car polishing cloths in last time I was passing through. Couple of quid each. I also have found them cheap at Asda before. I have also also used face flannels (I worked on site at Boots and they had 100,000 surplus white face flannels at 10p each....) and also old Tee-Shirts are nice soft cotton which is nice for buffing with. Coarser "grained" cloth will almost always leave streaks or marks. once you try microfibre cloth for polishing/buffing you'll wonder how you got by before.