Cascade Crew

[Midnight Sun]

Damn... I freaking ask the people at TGO and all I get is "IF YOU HAVE NEVER PAINTED A CAR DONT EVEN TRY IT, YOU ARE STUPID" How I am I ever supposed to learn how to paint, if I never try.

Anyways...

I plan on painting my own car. And I am just trying to keep it simple. I am just gonna paint it all black and I wont attempt anything fancy.

My question is. I found a really good deal on acrylic primer, paint and clear coat. I was just wondering if there is a reason it is so cheap, is acrylic a bad type of paint to use?

That is my basic question, but if any of you got some painting tips off the top of your head it would be nice.

(BTW, this is not going to be a show car, it just needs to look nice)


Paint I plan on using http://home.att.net/~brer/products.html

[chevymad]

Acrylic enamel is an all right paint. However, for my first paint job I sure wouldnt paint something black. It'll look like ass. No joke, sorry. I'm on like paint job #8 now and finally stepped up to a dark color. Another thing to avoid on a first paint job is any metallics. It takes a different method to paint them right.

My first paint job I sprayed white. White will hide bad body work, black shows every flaw. Be sure to have a large enough compressor, a small compressor will work harder, make the air hotter, which then creates more moisture at your gun. Moisture makes nice fish eyes. I also invested in a good filter/ moisture seperator, and use a second one at the gun itself. You'll also need a good pressure regulator.

Temperature of your environment is critical. They make different thinners/reducers for different temperatures. If you use a reducer for 90* on a cool day all your paint will run. If you use a reducer for 40* on an 80* day you'll have so much orange peel it'll look like cottage cheese. Stay away from infrared heaters too. You'll get the tin warm and end up with cottage cheese again.

Most paints are time sensitive. When you mix the reducer and hardener with the paint you'll only have 8-24hrs to spray it depending on the type of paint. So if you start spraying, screw up, then have to wait for the paint to harden to you can sand it off, all you're paint is screwd and you'll have to buy more. Another tip, you HAVE TO mix all your paint at once. Otherwise you wont get even color conformity. I sprayed the inside of my truck and the inside of the bed with 1 gallon.. then sprayed the rest out of another.. 2 different colors!!

Metallics... metallics have to be kept mixed or the metal flake will fall out of suspension. If that happens it'll look like you have a couple different colors on the vehicle. If you paint a vehicle with the doors and stuff off, make sure you hang everything the same way it goes on the vehicle. I painted my truck doors laying flat instead of verticle. This caused the metal flake to sink and the color to rise, hence my doors now look darker then the rest of the truck. Also the distance you hold the gun from the vehicle and the air pressure you use will change how the metal flake looks. Even the angle of the gun will affect it. After you have the color on you have to back the gun up and apply a fog coat to even out the metal flake. Otherwise you'll have tiger stripes like the second time I painted my chevelle!

Another tip, always use the same brand paint components. The first time I painted my chevelle the paint store gave me generic hardener with my dupont centari enamel. NO NO NO.. it had a reaction and 2 weeks later all the blue paint was trying to turn white.. in spots! aack


For a first paint job single stage would be easier. You have 50% less chance to screw up beings you're only spraying the car once. Enamel is fine but I upgraded to Urethane hardener on my truck and the gloss is so much better then with regular acrylic hardener. It's a bit more money but its worth it.

Remember on a 3d gen you need to use different primers, adhesion promoters, thinners, flex agent etc. on the plastic/rubber parts. Just priming those parts cost me $350 in materials. You'll find the paint store will only sell things in pints at the minimum, and sometimes quarts when you only need a cup.

Also dont forget to seal the primer down before you spray the base coat. Sometimes you can get away with not doing it(i have) but you take the chance of having a reaction with the color coat. If you are leaving any of the old paint on the vehicle then definately use sealer. The paint color will come out more even with it.

The color of the primer will actually affect the color of your paint too. If you use gray primer the color will look lighter. If you use dark primer it'll darken your color. Light actually will go clear through the paint and reflect back off the primer. This is one of the reasons for sealing a car that isnt totally primered too, it makes the old paint spots and primer spots the same color.

Man, theres alot more too. Hope I havent scared you off allready. People wonder why I wont paint their car for them, its just a whole lot of work and lots of chances to screw up $1k of paint. Doin a car every couple of years isnt too bad. Kind of reminds you why you dont want to do it for a living.

[Midnight Sun]

[PonchoTA]

Eric, first of all, those mofo's at TGO ask questions like "Just got $5,000 on my tax refund, what subwoofer should I get" so I wouldn't put a lot of credence into their advice.

There ARE a few people that I trust them to give me the straight poop when I ask for it, but very, very few!! (Less than 10 out of the 27+k members, or so!)

Second of all, the Rayflex looks ok, but to tell the truth, the best quality paint jobs I've ever seen always had a good name with it too.

My suggestion: http://www.houseofkolor.com/hok/products/urethane.jsp

or the PPG line. Just about any paint product will cover the vehicle, but how well it lasts, and how well you still LIKE the color after a while are the 2 biggest telltales I know!
Either way, like Brandon mentioned, pick one product line, and stick with it!!! DON'T mix the different ones, because they WILL NOT WORK!!

When you go looking for a gun, most of the pros I've talked with use a HVLP gun (IIRC) High Volume, Low Pressure. Keeps the color from getting blasted onto the surface where it can do some really squirrelly stuff!

Also, go to the salvage yard and pick up a few junk body panels to practice on. Put them together in different positions/configurations and practice, practice, practice!! You WILL spend some money on this, might as well get used to it! This is not a cheap undertaking if you want to do it right.

I'm not saying it's impossible, because I know for a fact it's not, but like anything else, the quality of the finished product is in direct proportion to the care, attention and quality of the preparation.

Good luck buddy!
Paully

[Midnight Sun]

I finally got all my paint, and flex agent and primers and everything together! Weee...

I just used cheap omni reducer, and omnie flex additive. And then some ebay level auto paint and primer. In the end, this will be more of a learning process then a high quality job... but hey knowledge is power.

Just one quick question.

The ratios for paint/primer and reducer is 4:1
The ratio for hardener and paint is 8:1

What ratio do you reccomend for using for the flex additive? I cannot find it on any of the labels, and the guy I bought it from is "out of town" (figures). If any of you know, [lundberg] that'd be great.. yeah.. [/lundberg]