I have gotten several PM's about painting and finally decided to do a little guide to help out.

Basically there are 2 things you need to remember:

1. Cleanliness is next to godliness
2. Take your time

With this being said, make sure when getting your paint and sandpaper to pick up cleaning materials such as:

- Lint free cloths/towels
- Latex gloves (not necessary, but some like it)
- Resporator or breathing mask
- Wax and grease remover (not laquer thinner or acetone)
- Tack cloth (not compleatly necessary for most applications)
- Good car wash soap

First start the project by cleaning the parts or surface to be painted with hot soapy water then rinse.

Use your Wax and grease remover. Put it on a clean rag and apply wet (not soaking wet, but you know) then dry with another cloth. Do small area's at a time. You need to make sure to whipe clean because some residue can be left behind causing problems later on.

Now its time to prep your panel. Depending what you need to do your next steps can vary. If your doing rust removal, ding/dent removal, or just painting.

I'm going to just stick with painting on this one.

Assuming your panel is in good shape prior to paint you have 2 options you can do:

1. Wet sand with 400 grit
2. Dry scuff with scuff pad

I prefer the wetsanding because it leaves your area dust free.

Some tips in either case, since your trying to get to the same place with both methods:

- Even pressure
- Long strokes
- Don't focus on hard edges (with less surface area, it is much easier to sand too much)

You may need to put masking tape on spots you do not want to sand if say your doing a hood and don't want to sand the fenders. Put a couple strips on the fenders to protect them.

Sand or scuff untill you get a uniform dullness over the entire panel. Assuming you have clearcoat this is much easier. Keep your wetsand paper wet and rinse the area often to get rid of excess crap.

If you run into chips in the paint, feather the edges by lightly sanding in a small area directly over the chip. Make sure to watch what the paint is doing. You don't want a low spot in the middle because this will stick out badly when your finished painting.

After you get to the uniform dullness, wash the panel again with hot soapy water and again, use your wax and grease remover to get rid of any traces. (Some companies have a "final step" product before paint that is simular to W&G remover, but this works fine.)

After your panel is dry, mask off anything that isn't going to be painted and its time to spray. If your new to painting or just want to check yourself, use a junk piece of cardboard or whatever to get your speed and distance down. Try to keep anywhere from 6-10" away from your panel depending on wind conditions and flow patterns. Also, make sure to overlap your strokes half way to get a nice even coating. Think of it like this:

Your spray pattern is say 4". Then every time you make 1 pass, go up 2".

If using a spray gun, a 1.5mm tip would work well for doing color and clear. If rattle canning something, just read the instructions on the back of the can. 6-10" away with a nice even coating. You will want to put at least 2 coats of paint on in either case waiting the recommended time between coats (generally 10-15min)

If you have any sags, runs, dust, or other debris, use some 600grit sandpaper and lightly sand. If you go through your color you will have to re-shoot the panel. If not, your good to go to the next step.

Then if your going to clear coat, do the same as above. The biggest problem with clear coat is that its clear (dur) and makes it hard to see if your putting to much or too little on the panel. As a guideline for me, its better to be wet than dry. Meaning, if you shoot your clear coat too dry, you will have severe orangpeeling or worse, just look like overspray. This is a big waste of product because you will have to wetsand with 600 grit and reshoot the panel. If you do have runs, its not the end of the world. These can be worked with 1000 grit sandpaper and eventually polished out later.

After you get your 2 coats of clear on its time to let it sit. Without a drying booth, this is generally 3 days till cured enough to wetsand and polish.

Grab some 1500 or 2000 grit sandpaper (depending on how much orangpeel is present) and go over the whole car. Again, keeping away from the hard edges and using even pressure with long strokes. Again, keep the area wet and rinse often. Also useing a body squeege works nice to clear the water and see where you are at. Check often so you don't go though your clearcoat and have to reshoot.

Once done with this step the car should look dull again. Get some swirl remover (professional grade), shake well and often, and start polishing doing small areas at a time. Once your satisfied get a fine cut polish and do it all over again with a different rag or buffer head since the one used with swirl remover is contaminated with the other product.

Once finished with that, you should be good to go. Remember: Do NOT wax your fresh clearcoat for at least 3 months. Even though you can touch it, the clearcoat is still curing. Wax closes the tiny pores in which the chemicals release. If these are closed, the clear coat will bubble up making you redo this all over again.

Hope this helps.


Here are pics from my little crap today.

Keep in mind that today was a horrible day to paint. It was windy, cold and raining... but for me, the show must go on.




Clear coat was comming off the hood.



Here is an example of feathering. Trying to blend the high parts (clear coat) with the low parts (paint color). Even though your talking about very tiny thicknesses, these will show up on your final product.



Here is a comparison of wetsanding vs not



Again



Panel ready



Sprayed with 1 coat of flat black shaker can


There you can see tiger striping which is caused when spray patterns are not overlapping. This was cause by not having enough light in the area to see the problem. Also, a second or third coat of paint would help this.


Again



Examples of proper technique




Overall job
4 out of 10



Color is not the same. Bad tiger striping. Few sags.

These things do not concern me because its the battle hatch... that and I ran out of paint . This took me 4 10oz. cans of flat black to do 1 thick coat on the hood, bumper, headlight covers, and fenders. If doing to do the same, I would suggest 10 cans of 10oz paint or more depending on the color. Lighter colors covering dark colors will require more paint or a primer coat of a light grey.


Good luck and if you have any questions or comments, post them here.

:bow: thanks for this!

Looks like your missing another couple of coats on all the panels there Nackers!!! Way better than before though.

FOR THE RECORD. Every piece of aero ever on my car has been painted by me in my garage. WITH spray paint, haha. On my old aero that shit was perfect. This time around I was a bit lazy but still looks great. For me, all i really do is just clean the unpainted aero really well. Prop it up on a garbage can and start spraying. Ive been spraying shit for years now so ive gotten really good at it. First time you try it and stuff it comes out SHITTY. A little bit of fucking around with graff back in the day also helped out alot. Main thing when your doing it is to maintain the distance well, even though you will use more paint. THeres much less runs and more even distribution of paint. Another piece of advice is to spray in random paterns. This completely eliminates any chances of striping the pattern. What i do is just make imaginary ABC's and shit while im spraying. Let dry between coats as much as you can.

For can preparation i used to heat the cans in a bucket of warm water. I always take the can and spray with it upside down for a few seconds(no paint will come out, just pressure) when I first crack it open so that the first sprays dont come out with massive pressure. Once the paint drys well and cures i never even wetsanded that shit because it looked perfect, but this time i have some dull spots and stuff so im going to wetsand it a little.

This is some pics of shit ive painted myself before.


The Front lip, sideskirts, and rear bumper I spraypainted.
It came out looking perfect. Nobody ever noticed it was spraypainted. Looked great.



All my current aero was also spraypainted by me about two weeks ago. Looks great but under certain light you can see some dull spots so i need to wetsand it. Theres also some drips drips because i hadnt slept for two days when i did it.

Another important thing is that you use good paint when you do it.
I always use Rustoleom Painters Touch paint. Its great for automotive uses as its meant for outdoors, so it never fades.
Its important to use the best spraypaint you can. Your saving a fuckload over real paint so might as well spend a little more.
As for primer i use the cheapest shit available. I usually use the dollar cans of flat black so the paint comes out the right shade of red to match the rest of my car. It took many tries to find the right shade combination.

Overall, its not hard to do if you do it carefully and just turn on some music in the garage and open the door and just chill out and paint with time and relaxation. I love doing that shit.

what kind of sanding equipment do you use?(sanding blocks with sandpaper, just sandpaper, etc.)I was thinking of using sanding blocks(like thishttp://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=1703&itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=1703)since I will eventually paint my own car and it cuts down on time in sanding entire panels, but seems somewhat expensive in materials.

Sanding blocks are really preferred because you get even distribution of pressure over the entire piece. When wetsanding, using a wet sand block is also preferred. I, on the other hand, just use paper and my hand. Hold your hand at an angle and go forward and back. This isn't reccommended though cause it can cause uneven sanding.

Dsquad is all about doing it yourself.........
My technic is making sure the can is at room temp, just leave it inside ur house for a bit....
Also brands have alot to do with it...
Sand and prime as needed the more primer u use the more the paint that you are using stands out and it will chip less...
Next i always use an pink dot wich is a certain graff cap(normal one would work just fine) and remember distance is your friend, and being fast with your strokes, so your first coat is sloppy as fuck.....Then let dry and recoat, the more coats the more even ur finish look will be.........
Did my wheels with Krylon ultimate primer and some regular silver paint from pep boys and some light sanding to get rid of the old clear.....

"begin sprayin before the panel and drag it pass the panel before stopping" is the technique I've always heard

Yeah. And on a big panel if you can only do half at a time, do a flip motion where you spray further by turning the gun so it blends nicely when you start on the other half.

Nice to see other people doing it DIY. I'm painting my coupe myself in about a month or two. I'll post results.

Im planning to rattle can my car satin black real soon and i have a question. After primer and color coats do u clear coat it as a final step or do u just leave it be?

does anybody know how to remove the rear windows on the fastback? all three

hammer or brick.

If u want ur car flat u need flat clear or don't clear it