painting myself....need help

[Slimsss2]

hope you post some pics

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[NOBULL]

holy smokes man, I can not believe all the mis-information people are giving you here. I am not going to say you can't do it yourself because you can, BUT and it is a big but it is alot more work then you realize or they are telling you, especially with a color change. First how far do you want to go to make it look mint, Strip entire truck, door handles, badges, rubber trim, door edging, mouldings, chrome, everything, the more stuff you leave on the harder the prep and the more taping, on top of that the more things taped, if you do not sand properly it will peel at the edges. Second a color change complete color change requires all door panels removed, the inside of the pillars, doors, under the hood, inside the tailgat and in the box, Going from a dark color to a light color ESPECIALLY silver will require alot of paint. And what kind of paint, base coat clear coat? acrylic, imron, or just a tremclad? Base/clear is the most widly used and it is not cheap for quality stuff. I recomend Dupont, it is the simplest to use and high quality.
NOW forget wiping it down unless you have alot of crap on it, start sanding, you do not have to wet sand but it can go faster if you know what you are doing and don't cut through, because everywhere you do will require priming, dents need to be fixed, as well as scrathes, Dents need to be ground down to metal as well as rust, rust needs to be nuetralized with rust morte, zinc primer used on bare metal, body work roughed in, and sanded to 400 grit (incrementally) then primed and wet sanded/checked for smoothness and finish. (the best way is wrap cotton cloth over your hand and rub it it makes your hands more sensitive) Once you are happy with the body, (remember this everything shows through base and the paint hides nothing) you need to blow it off, blow it off blow it off...then blow it off some more in all the cracks, trim, wheels, dust will come out when you are painting....THEN wipe it down, wipe it down, and wipe it down some more.

And for the booth, you can't just throw something up like you can for small stuff like a bike, painting a truck will require a great deal of time, and you need air movement, as in a fan drawing the overspray out And for god sakes wear respitory protection.... But dust will kill your paint. Once the truck is clean, taped up, wiped down, and just before paint use a tack cloth(a sticky rag) and wipe it down a couple more times, paper and all.

The base (if you use base) will need to be reduced, and the reducer used will be dependant on temperature outside (or more correctly in your booth) base does not go on wet and takes MULTIPLE light coates to cover properly, silver is especially tricky as it can "tiger Stripe" which is exactly as it sounds it takes lots of coats with about 10 - 15 mins between coates till the base is covered and you can not see the under color. **if you do get odd pattern just stand back and dust over the whole truck.*** base dries to the touch quickly, I personally like to lightly tack the base before clear just in case there is ant dirt on it.

Now for the clear**the make and break for dirt*** Clear is so vast and it is the hardest part, it can go on too dry, too wet and cause runs, orange peel after, and if depending on clear it has temperature sensitive activator, and when you start the first coat should be medium and look dry going on, start in the same spot and go the same way each coat, have a clear path and plan your "route" to avoid touching the vehicle. and do each panel completly because if you did half the hood and went around the truck and finished with the other half of hood it will not blend and you will have a visable "seam"

If you get runs, orange peel, or dry spots afterwards they can be wet sanded and polished out, 400wet sand on runs and three stage sand (1000-1500-2500wet) then medium cut then finish polish. the three stage polish is a show car finish if you want to go the full effect and looks spectacular, but it takes a great amount of skill to sand and polish like a pro, without burning through the paint.

If this sounds like something you can still do go for it brother, you only learn by doing, and it takes alot of practice. And you better be prepared to make mistakes, learn to fix them and your skills will drastically improve. I made a ton of mistakes and still make a few but I know how to fix almost anything that goes wrong. check out my pics I think they look pretty decent.

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2008 Dodge 2500 Quad Cab Sport 6.7L 6speed automatic, 4X4. 6inch pro comp lift, dual steering stabilizer, 37X12.5X17 inch pro comp extreme MT tires, 17inch American Racing Atlas Rims, bushwacker flares, Custom "Real Fire" paint over electric blue

[NOBULL]

One more thing, if you are not doing it sometime soon alot of the info will change, most places in canada, and I am told the US too are changing from reducer base to water base, which means a booth is even more critical, with heat and other separators and such, ( I have yet to take the course yet so can't give more details yet)

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2008 Dodge 2500 Quad Cab Sport 6.7L 6speed automatic, 4X4. 6inch pro comp lift, dual steering stabilizer, 37X12.5X17 inch pro comp extreme MT tires, 17inch American Racing Atlas Rims, bushwacker flares, Custom "Real Fire" paint over electric blue

[rbmchief]

Good post nobull, i've been selling automotive paint my whole life and for the price of good materials nowadays i wouldn't reccomend painting your vehicle yourself if you've never done it. Take nobulls post and add a difficulty of 10x to that to come out with a "decent" job. I probably talk ten people a day out of doing this, out of the two or three a day that decide to do it on thier own, maybe 10% are happy with the results. If you are going to do this on your own, make sure to buy your products from a knowledgable place that has people who have actually sprayed before and have them walk you through each part of the process, i would rather have someone come in or call me thirty times rather than blowin the 6-12 hundred dollars they spent on material. Good Luck cause you will need it.

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[gordz32]

X2 on the post NO bull, Very true what you said. I paint highend musclecars and hotrods for a living and its very hard to tell people how to correctly paint/prep a car. The only thing I can say is that you won’t learn anything unless you make mistakes. So go out and give it a shot. Try and see if your local vo-tech school offers night classes for adults. I did this a long time ago with a couple of buddies and we nocked out a lot of cars,a nd trucks of our own in 1 summer class. I’d also recommend that if you are gonna paint your truck silver. Go to the junkyard and get yourself a hood/fender off of a car and play with that. Get something that has contours to it so you get a good feel for it. Silver is basically all metallic and will show a lot of imperfections. I just finished a Chevelle that my dad and I build. Well more Like I built for him. Its painted with PPG Vibrance series Cabernet with Ghost Stripes. I spent 12 hours straight in the booth but it was all worth it. Anyway get out there and try it out

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Just noticed ur in jersey Checek out Somerset county vo-tech and get Raymond Esler as your instructor. Its alittle drice from medam but its right by bridgewater.

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Last edited by gordz32 : 11-02-2008 at 10:56 PM.

[jjames25]

it can cost up to and over $200 for a gal of mixed base , thats what i payed for a gal of
PS2 ( dodge silver) BASF . Use a two stage body filler and not some cheap spot putty because your paints and primers are only as good as what they are sticking too. pound your dents out and use as little filler as possible, patience is the key( skim coats) , grind to bare metal where you use filler and make sure the finish is rough so you get good adhesion. I would use a good epoxy primer , pay attention to flash times between priming and applying base. Personally if it were me if you know someone who paints i would get it in primer , let it dry and sand any runs etc. and let someone who is good lay base and clear . Paint like this is just too expensive too figure out on. TAKE ALOT OF TIME ON BODYWORK AND PRIMING! Once you cover the thing in clear every little imperfection will stand out like a sore thumb.

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