Cheap paint Options

[mepstein]

Interesting thread on pelican by a long time poster who knows a lot about painting cars and used to own a successful paint shop.

https://forums.pelicanparts.com/paint-bodyw...cost-paint.html

[Ishley]

I painted my car. I used a lot of Eastwood primers, Bondo, highbuild etc. I stripped my car back to bare metal and worked forward from there.

You need a good air filtration system to keep the water out no matter what you do. Plan to buy good sanding blocks and lots of sand paper. It’s a lot of work to do it right… and yes prep is 95% of the work.

I shot the trunks and engine bay and misc with single stage… and the body with base/clear. I used PPG shop line for my paint.

I found the single stage was harder to spray… easy to lay it on too thick and get runs. The clear also ran on me after 3 coats. You need a variety of guns to paint a car… primer. Highbuild and paint are the basics. I sprayed metallic which comes another set of special problems… getting it to lay down evenly.

I had issues with spraying a sealer coat of primer before painting. The thinned primer was lifting previous coats. Frustrating but I figure it out… after is sanded it all back to metal.

Painting a car takes patience and a lot of labor. It took me several months to do… another reason it costs so much. I visited a lot of local vendors that sell paint. I settled on the one who seemed the most interested in helping me with issues.

I’ve done some spray work before… so I had some skills beforehand. I don’t believe that all paint is the same. Good paint covers well and is predictable. Am pretty sure it’s the first and last car I’ll ever paint… but I did it and learned a lot. I followed a lot of painters on YouTube etc. There is good information out there.

Good luck!

[jd74914]

I visited a lot of local vendors that sell paint. I settled on the one who seemed the most interested in helping me with issues.

I think this is the key. If you're not a pro who knows how to solve issues, or has access to people to solve those issues by virtue of your purchasing power, a vendor who is willing to share knowledge and advise is key.

I painted my car years ago with a PPG single stage at advice of a local paint supplier and it came out pretty decently. It would have been really hard to do without those guys offering suggestions on products.