I took the afternoon off yesterday and painted the car. It turned out well, the color is Saturn Yellow, L13M. I made one major screw-up, let's see if you can find it. This car is slated for a 327-300 SBC conversion. Every time I paint I learn something. I am living proof that anyone can paint a car, 90% prep, 5% paint and 5% luck! Since I live in Michigan, any part that is covered, gets a coat or two of Por-15, that's why the door sills and firewall are not painted. The car was white!

Randy

rear fender?

Nope! Must be glare from my 5 year old 1.2 mega pixel POS camera!

did you mean not to do the door sill?

Your car looks great!

Painting your car yourself is some of the most gratifying work I have ever done. I think everyone sould give it a try.

I couldn't find any flaws in your paint. Where are they?

Forgot to paint the inside of the roll bar. I did the same thing. Its a PITA do go back after.

You forgot to cover your tires and wheels...

KT

( we need more pics )

i have made this mistake b4 in painting a 914
you missed the inside of the sail panel.but other wise looks great just tape it off after everything dries and shoot it.
on my first paint job my cat went into the garage and brushed up against the car right after i got done with the final coat

Skline you got it! I did not realize that I had missed it until three hours after I was done! I was sitting in the car at my son's football practice going over the job in my head and went "Oh Sh#$". Oh well, part of the process.That's one thing, anything you screw up can be fixed when painting a car. This is the third I have done, it is very satisfying, yet very nerve wracking! I get so nervous before I spray that my hands shake, I was still fired up 4 hours after I finished.

For those of you that paint, I tried PPG Omni MBC, it went down well, covered in three coats and was cheap! $66.00 a gallon! All of the basecoat, clear and reducers was less than $180.00, I paid more than that for 3 quarts of Dupont Chromabase by itself. We'll see how it lasts.

Yeah thats a hard spot to get to also. You almost need to shoot it before you do anything else. Otherwise it is easy to drag the hose in the paint. You basically have to point the gun at yourself. I did mine the lazy way with the front and rear windshields in the car. But this car was practice and learning anyway.

BTW I used the PPG Omni MBC also....

Hey Jason, at least you tried it! Looks great! I encourage anyone contemplating painting their own car to go for it. You will be proud of yourself when done!! Take a loose Beetle fender, bang a dent in it, fix the dent, spray the primer, prep it and paint it. That method of practice takes the scary oh shi$% factor away. Do it!

Yeah, I went to Earl Scheib and acquired some free old hoods for practice. I now use one of the hoods to dial in my gun and do test shoots. Ironically, one I got was carbon fiber and nothing wrong with it. It fits some kind of Honda, not sure what. I may use it to try a custom graphic, then just hang it in the garage.

Another pic, I pulled it out into the sun today, it looked totally different. I'll take a pic of that tomorrow.

Yellow is faster

Well it may give you some confidence, but I find that every time I start shooting, a bit of anxiety comes over me. I used to fly radio control airplaines, and it is kinda like when you actually take something that took you hours to build and throw it into the air for the first time. I am glad I live in the age of base coat / clear coat. Nice to be able to fix screw ups.

Looks like you got the garage sealed up pretty well with plastic. How were you able to breathe? SCBA? What method of ventilation did you use and did the neighbors complain about the smell to EPA?

You have obviously never killed someone else's screaming child with your bare hands on an international flight.




M

NO WAY!!

SCHWEEEEET! Ive always wanted to do that miles...But then again, I get the "away from baby" seat for an extra 10 dollars when I fly....



Nice job of painting!!! I cant wait till I get a single color on my car...

Looks good! I painted my baja bug last weekend in a friends dirt drive way. Guess what I used. I bought a gallon of Rustoleum and a gallon of Acetone! I figured it was going to get beat running through brush anyways so who cares as long as it is one color. It actually turned out pretty good.

Thomas, I lived in SA for ten years, I flew R/C at Brooks Field all the time, you're right, it is the same feeling, I call it "getting the shaky knees". I talked to a guy last night that paints custom choppers, he said he still get's the shaky knees everytime he paints.

Ctrout, I have a four car garage, I take the end stall and completely enclose it in 3-4 mil plastic from ceiling to floor, then I put a 24 inch by 24 inch filter in the plastic at the front. I then open the garage door enough to put a box fan under it and fill in the sides with plastic. It is not completely air tight, but I have very few if any problems with dust in my clear. The rule of thumb is the paint room should be clear of all overspry in 5 minutes or less. You want just a little negative air pressure. I then pull the car out and blow everything off, then bring the car back in and do the final cleaning and prep, wet the floor and spray away. Since I only paint a car once a year, I can't justify the cost of a fresh air system, I use 3m disposable masks, they block the dangerous isocyanates enough for the limited exposure. There has been a lot of research on this, the fresh air system is the best, but is more geared toward production shop, guys like me can use a mask, I do also wear a suit and goggles. Iso cyantes are mainly acummulative, they are oderless and never leave your kidneys. I wear the mask from the time I open the paint can until I walk out of the garage.

What air pressure did you use...what is the right amount...

2-OH!

Miles, That is twisted!

If you like to read, I highly recommend the five novels by Tim Dorsey. Start with Florida Roadkill. They all star Serge Storm, a psycopathic serial killer from Tampa. Your post reminded me of him! Hilarious!

All of you Florida boys should read them too, because they are all based on the Florida life!

Air pressure depends on the gun you use. My gun required 23 psi at the inlet. Thats was measured with the trigger pulled. I had 2 regulators, a main one at the end of my cooling loop, and a "cheater" on my gun. I set the first one to around 60 psi, then dialed the pressure in with the one on the gun.

You can tell in my previous pic, I painted mine in my carport. I cleaned the carport the day before, then wet everything down at about 5:30 am, then fired the compressor up at 6:00 am. Shot it in the morning for calm air. It had some dust nibs, but I planned on color-sanding it anyway. After coloring-sanding, no more dust nibs or orange peel.

Looks great.
How did you prep? How did you remove the old paint? Did you sand it or use a paint remover?

Do you mean at the gun or in the booth. Air pressure at the gun depends on the gun and the media. I use a traditional gravity feed gun and run the pressure at the gun from 40-60 psi depending on the media, the information sheet on the media gives you a range, the PPG Omni MBC recommends 40-50 psi at the gun. The clear recommends 50-60. Spend the money and buy a good gun air gage, I use a Devilbliss in line gage, I open it up all the way and then pull the trigger and adjust the rate with the adjuster on the wall. This guarantees that gun pressure to be accurate while spraying.

I traveled for a living for ten years, I was on the road an average of 2.5 weeks a month during that time. I finally got to the point of telling the parent to shut the kid up. Understand that if it is an infant, it can't be helped, but if it's some 5 year old brat kicking the seat I would kindly inform the parent if they did not control thier child I would. I have wanted to strangle many little brats during that time, but I almost find the idiot drunk adult to be worse, that is one positive of 9/11, they are less tolerant of idiots in flight. It's kind of fun to piss off a drunk passenger and then watch them get in trouble. Not like I would ever do that!!!!

All cars are different depending on condition at the start.

I dismantle the car to ther required level then powerwash the crap out of it. Then clean all the surfaces to be worked with a good grease and wax remover. If there are obvious dents and defects, fix those. The current paint is still firmly attached I sand with 150 grit using an air board sander. Then clean again and shoot two coats at a minimum of high build primer, sand that with 240 grit board and block, this is where you find the small defects, they show up well in the primer, repair those defects, if filler is required I paint another one maybe two coats of high build primer thinned 10%. 240 again, if happy I jump to 400 wet or 500 wet depending on the color painted. I rinse it all off with a hose, watch the water cascade off the car with back light and it will show you any problems. Dry it, then clean it all with cleaner again, let dry and paint. A lot more occurs, but you get the point.

If the car you are painting is in really good shape, you can sand the car with 400-500 wet and spray right on the current paint. With opur cars this does not happen. Everybody has thier own way of doing it. Again, if it is really bad or the paint is peeling, media blast it or chemical strip it. I have never had to do this on an entire car, just a door or hood.

Thats almost exactly what I did. Except, I didn't power-wash. When I did wash, I used laundry detergent.
Before any paint or primer coat, I wiped the car down with the PPG DX-330 oil and grease remover.

When I wet-sanded the 2K primer, I sprayed guide coats to find low and high spots. Just to be specific, a guide coat is a light coat of contrasting paint. I used SEM Guide Coat sprayed out of a can. You can use just a cheap primer also. Sand that off lightly and see where the guide coat color stays behind, thats a low spot.

The links below show the different stages.

Before Primer
After Primer
After Wet-Sand

I've used guide coats before, but found them to be an added step. I am so anal with my block sanding that I catch most of the bad spots. I use the sheeting water from the hose like a guide coat, it acts like clear coat and really brings out the defects. There are errors on my car, I know where they are at, but 99% of the people will never see them! Jasons,Is your color Saturn Yellow also?

Can any type of paint be color sanded? I think I remember hearing of some kind of paint that would never buff out to a good shine if it were color sanded. I plan to paint mine a solid (non-metallic) color with a single stage (no clear coat) paint. I prefer to be able to buff the faded/oxidized paint off, rather than have it be trapped under a layer of clear.

Mine is the Sunflower yellow if I recall correctly. I actually used a VW paint code out of the PPG book, but it was the same code as the 914 for the year.

You know, that water trick didn't work so well for me. The water seemed to roll off more in some places than others. Also, here in AZ it evaporates as soon as it has a nice even shine

Mine is single stage and I color-sanded it. I removed a couple of runs in the process. I know you can't color sand single stage metallics. If its 2 stage metallic(with a clear) of course you can color sand. You should consult your paint supplier regarding whatever paint you use to be sure.

I painted my car about a year ago.

It's a great feeling to stand back and tell people you did it.
(of course, if it sucks tell them your brother did it)

I'll be repainting mine in a month or so or when I finish installing the flares

"...a month..."

Paul

I decided to do mine in 3 sections... front to the hoop, rear to the bar, then the middle.. I have to pull it out for wheels, and I need 112x5 somehow before all that.

Help.




M
-Hey Mike, I am a Kurt Vonnegut kinda guy-