Matty's first 1st Gen

Well after some serious thought, I've made the decision to paint my car, I want to do it myself however, I don't think it should be too hard, I'll just take my time, and try to do it right. what i'm wondering is, what color would be the easiest to paint on, like what would the be best color that would cover up my possiable screw ups, i was thinking about a flat, or metallic black. i'll be using a spray gun, also, after i sand off the surface rust, what should i coat it with, any favorites out there?

Thanks, Matt

Cody

Matt,

If this is your first painting job, I can recommend you DONT do what I did.

I figured I'd save myself the cost of a paint job when I did the Accord fenders in the background. You can see they are a little shade different than the stock color on the door.

I bought all expensive equipment....and did everything I should have.....but sand the primer. It looked ok to me, so I shot the base coat of Deep Velvet Blue Pearl, which also looked ok, until it dried. It wasnt too bad looking, and I figured a few coats of clear would smooth it all out. Well, it worked a little....but still came out rough.

I got bored one day, and got out my vibrating sander, and smoothed a patch on the other side out. It looked alot better, and I'm sure if I sprayed the clear on the sanded section, it would look perfect.....but, then I bought the Rx-7.....and said.....F*** the Honda.

82streetracer

iTrader: (1)

FLAT BLACK

flat black dries really fast and almost always comes out good.

But I would advise that you clearcoat it for look, and thats more difficult

AdrenalifeRX7

The red paint on my 7 had deteriorated and the clear coat was chipping with age. I just recently painted my car ultra flat black and I have yet to wet sand it and apply another coat. I must say the flat black was easy to work with and blended really well. The car gets noticed ALOT more being black. I know some people would disagree with the flat black primer color but I like it and that is all that matters. I hate red so anything is better than red in my book.

O 16581 72452 5

White is the best to paint, go to rural king and pick up a bucket of white industrial paint/tractor paint. 20 for a can and it turns out looking good. I saw someone that painted his car with it, without clear coat and it looked just like a professional paint job.

christaylor

If this is your first try I have two things to say. The first is what I always say: don't do a color change. Keep it the same color it is, because its a pain in the *** to change the color and make the car look good. The second is to never, ever use metal flake paint. I know "professional" painters that refuse to use that stuff, and I've used it on all the jobs I've ever done. Needless to say, all but one really suck.

Other than that, you can do a search and find out everything else you'll need to know.

Matty's first 1st Gen

pardon my ignorance but what if metal flake paint?

christaylor

Theres little flecks of metal in it, it looks like glitter. When it comes out good, it looks really cool, but like I said I've only done a semi-OK job in one out of three, and I don't think I'm going to be using it again for a while.

The paint is also semi-transparent, so when you're painting over something you have to make sure its all the same color, or it shows through.

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

Yeah, my car (I think) originally had a speckaled silver paint. I don't know if that was a stock option or whatever, but I seem to remember speckles in the silver (it's been a long time since I saw the car paint in stock condition). I want to get it repainted, so I guess I'm gonna have to find a shop that does a really good job with the speckles....

Any suggestions?

Jon

Northern 7

iTrader: (3)

[QUOTE]White is the best to paint"

Very True
White is the easliest as it has the least depth in shine. The less glare, the less chance you will show any body imperfections that are always most noticable on dark colored cars with that deep shine.

I also don't know about flat black unless the body is very straight and you have done a good job on the prep work. One of the functions of flat paint (primer) is to bring out imperfections after the sanding process. You can sand an area all day and it will look great until you add the primer - then all the little nicks and pitting will show up

If white is an OK color with you, you should find it the easiest to work with - IMO on all counts

nickj

Silver's almost as good as white. In any color, a flat finish will hide a lot of surface imperfections. But IMO a flat finish always looks like you're not done painting yet.

I agree getting a metallic paint to look good isn't easy, but I'm pretty sure all the original colors were metallics. The trick is good temperature control, even strokes, and keeping the gun as far away from the car as possible.

I like the color/clearcoat combination because it doesn't matter what the surface looks like after you shoot the paint. You can sand and polish the clearcoat after it's dry.

BRealistic

Just get some WalMart exterior enamel paint and a big roller.

1st to 3rd

Everyone told me I was wasting my money painting my vehicle myself. Fact is, it turned out well enough that a painted a couple more.
Anyhow, it's best to at least go to a bodyshop and watch a pro paint. That way you see the motions, etc. Luck for me, I knew someone with painting experience and they showed me. I think I would have fucked up without his demo and instructions. It's just not possible to describe accuratly. Read up on paints and techniques.
I used acrylic Enamel (single stage) my first time because it was cheap. Never again. Got pretty bad orange peel until I reduced it way down. Then it went on smooth, but it was difficult to lay down. THat and it faded and chipped easily.
PPG Concept paint (single stage) is very forgiving to apply. It holds up well, but is a little $$.
I think my next endevor will be two stage. We'll have to see how that goes. BTW, I would never attempt to paint my RX. My paint jobs are so-so. They don't look bad, but are far from professional.

Pedestrian X

silver is actually pretty hard to get a nice even color with, prolly one of the hardest.

RXTbone

I went with my car's original color to repaint the bumbers and front lower air dam. I got the color (flex added), along with clearcoat from http://www.paintscratch.com. It was the only place I could find Maya Gold (cool 80's color). It went on nice and even, and the color was dead on.

The_7

im also planning on painting my 7 and its my first time too. im going to do black base coat and then clear coat but its gold right now so im taking it down to the metal to fix dents and stuff and then primering it and going from there.

kuhlrx7

I am going to paint mine also. there was a very good show on painting your car on the DIY chanel the other night. it was part 1 and went over prep and primering. lots of sanding three diferent primers to use ; fether fill, light primer and black. lots of differant types of sanding blocks and sand paper need to be used. many differant types of creams and fillers. the prep work is 80% of the job. part 2 is sopost to be base coat & top coat they did say 2part and 3 part pants can make the differance between show job and no job. the black primer is for a check coat to show high and low spots and imperfections. I am going to try to get these tapes. I also understand house of color has how to tapes. BTW I am painting it my self because after three differant paint jobs by pros they still could not get it right and all ways there where screw ups in their jobs that had to be fixed.

Matty's first 1st Gen

it doesn't sound so hard, I figure it should take me about a week and a half to 2 weeks, I think i'll paint it black(white is a bit too much of a woman's color for me) sand it down to the metal, take care of some rust, and prime and paint it, I will probably be devoting about 3-4 hours a day for about a week and a half, does this sound realistic? or is it gonna take me much longer?

Pedestrian X

I really suggest AGAINST painting it black for your first time. Black will show any imperefections the most. And will also look the dirtiest or look dirty easier then other colors.

CHEF_EG_1

The cheapest place in town I found to paint my car, from beat up, nasty white... to 2001 Lexus IS300 Dark Charcoal Grey Mica...


Was $8,741.66... US Dollars.


They said they required 137.25 hours @ 51.00/hour for labor.


You've gotta be shitting me.


So... I bought paint, primer, sandpapers (60grit, 80grit, 120grit, 220grit, 500grit, 1000grit, 3000grit, 5000grit), RockHard(tm) clearcoat, and everything else for 449.88.


BUT.... I have to spend every waking second working on it, when I'm not at work.

rotary emotions

One thing you must keep in mind is that a paint job can only be as good as the prep work! The best layer of paint will NOT hide any scratches, dents, etc. Actually, the better the paint, the more you'll notice the smaller imperfections in the preparation work. So sanding will be extremely important. I used 400/600/1000 and finally 1200 grit on mine. Then primer, and again sanding. I didn't paint myself though. The cost in equipment just wouldn't have been worth it. My car was in a paintshop for weeks, I then took it away. The guys had not done anything in 7.5 weeks (!), so I told them I wanted my (still unpainted) car back. Before I got there they had done some filling and sanding, to show they did work on it. As a result all our (my dad helped a lot) preparation work was ruined, as they used heavy grit sandpaper... We did the whole thing again, but by now it was winter, and very difficult working outside. As a result some minor imperfections are visible underneath the paint... Which is a pitty, as the work as first done perfectly... BTW: the guys who ruined my car did ask almost $300 for that sanding!
The next shop (Mazda dealer) was way more friendly and did the best to get the car good, but still, it could have been better...

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

Hmm...

So silver is the hardest colour to get even
and speckled paint is the hardest to make look good..

Damn, and I need a silver speckle paint job with original paint from the ground up! Damn...

I don't know if I'd actually get Mazda to do mine... It sounds like an idea, but I don't know if their residant "expert" really has a clue, and anything the dealership does is FRIKKING expensive.

Grr.... sometimes I wish I didn't have the best.. because it's usually the hardest. (the best colour IMHO on these cars is the speckled silver...)

Jon

Cody

I wanna paint my car like this:

Sublime

i painted the bottom half of mine flat black, it looks good, im doin the rest this weekend and then ill put up her pic.

bliffle

In 1958 I had a 48 Austin A40 that was a mess of primers and failed paint jobs, so I bought a few quarts of a metallic brown/bronze and rented a spray booth where a friend worked, and we went in sunday morning to shoot it after I did a half-*** prep job. We shot a coat and the damn paint curdled! Looked like we'd splatted it with brown cottage cheese! So we rubbed it off with thinner and shot again. It curdled again! So, we wiped it off again, shot it again, and it curdled again! By now we were getting low on paint so we went next door to a coffee shop to confer and ponder. We didn't have the faintest idea what we'd done wrong or how to set it right. When we went back into the spray booth the damn paint had flattened out into a gorgeous flat sheen! Huh?! Later, when we conferred with a real car painter he said that it was normal for metallics to go on like that. The car actually looked great (though you could scrape the thin paint off with a fingernail) and I traded it a few months later for a new AH Bugeye Sprite.

B