epion2985

yep, time for a nice new and shiny paint job. I have some nice airbrushing equipment, saw it done once and thought I would give it a try. Dont really have 3k to pay to a nice reputable paint shop. I just wanted to get some information before I do it. Like how many coats of primer, what type, how to spray the paint on, and very importantly how to wet sand it to a smooth finish. Has anyone here do it or know of a free online how to's or guides to painting your car, I looked by all hopeless. Thanks.

terrymartin

if your planning on airbrushing the entire car i would start out by planning on having a couple weeks just to do a fender. airbrushing would take forever to get the paint anywhere near thick enough for automotive uses. thats counting that you could thin out your automotive paint enough to go through an airbrush. do your car a favor and sell the airbrush and put the money towards a decent pro paint job. if it was as easy as just having an airbrush kit dont you think everyone would just buy one of those versus paying the thousands of dollars for a perfect paint job.

PHATFC3S

yea its not that simple to just go ahead and spray a car.. theres a lot of things that are factors to the outcome of your paintjob. if you plan on doing it yourself and its a first time thing.. stay away from a metalic paint. because if you overlap the spray pattern too much youll end up with lines of metalic through out the whole car. and body condition is a key factor as well.. the paint job can turn out smooth and shiny as hell but it does you no good on a dinged up body.and taping off areas that are not to be painted is a major pain in the *** and if not done right youll have overspray on areas that you dont want. as far as the amount of coats of primer needed, you really dont need to have a tremendous amount of them just as long as you get a couple nice even coats without any runs. i personally wouldnt get into anything too fancy if you plan on doing it yourself and have no experiene at painting cars. as in candys, pearls, marbalizers, and metalics. as far as wet sanding goes. id just take it to a pro and have them do it unless you have a full weekendof nothingness to do because its a very time consuming thing.
you'll need these things for a wet sand.
1.) a rubber block about 4"x6"
2.) a very fine grit sand paper... about 1k to 2k grit
3.) a bucket of water.. you must constantly pour water over the area you are sanding
4.) a variable speed buffer/polisher.. die grinder style not an orbital
5.) a various assortment of polishes rangeing from softer to harder

get yourself a bucket of water and a large sponge, take a piece of the sandpaper and wrap it around the rubber block, start to sponge large amounts of water onto the area that you are going to start on and continue to squeeze the water on the area as you sand, make sure you sand it very lightly to make sure you dont sand through the clearcoat into the actual paint itself( you only want to get the imperfections out of the clear), and do so over the whole vehicle, when you start to do the polishing part of the deal you want to start offwith the harder polishes and gradually move to a softer one, and dont keep the polisher in the same place for too long because you can burn through the paint. this is a very touchy process, which is why i recommend taking it too a pro because this step can make or break the paintjob.

epion2985

i see, thanks for the info. I live in bay area, cupertino/san jose/saratoga area, does anyone know a reputable paint shop aroud here? and how much woud a paint job cost and by what parameters do they price them? thanks

terrymartin

no clue in the bay area. but id say try the west forum i know a bunch of those guys are from bay area.